For beer enthusiasts there are few things as satisfying as sampling a product from the very place it was created: the brewery. Even for those who take little interest in the cogs and gears of post processes, the brewery experience is much different from that of an ordinary production facility.

Previous Homebrew columns have briefly discussed the function of various portions of a beer producing facility, yet this week will to put them all together in a more detailed tour through a brewery. While the scale of production can be as little as a few hundred barrels per year at a tiny brewpub, a facility like the Coors plant in Golden, Colorado produces a few hundred barrels every couple minutes.

The first stop is the brewhouse, which is often a tall structure that towers over the rest of the brewery. This allows the brewer to take advantage of gravity to feed from one vessel to the next, rather than pumping the liquid numerous times.

At a larger brewery which produces American Adjunct Lagers (your typical Bud, Miller and Coors style), the process starts with the adjuncts (or cereal grains) being steeped in a vessel called a cereal cooker. The sugars in these cereal grains take a little more cooking than malt so they are started earlier in the process. While these grains are being cooked, the malt is cracked in a malt mill and spills into a mash mixer where hot water is mixed with the processed malt. The cereal grains were given a head start so they could be ready for the next step, mashing. The concoction of cereal grains and malt undergoes a series of temperature increases to ensure enzymatic action takes place to convert the starches to fermentable sugars.

After the mashing period, the goal is to extract the desired portions of the mash using the "lauter tun." This vessel acts like a colander as water is sparged (sprayed) over the top and percolates through the grain bed and through the meshed bottom. The extract flows to the kettles where it is boiled. Although hops can be added at various times throughout brewing, the kettle is the most common place.

(In a craft brewery, there would not be a cereal cooker as adjuncts are seldom used. Also the mash mixer and lauter tun are often combined in one vessel as to save on capital.)

The hot wort is then sent to a whirlpool tank where centripetal force pushes some of the remaining solids to the exterior and the clear liquid is drained. The wort is then chilled to fermentation temperature and yeast is added. From raw ingredients to the fermentation stage takes an average of eight to ten hours, sometimes longer.

Thus far the process has gone from the very top of the brewery to the very bottom. In older breweries the tanks are congregated in a fermentation cellar as in the days before refrigeration; naturally cool caves or underground buildings were used to aid in keeping cool temperatures. The chilled liquid will ferment for days to weeks, depending on the brewer and style. After completion of fermentation, the brew is often chilled further for longer aging. This settles the remaining yeast and produces a second fermentation where a natural carbonation often develops.

Most beers will be twice filtered at this point while a few will be left unfiltered. The beer is now ready for packaging. The vast majority of draft beer is not pasteurized while bottled and canned beer, especially from larger brewers with greater shipping distances, is pasteurized for stability.

For those who have never visited a brewery, it's a must do for sightseeing. Yuengling historic Mahantongo Street brewery is the nation's oldest while some of the Anheuser Busch plants are truly a modern marvel of cutting edge technology. At some brewpubs your tour guide may very well be the owner, brewmaster, and bartender. And at the end of a tour at any consumer friendly brewery, there will be a fresh glass for waiting for your approval.

For a good diagram of the process, check out the Yuengling site: http://www.yuengling.com/brewed.htm