Abita Brewery Tour with Merevin

The afternoon before the rehearsal dinner for Kevin and my wedding, we invited our wedding party and other early arriving guests to join us for the Abita Brewery Tour in Abita Springs, Louisiana. We thought this would be a great way for all of our friends and immediate family to get gather before any wedding related events and have a good time as a group. And boy were we right!

Everyone that arrived a day early for the wedding was easily able to join us for the afternoon tour. Not only was the Abita Brewery not far from where everyone was staying, it was a perfect open format where everyone could catch up, be loud, and have a couple of beers. The tour was also a great way to get everybody excited for the upcoming festivities of the Merevin Wedding while still learning about a local piece of New Orleans culture.

The Abita Brewery Tour Experience

The tour of the Abita Brewery begins as you enter the Tasting Room at the front of the brewery where you gather with fellow visitors. The tour begins as you are greeted and promptly taught how to serve your own beer from the tap behind the bar. This skill is immediately put to use as you are invited to come behind the bar and serve yourself the first of many beers. But hold onto your cups since you will be refilling them frequently!

As you enjoy your first Abita Beer, you are asked to watch two brief videos introducing the history of the Abita brand and brewery, and its place in the culture of the New Orleans area. Of course after the videos are over, you are once again invited to refill your cup before the tour of the facility begins.

Touring the Facility at the Abita Brewery

After ensuring that your cup is filled, the actual brewery tour begins. Visitors enter the brewery through an unassuming door, identified only by the sign above denoting that it is, in fact, the door to the brewery. You are then ushered through the rows of brewing tanks until an open area known as the Brewhouse is reached. It is here that the tour gathers and the guide describes the process behind brewing beer and the unique steps the Abita Brewery takes to deliver their brew.

As you follow the guide back through the rows of tanks, they describe the logistics of brewing and storing such a large amount of beer at a time. Guests are most intrigued by the fact that one of these tanks can hold enough beer to serve every person in a sold out Saints game in the Superdome and still have beer left over.

Completing the Abita Brewery Tour

The entire tour of the Abita Brewery facility takes about 20 to 30 minutes and, although brief, is very informative. Upon returning to the Tasting Room, the tour group is once again invited to fill their cups and mingle about in the space. While you are, of course, encouraged to visit the Gift Shop in the front of the space, you are also welcome to just relax, talk, and continue filling your cup at the tap behind the bar.

The entire tour time takes two hours from start to finish. If your tour started at 2pm, you are kindly asked to leave around 4pm as they close the Tasting Room for the day. The majority of that time is truly spent mingling as you drink beer. Since the entire tour is free and so is the beer consumed during the tour, visitors can easily consume 3 or 4 beers with no worries.

A Wedding Party Brewery Tour

The Abita Brewery Tour ended up being a perfect pre-wedding activity for our wedding party and early arriving guests! We were all able to greet each other, talk freely, and relax in a public setting without any wedding related worries. The fact that it was free also made it very easy for everyone to join, even if they didn’t care to partake in the beer. When the tour came to a close, we were all able to go off to prepare for the rehearsal dinner loose and excited for the rest of the festivities to begin!

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