SweetWater Tour

March 27, 2008

Brewery tours are the focal point of beer tourism. You visit a place that makes beer. You see big stainless steel tanks. You buy a shirt. You taste. You identify with the forces of production, consumption, and pleasure at once. And sometimes, you get a free glass. In our travels, I don’t often have the opportunity to do a tour, to see the forces of production at play, to engage fetish at its best, or to be a beer geek at my best. Normally, I am a beer geek (like the herring husband in Woody Allen’s Love and Death). But a geek on a tour? Seldom. During this recent trip to Atlanta, Debi offered that we do one. In a semi-industrial area of Atlanta, we ventured out for a tour of SweetWater, our final beer stop of the week.

The tour started at 5:30, but we arrived earlier. We are a family of promptness. My thinking is: if we get there early, we can enjoy something that no one else can. I imagine some secret prize awaiting the early birds.  Such was not the case this time. We couldn’t even buy tickets early.  So I  pretended to be a  guy with a blog and took pics of the board and a crazy van outside. “Is that for your blog?” the wife mocked. Oh yeah. I am a guy with a blog.

We were all adults. All four of us. But even in our adulthood, we had to be carded. And as luck may have it, my professor wife and mother of my little girl who farts louder than I do did not bring her ID.  A decision had to be made. At the front of the line we stood – should we go without her? Should we not go? I could feel the other folks in line getting antsy. I made the choice. We’re going. This is beer, after all. Some people have to be left behind. Even your wife sometimes.

Inside SweetWater, the bar area is a big open standing room only space. Outside on the deck is more standing room only space. For sitting, there are a few stools at the bar. Who needs seats. We were here to tour!  For $8, you get a free pint glass, tickets for six beers, and a half hour tour. If anything, SweetWater is a great deal for Wednesday or Friday evening drinking (the two days this offer exists). Six beers for 8 bucks. You get two hours to drink. Not bad. But no tour the night we were there. For whatever reason, the tours were closed. So we huddled around the bar, found a place to sit on the steps outside, and drank. All of us, that is, except for Jenny who didn’t have an ID:

Here, she sits next to my beer. I’m a good husband, though, so I gave up two of my tickets for her.

Here she sits with one of my beers. Drinking without a hand stamp! For shame. And the beers? SweetWater’s best is the IPA, which I already knew. The two on tap that I didn’t know yet, Hummer (the witbier) and Georgia Brown (the English brown) were ok at best. Georgia Brown lacks something to give it that old English musky taste. As for the Hummer, maybe I’m growing tired of hefes and wits. They don’t do much for me anymore. They feel weak. Whimpy. Lacking kick. Donkey Punch, which I wanted to try, is no longer in season. So, a no go there. The IPA was as good on tap as it is in the bottle. Happy Ending, also available, we had been drinking at my sister’s house. And it cost two tickets!

And food? Cuban. I can’t say where La Fonda is because every time I go to eat in Atlanta, I feel like we drive through ten neighborhoods before we arrive. At that point, I’m not sure where we are anymore. Highlands? Little Five Points? Who knows. At this place, there was a Cuban sandwich for me.

Posted in Atlanta, beer