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The room was fashioned in a European style, complete with a bar in the rear of the room with seven different beers on tap. On the wall was a huge painted wood emblem with the words “Hurnerbrau Ansbach” inscribed on it. Later on in the tour, I would discover that the emblem was the logo from a bankrupt brewery in Germany, where Summit acquired much of its own equipment. Arriving for the tour ahead of schedule, I sat and watched the rest of the crowd walk in.

The tour began with a lengthy history of Summit and how beer is made, as told by our tour guide, Amy. I was more interested in seeing how the beer was actually made than hearing about its history. Soon, to my delight, we left the beer hall and headed to the warehouse where the brewing is done. Before we could enter, Amy told us to put on safety glasses and to watch out for wet floors; brewing beer is apparently a dangerous task.

In this first warehouse, my nostrils were tickled with the smell of incomplete beer. The steel vats make the ales or lagers. Which beverage comes out depends on how the long the beer sits. For ale (crisp beer), two to three weeks is enough, while lager (smooth, easy beer), takes four to six weeks.

Amy enlightened us on how everything worked in this warehouse, but the highlight of this room was watching one of the tanks at the far end of the warehouse “blow up.” Beer started shooting out of the top of the tank because of too much pressure. It was pouring everywhere, and quickly, too, causing the brewery workers to frantically contain the problem. Eventually they got everything under control.

Next on the tour, we were guided into the second warehousečthe bottling room. This is where Summit bottles their product at the rate of 360 bottles per minute This is also where they label, cap and palletize their bottles and kegs.

I had never seen so much beer in my life. There were massive towers of kegs in various sizes, and stacks upon stacks of cases of beer. I felt like I was in that scene in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, where all the kids get to go crazy and eat everything, though at Summit, we were not able to drink anything until the end of the tour. It was very exciting if you like beer.

The final room we visited on the tour was a warehouse-sized cooler. We walked inside to find more of what we had just seen in the bottling room: towers and towers of beer, but this time it was cold. Here, our guide told us that 90 percent of Summit beer stays in Minnesota, and 80 percent of that beer stays in the Twin Cities. Summit distributes mainly in the Midwest, though there is Summit being sold in Montana and Kentucky as well. The East Coast beer market is more difficult to break into because there is a lot of competition.

Our tour concluded back in the large room where it began one hour before. Here we maneuvered into a line and were given three tokens that were to be exchanged for three glasses of beer in any Summit variety. When I reached the front of the line, I had to respectfully decline the tokens; being 20 years old was a slap in the face.

Amy offered me a glass of 1919 Root Beer, the only non-alcoholic beverage on tap, but I decided to pass. If I couldn’t have beer after all this tantalizing, I was not going to have anything.

I hung around with the rest of the tour for another 15 minutes to hear what everybody had to say about their beer. The bottom line is there were not any complaints. After all, who could complain when the beer is free?

Sadly, my goal of seeing a slew of beer house carousing was hampered by the three beer limit. A good time was had by all, but mainly by everyone older than 20. I was disappointed with my current status, but an hour of free knowledge and root beer was just the right price for me.

The Summit Brewery is located at 910 Montreal Circle, east of 35E. Tours are free and are offered Tuesdays and Thursdays at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.