Balashi Beer Tour

[skilz77]

Hello, we are trying to set up a private tour with Cerry for under 4 hours and are wondering if anyone has done both the Aloe Factory tour and the Brewery tour. If so, which was better/more interesting? Thank you!

[jdoll]

Aloe since a brewery is a brewery, be it Aruba, St Louis, Boston or Milwaukee.

[paulmorin]

neither

[cindyo]

Originally Posted by paulmorin

neither

Aloe Factory tour has a movie and you can walk thru the factory and then see the fields. We actually enjoyed the tour. Bought all kinds of stuff on our way out..shampoo, sun lotion, sun screen, chapstix, and even candy.
Its not a bad take, my kids liked it as they had never walked thru a factory.

[twistrman]

Just got back from the island. We did both of those tours.

The Aloe tour is now free, i don't remember how much they used to charge. It was ok. We got there and they said the next tour would be in a few minutes, the sign said every 15 min, we waited 20. By the time we waited for it, and watched the movie, the entire factory was on lunch break, so we got to see a lot of empty rooms with no one in them...

Brewery tour was good. There was a large group of people there that had apparently won a drinking contest at the Mill and won the tour with lunch etc. If they weren't there, we would have been the only people on it.

Decent tour, hot in the factory, the bottling machine was broken so they were trying to fix it. We got a small plastic bottle with is what 20oz bottles look like before formed, kind of a short test tube with a screw cap. The girl was informative but at the same time couldn't tell me the IBU of Balashi and when she asked the people in the lab, no one knew.

After the tour we ate lunch. It took a LONG time to get our food. 2 of my chicken tenders were raw in the center, they said they would let the cook know, and that was it, no new food. My wife got a vegetarian wrap, which they don't have, but made for her since they have no other vegetarian options. There was some kind of mayo or something on it, we are pretty sure this is where she got food poisoning and was sick for the next 3 days. The food was a good price, $17 USD for 4 people, but at the samr time, 2 of us would have ended up sick if i had bitten into the chicken instead of cutting them in half to cool.

Sidenote: the little plastic bottle things made amazing travel shot holders, just put some rum in and screw a bottle cap on top, BAM, made my plane ride home nice. Wish I had a few more.

[danadog56]

Aloe factory is nice, but takes only a very short time. You can go and see the pictures yourself without the guided tour and get about as much info. The lotions and shampoos are amazing though we get stuff every year and inbetween i go online and order.

Balashi tour okay, best part is the little bar/grill outside.....beers are in ice cold large mugs...love it...

[ejversia]

I've been to the Balashi Brewery tour and it was ok? I wouldn't recomend it I'd rather be on the beach, but that's me!

[Arubalisa]

Originally Posted by ejversia

I've been to the Balashi Brewery tour and it was ok? I wouldn't recomend it I'd rather be on the beach, but that's me!

Interesting point. I think we have always looked at it the same way.

Why go through a tour of a brewery when we can do that back here in the states. I cannot go to a beach comparable to Aruba's while at home in the states. Same reason why dd has never been to a water park on Aruba. She can do that at home.

If anything I would definitely suggest it as a diversion from a day at the beach for someone like my in-laws who are unable to just sit and relax all day, days on end. OR if you cannot suffer through too many consecutive days in the sun. We usually rent a car about half way through to take a day driving around the island seeing what has change and to get dd especially out of the sun for awhile.

It all comes down to the fact that one can do as much or as little as they like while vacationing in Aruba.

[jeffnev]

We always intend to go but for the same reasons as you-we love Aruba's beaches- we never have been there. Every year when we drive past it on our way back to the airport we say "next year we should go there" but we know we probably won't. I guess it's a good rainy day activity but i agree there are so many more interesting things in Aruba than watching them make beer.