Hello fellow beer and brewery lovers. Today I wanted to write about a great new way to see both the cultures of the regions the beer is made and the actual breweries themselves. I have often wondered if it was all possible to learn about the town or city that the brewery is in rather then just the history of the brewery itself. Well if you have the same feeling then Bier-Mania Beer Tours is for you.

The owner of Bier Mania Beer Tours, Andy Neil, has come up with a great idea to combine the traveling to the breweries and the actual brewery experience all in one. Here is a description of the services that his tours provide:

“In 2006, British born entrepreneur Andy Neil established Bier-Mania!^TM Cultural Beer Tours, and began a personal research tour throughout Europe and the United States. He designed a series of beer tour experiences, rich in history and culture, that would expose his tour guests to a broad range of traditional beer styles. He selected comfortable hotels and cozy Mom-and-Pop motels in historically rich regions, explored the most diverse estaminets, museums, beer gardens, and breweries, and structured a menu of tours to delight the most discriminating beer geek. His German wife Evi monitors the details, adding her linguistic expertise to sculpt desirable reservations.

Andy Neil takes his role as a tour authority seriously. In order to provide the maximum pleasure for his guests, he limits the number of touring clients to groups of 4 to 6 travelers, but sets his maximum limit at eight people. His tours are engineered in nomadic style, making the most of each stop along the way, while providing a bit of personal time for individual freedom at select destinations.”

They have a pretty cool looking website with a great interactive map to see where you will be traveling, So next time you are looking for a unique way to discover the breweries of the world stop by Bier-Mania. I know the next time the little misses and I are looking travel we will try them out.

Tags: bier mania, Brewery Tour Companies, international brewery tours

Well this weeks tour review comes from Michael Selewach, who volunteers at the Saint Arnold Brewing Company. He wanted to suggest a great brewery in the Chicago area called Piece Brewery and Pizzeria.

Here is his review:

“Great beer and fantastic pizza. It’s very thin crust unlike Chicago’s deep dish style. The beer has won some awards. The co owner is the guitar player from Cheap Trick. Check out the pics on the website – Rachel Ray was there for a show.”

The site looks great. The tour looks like a great time and full of music and good times. I will have to check it out next time the wife and I are in the Chicago area.

Thanks for the suggestion Michael. If you have a favorite brewery/ winery tour, please drop me a line using my suggestion form and I will get it up as soon as I can.

Tags: Piece Brewery, Piece Brewery and Pizzeria, Piece Brewery Tour

So I got an email from a winery based in California. It is called the Fantesca Estate and Winery. The website is great. They have a lot of pictures and history about their wines. They even have a wine club that you can sign up for, which I did. Anyways the wife and I are going to try and make it out there for their Hands on Harvest.

“Hands on Harvest offers wine aficionados and budding vintners a chance to experience the magic of harvest for a day – without having to quit their day jobs!”

It looks like a great time to try my hand a being a vintner for a day. If you have the chance I would make plans to head on out to Cali for this cool event in October.

Tags: fanestca estate and winery, fantesca, fantesca estate, fantesca winery, hands on harvest california winery