Another successful “first” for Taste Winchester! We recently hosted our very first Private Winchester Brewery Tour, our History & Hops Beer and Cider option for a large local company that was hosting vendors from all over the country. It also gave us an opportunity to roll out another fun option for us to keep the parties interested beyond the wonderful food & beverages and delve into the history of beer and cider since the birth of our great nation, much of which was born right here in Virginia!
This is where we mention how our food and beer tours are a really great option for business rewards, client meets, team building, improving morale and camaraderie, and a very easy way for group leaders to shift the onus onto us for an interesting and entertaining time over the course of approximately 3 hours. So as a reminder, just because our regular, recurring tours occur on the weekends (Saturday and Sunday), we are available for private tours pretty much any day of the week. We just need as much advanced notice to coordinate with our tour partners and get everything set up for your selected dates and times. You can read more on the details here: Private Winchester Food Tours & Private Winchester Brewery Tours.
We kicked off our tour at Winchester Brew Works and that’s where we started our Historic Beer Quiz! Lighthearted and fun, but with a lot of very interesting facts about the history of beer, and for the top 3 scorers in our group of approximately 20 contestants goes our oversized beer Taste Winchester History Beer Mug etched with our fabulous logo!
We offered two questions per location and kept a few questions in our back pockets in case we had to do a tiebreaker at the end in order to determine who should rightfully earn the highly coveted TWH Beer Mug! The quiz was very well-received and we’re certainly going to be using that going forward, at least until we run out of awesome Taste Winchester History swag to unload on our tour guests. And we’ve developed several different quizzes so that if you come back for future tours, it’s not going to be so easy to win the prize!
As is the case with any of our Beer & Cider tours, guests are treated to anywhere from 12-16 samples as we work through our chosen stops along the way. For this tour we stopped at Winchester Brew Works, where one of our selections was their new throwback brew, the Millstone Historical Lager, which is developed with attention to old school detail, brewed in the style of pre-Prohibition era and to celebrate the history of the building that now houses WBW! Yes, it was a hit as well.
We moved on to The German Table where Nathalie Miller treated our guests to a selection of three authentic German Beers on tap to include a Dopplebock and a Black Lager Schwarzbier (tall can) among others!
Then it was on to Alesation Brewing Company where everyone got to try their stalwart Pizza Bier, a Dry Irish Stout, and a couple more selections covering a wide array of styles and tastes!
We finished up the Private Brewery Tour at Broken Window Brewing where we wrapped up our Historic Beer Quiz, awarded our top three scorers the TWH Beer Mug, and everyone was able to relax and chill with their beer samples before their bus arrived to whisk them away to dinner plans!
So what did we learn as your Winchester Food, Beer, and Cider Tour Guides? Well, it looks like we can handle up to 40 people for a large private tour, though due to space limitations at some of our tasting rooms and restaurants we are certainly going to split groups that large and start at opposite ends of our selected stops! We also learned that we should probably have several throat lozenges in our pockets! Our tour partners are still open to the public most days and between the volume and the group size, we do an awful lot of talking as we move from table to table to make sure you’re all having a wonderful time… you are hearing our questions and historical context discussions… and we are getting everyone’s answers.
A very special thanks to our tour group, our brewery and restaurant partners — for all of your hard work and participation and for making it as much fun for us as we hope we are able to make it for you! Alesation Brewing Co., Broken Window Brewing Company, The German Table, and Winchester Brew Works were the tour circuit and everything worked out as planned! Thank you so much!
So again, if you’re interested in a food or brewery tour, click on the Book Now link at the top of our web page. If you would like to learn more about how to arrange a PRIVATE food or brewery tour, scroll back up and hit the link in the second paragraph. And if you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading!
Please do check us out, follow our website; like us, share us, follow us via social media at Taste Winchester History on Facebook;  And of course, check us out on Instagram as well at Taste Winchester History on Instagram. Also we would love for you to book a Historic Food Tour or a History & Hops Beer and Cider Tour now that the weather has turned very much nicer: Book a Tour with Taste Winchester History!
