Danreb V.
Yelp
Let's be honest here. If this brewery keeps doing those free tours, they will get 5's every time. The only reason why anybody would give the brewery a lower score is if they got a DUI on the way home, or they're actually reviewing the restaurant.
Fun Fact: The brewery has nothing to do with the restaurant and are actually separate entities.
As long as you can get a group of 6 or more people, you can e-mail the brewery to set up a date for the tour. The tour itself is pretty awesome. You get to learn about the history of Gordon Biersch, how their beer is made, what an engineer's average day is like, and the best part of it all is you'll be sampling beer throughout the whole tour.
The guide I had, Tanner, was pretty awesome and was very accepting of all the random questions I had. As far as the samples go, they're not samples. You get bottled beer and have a choice between their seasonal beer (I had the summer's SommerBrau), the Blonde Bock, and their Hef. My 2nd beer that day was their Hefeeizen and it actually pretty tasty. I swear there was a hint of bubble gum in there. I don't know.
Upon learning about the brewing process we got to take a walk around the factory to learn about what was happening in every silo. By the time we got to learning about the filtering process, we actually got to try some beer unfiltered beer right off the tap. The cool part is if we wanted the glass full, the tour guide would do it. Not to mention we got to keep the pint glass, which is pretty cool. The filtered beer itself was a pilsner, and it had that nutty after taste I love.
At the end of the tour we found ourselves in a freezer, wondering WTF. That's where we were handed a Marzen six pack. A SIX PACK. For free. This is why you see all of the sudden 5-star reviews.
So in this 1-hour tour, I had two bottles of beer, a pint of unfiltered beer, a bottle opener, a recipe guide, and a six-pack of Marzen. This is totally inappropriate for Yelp... but I have to say it here.
#winning
I noticed that a lot of my fellow Yelpers here have done the tour more than once. I definitely see myself doing that. This was a graduation gift for my friend, and all of us found ourselves enjoying the experience... and beer.
Tanner, you the man! This brewery should never change. EVER.