Barleycorn’s Craft Brew

Did a brew your own and a SuperBowl Cooperative brew. Dan and staff very helpful and informative. Enjoyed the experience each time and look forward to more Cooperatives in the future. The community fridge is a great idea and makes the brewing experience that much better.

New to craft brewing this fall, I found Dan the owner to be quite a patient and knowledgable guide. I’m excited to try wine making here someday.

I’ve been to one other «brew your own beer» shop in the area and overall just had a bad experience, which lead me to give BARLEYCORN a try. I’m very glad I did, the owner Dan was very helpful, to the point where I’m practically making my own recipe after a lot of research and questions to Dan, which were always answered in a timely and informative manner.
I should also mention that even if you don’t know exactally what you want or how to make it I have every confidence that they can and will lead you in the right direction.
Now the most important part, the beer, I’ve tried several different beers brewed there whether through the take a beer leave a beer «communal fridge» or through trading and comparing beers w someone bottling their beer the same time as you or the «co-​op brewing». That is where they pick a recipe and you can join the brewing process (or not) and pay for the beer by the case once it’s bottled. And literally every different style has been amazing and to put it into perspective, on numerous occasions I’ve driven about an hr. out just for a case of beer.
One thing that I don’t consider a fault, is the atmosphere is nothing special, meaning, in my opinion, its all about the beer as opposed to being a «cool spot» to hang out. Although any place you can brew your own beer is a cool place in my book.

This will be our 4^th annual Loftoberfest party — we brew Oktoberfest beer and Sedelmeyer Oktoberfest. Soup to nuts operation here, facilities keep improving and the staff is knowledgeable and friendly.

Awesome «Brew Yourself» Venue!
I’ve been to a few local brew-​it-​yourself type places, and this is one of the best! Why?
— Knowledgeable, friendly staff with the right mix of being helpful but not intrusive.
— Manager/​Owner willing to chat beer, occasionally checked in on our experience, etc.
— Many types of beer to choose from.
— Spacious environment.
— You can sample the beers that are brewed there.
All in all a great experience, and much better than the experience at the new Hopster’s place in Newton (whose prices are DOUBLE that of Barleycorn’s).

I’ve always wanted to try home brewing, but I thought I’d come here and see if I actually enjoyed the process before investing in my own equipment. I had a fantastic experience here. There were a ton of different types of beer to choose from, and I also noticed there are wine and soda making options if beer isn’t your thing. The owner was extremely personable and helpful. It’s kind of a small place, so you do need to make a reservation first. Despite it’s size, on the two occasions I was there (first to brew and then about a month later to bottle), it was never overcrowded and always had a laid back vibe. When all was said and done, I ended up with A LOT of beer. I believe somewhere well over 100 12 oz size bottles.

I had a Groupon deal to go here and everything was great overall. During the first visit you pick your beer, get the ingredients and directions for it, brew it, and then store it to ferment. At the second visit about three weeks later, you bottle, cap, and label the beer. Each visit took about two hours with just two people.
I brewed the Belgian Wit and it came out very good. Reminds me a little bit of a Long Trail Belgian White or a Hoegaarden. In total there were about 135 12oz bottles. The staff here is very helpful and friendly during the entire process. They actually called me to tell me that my beer needed a little more time to ferment a few days before I was supposed to bottle it so it’s nice that they do care about the final product. Would recommend calling ahead of time to make an appointment.

For T’s birthday, I gave him a coupon for a beer brewing session at Barleycorn’s Craft Brew in Natick. He has always loved beer & the processes surrounding any aspect of beer, so this was the perfect gift. Today was a cloudy gray and chilly day, the perfect day for being inside & brewing some beer for a few hours. We headed over for a 2pm brewing appointment, and spent the next 2.5 hours preparing every bit of the beer.
First, we measured out the grains, according to the recipe we picked. Next we milled the grains. The milled grains were put into the muslin brewing bags. We steeped the bags in water like tea, before adding in the extract and stirring. Next we brought the mixture to a boil, increasing the foamy top and then letting settle five times, before measuring and plopping in the hops. Over the two and a half hour brew time, there were a few waiting periods where we looked through the local beer paper. After adding the final hops, we drained our product into a large canister, adding the yeast, and rolled away to ferment for the next 2 weeks. After 3 weeks, we headed back to bottle our own 12.2 gallons-​worth of beer to take home with us for the fall season! Plenty of beer and DELICIOUS along with the experience of learning!
Pictures and more on – —-

Worth every penny. I got a deal from one of those coupon sites, and decided to make Barleycorn my first foray into «home» brewing. The staff was super friendly and helpful, as well as knowledgeable. The barleywine that I made has been a huge hit with everyone that’s tried it.
I recommended BC to a local bar that’s looking to try-​out a house brew, and I recommend it to anyone else who has the spare change and the inclination to brew on a larger scale.

So, we finally got our beers back and it has been a total hit with everyone who has tasted it so far.
The only thing we might have done differently is to pay more attention to the brewing process. We noticed that at one point, our hops weren’t boiling properly which affected our final flavor.
My bf is already looking forward to going back. We ended up with around 100 beers so this is a really great activity for a bigger group.

Barleycorn is amazing– staff are so friendly, beer is easy to make, and you can bring friends, beer, food, etc, and they have a whole fridge full of beer to drink that others have made!
With gift certificate and groupon in hand, I finally made my way to Barleycorn to brew me up some beer. It was a cold dreary evening. I walk in and they ask me what recipe I wanted to use. I decided a trappist tripel because I was hoping that summer would soon be upon us, not to mention the fact that belgian beers are really growing on me. (Don’t worry, I still love my hefeweizens).
So I started out by measuring the barley– 750 grams of Belgian Cara Vienna Malt and 450 grams of Belgian aromatic malt. They get mixed together and wrapped up in cheesecloth, tied up and placed in warm water– to steep, just like a tea bag. And every few minutes I dunked the «teabag» and shook it around to make the water as flavorful as possible. It steeped for 40 minutes.
and then I added 9 liters of malt extract (below in the pitchers), 3 pounds of Belgian Candi Sugar (in the plastic bowl), and 100 grams of styrian goldings hops (in small silver bowl).
I heated up the concoction to a rolling boil and watched it boil for 45 minutes, stir every once in awhile and monitoring the heat.
Every time I opened the lid to check on it, this amazingly strong aroma of sweetness filled the air. Soooooo delicious. The guys brewing next to me went out to buy dinner and came back with Ommegang Abbey because the awesome smell of my beer made left them craving Belgian beers! Here’s me drinking one while watching my beer.
After 45 minutes of boiling, I added 80 more grams of styrian goldings hops, irish moss, and 42 grams of orange peel (also in cheese cloth, steeping like a tea bag, tied to the lid, as shown below).
10 minutes later I add 40 grams of Willamette hops and 40 more grams of orange peel (tea bag style). It boiled for 5 more minutes. Then I stirred the concoction like crazy, creating a whirlpool effect to prevent any solid materials from clogging up the pipes and coming with my beer when I drained it out. Then I flipped a lever and the beer flowed into my fermentation container. I took a gravity measurement with a hydrometer and got to taste some of this delicious «wort» (the liquid I had just created). (It was like very sweet tea– actually quite tasty). Then I added the trappist yeast (which will eat up the sugars in the wort to create alcohol and carbon dioxide).
Then we sealed up the container and put it in the cooler to ferment. And it’s been there ever since.
Three weeks later, I came back to bottle up the beer; 1,452 ounces of beer to be exact!
I pulled up at Barleycorn bright and early at 9am. (Ps. I am not a morning person, and nothing is worth me getting up this early. except my beer)
Started the process my washing out my 72 bottles.
Each of the bottle gets placed on a nozzle of this machine where water shoots inside and cleanses the bottles. So much easier than doing it at home!
Washed bottles go on a bottle tree. I kind of want one for Christmas this year.
Then bottles get put in a machine that fills them with beer.
After filled with delicious smelling beer, time to put a bottle cap on with this machine:
Then using another machine, you apply glue to the labels and place them ever so gently on each bottle.
And three hours later, you’ve got 66 cleansed, filled, capped, and labeled bottles of beer (and 6 empty bottles. Didn’t quite make it to 72!)
I’m so impressed with how professional my bottles look!
Packed all six cases in my car and headed home. Felt so good to have a car full of beer!
And the beer tasted AMAZING. I’m in love with the taste of this beer. It’s officially 7.7% alcohol. Hazy, dark golden color. Very strong smell of sweetness and citrus. Good carbonation. Great wheaty/​yeasty flavor, with lovely notes of orange peel.
All in all I enjoyed my experience here. Will probably go back at least one more time, and then suck it up and make the investment and buy all the equipment to home brew.

K, so I brewed some beer at Barleycorn’s and picked it up last weekend.
It seemed like an awesome Christmas present for my dad, so I threw in $ 150 toward a brewing session.
All told, we spend close to $ 300 to make 5 cases of an English IPA.
I guess I don’t need to explain how the process works, so the basics are:
–the owner, Dan, is a weird dude. Sometimes, he’s nice, but sometimes he seems to not give a crap and is kind of cold. He’s got a part-​time weekend guy, Eric, who was nice and very helpful.
–the place itself is rather dirty (don’t look under the sinks, for example). Since I’ve always thought beer needs to be brewed in a sterile environment, I found this interesting.
–the bottling machines are wicked annoying. they don’t pour evenly.
Why 4 stars? How many places even let you make your own beer?
It’s fun, but not cheap, and still a lot of work.

So, we kidnapped the groom, threw him in a car, and drove him here to brew his own beer. He didn’t enjoy it much, but the rest of us had a blast. So we handed him his purse and brewed some great beer. We made a Belgian Wit and a Dark porter. They both came out wonderful. You must buy you own bottles or bring your own there. You get to brew, bottle, and label your own beer — good beer! It takes two visits to brew and bottle. They let you bring outside beer and snacks, and walking out with six cases of beer is very satisfying. Great place!

I brewed at BarleyCorn’s last month and recently bottled my beer. This was my second experience with this business, as i came as part of an excursion/​team-​building experience a few years back.
The process is well laid-​out in the other 15 reviews, so let’s focus instead on what leads me to a three star rating.
— There seems to be both positive and negative feedback about Dan — the proprietor. From my experience, he’s a really nice guy, and he certainly knows more than most of us ever will about the brewing process. He was able to answer every question i asked and seems to really enjoy sharing that knowledge. But he’s also not someone with a bubbly and super-​friendly personality. If you don’t know what you’re doing, or you have a question — speak up, engage him in some conversation — you’ll be better for it and you’ll realize that he’s a very genuine person.
— To build on my last point, i find it tough to justify 4 or more stars if i’m not getting a really high level of customer service. I don’t want to feel like i might be doing something wrong and have to go track down someone to ask — i’d prefer to have someone there to help me out, with a really bubbly and friendly personality
— Be sure to call ahead and confirm the beer you’re making and that all the supplies are in stock. A key ingredient for my first and second option (same ingredient) was not available, so i had to go with a backup.
— The beer you end up with is good. Like really good. Myself and two friends created 3 batches and none of them could be rated below ‘excellent’ (maybe there’s a bit of pride sneaking in there was well)
— The bottling process can be a bit of a bear. You fill 3 bottles at a time, and the machines are fairly old, and therefore they sometimes fill unevenly, leaving you having to manually ‘top off’ This greatly extends the time to complete bottling. A two-​person team gets this done much more efficiently, between filling, capping, and applying the label.
Looking back, it feels like this review is more slanted towards the negative, and that’s really not what i intended — what i’ve highlighted above is certainly some of the less-​optimal parts, the overall experience at Barleycorn’s is certainly one i would recommend to others. And once i get through my 6 cases of beer (ya know — sometime next year) i’ll probably be headed back myself. But i’ll be sure to call ahead and make sure all the ingredients are in stock.

In May, I had the chance to participate in a Triple IPA brewfest at Barleycorn’s Craft Brew in Natick, MA.
I learned a tremendous amount, met interesting people, ate pizza and drank a few other craft brews while working in a small team brewing a double IPA.
the beers that were made that evening were:
English IPA is made with a liberal amount of British hops. This is the style for which British troops in the Raj were said to salivate. While these beers have less flower aroma, they deliver a delicious dry bitterness, great for the soon to be warm weather. 5.9% ABV
Our Imperial IPA offers the opposite experience… sometimes called a Double IPA, the Imperial is made with a ton of hops… yet a malty backbone rounds out the beer and makes it quite drinkable. 8.0% ABV
Finally, the Cascadian Dark Ale (which some call the Black IPA) uses generous amounts of Northwest hops and darker malts, creating a delectable, hoppy dark beer. This beer style, by whatever name, is very popular right now. 7.2% ABV
On tuesday, this week, I spent an hour bottling my 3 cases of each style and made some simple labels.
I have to say that the English IPA is my least favorite. It has an overwhelming taste of malt extract but it’s drinkable.
The Cascadian Black and the Double are amazingly good and so fresh.
Dan and his son were informative, helpful, and approachable.
I would recommend Barleycorn and any of their events.

This place is awesome. The staff was really helpful in helping us through the entire process, from picking the perfect beer to brew, to bottling it up and slapping on the labels.
Since other reviewers have explained the entire brewing process, I wont bother to go through it all. I also saw some other reviewers say that the owner, Dan, is unfriendly and unwelcoming. I thought he was great. He joked around with us, gave us some great tips, and was there to jump in and help any time we needed it.
The other complaint I saw was that the place is dirty. I’ll agree with that one– the place is kind of dirty. However, with all those machines running, ingredients being used, and beer in various stages of fermenting being spilled, I think it’s kind of unavoidable. All of the important things like the kettles, bottlers, etc, were in good shape and the staff was diligent about sterilizing the containers the beer goes in.
We got our beer yesterday and love it! We made a winter warmer and think it came out great. It was fun to do, interesting to learn about the brewing process, and we have enough beer to last us for months. It doesn’t get much better than that. We’ll absolutely be back to brew some more.

This seems like an interesting business, but the beer kits listed as «Supplies to go» listed on the web site are not really available. Checking the site again, I see that mention is made of each kit being assembled to order (explaining the high prices), but it does not mention that customers should not actually ask for them.
I wish I had checked Unilocal before going to this place, as other reviewers have noted that the owner seems not to want to be bothered. He actually told me I should have come to the store a half hour earlier than I did, or that I should come back later.

What exactly does a $ 5 bottle of wine taste like?
Ask me again in six months.
That’s when the pinot that I made at Barleycorn’s will be ready to be consumed, all 26 bottles of it.
My friends and I bought a groupon to make wine here (the groupon was actually $ 100 for anything, but wine was our pick). We called ahead to find out what they had in stock the weekend we wanted to go (the answer: not much, we should have planned more than a month in advance to have our pick of all the wine kits listed on the website) and then we headed down to make our wine.
Alas, there was no chance to stomp on grapes– the wine came in a kit and we just mixed a few things together and called it a day. Including waiting for some help, the first step took about 45 minutes (but beer takes 2– two hour sessions).
Fast forward six weeks — they take care of removing the wine from the yeast bed (twice) and with a little more than a week’s notice, they added a clarifying agent so the wine would be all ready when we stopped in to bottle it. This part of the process was really fun, and the finished bottles look great.
Overall, I think Barleycorns adds value to the homebrew experience in that they make it really easy to a) sterilize your bottles, b) get all your questions answered, and c) give you the proper tools to wrap, seal, and label your wine. However, it’s a bit of a hike from Boston and the wait time required (more than a week’s notice for each visit) made it pretty stressful. My only other issue is that I thought that the bottles were included and found out only after bottling that they were another $ 40. And the labels they printed for us were not waterproof, which seems like it would have been a really good idea!
Now the final test: update to follow once we’ve popped the cork!

Not bad.
Brewed my own beer here.
The way it works is, you need to come here twice. First visit, you choose and assemble your beer. Second visit a few weeks later, bottle and label your creation.
It’s pretty darn cool.
I made the beer that was «similar to Amstel light» and it was… sort of close?!
The guy working there will walk you through the steps needed to make your beer. Measuring and mixing the hops, barley — the boiling of the mixture, the siphoning into a giant insulated tank for storage. Few weeks later, pick and fill your bottles. Cap ‘em with the capper. Slap on a label if you want and you’re good to go.
Word of advice — bring copies of your label design on a cd or thumbdrive in case their crappy PC can’t get online for some reason. Glad I did.
PS: See that awesome design saved on their computers’ desktop? Yah. That one was me. Trust me, I know what I’m brewing!

I love Barleycorn’s. Everyone is super friendly and enthusiastic about brewing. They always want to know what you are brewing and will offer tips.
Prices are reasonable and if they don’t have what you need in stock they will order it.
Need your bottles cleaned? You can do that.
Want to brew on site? You can do that.
Want to brew at home? You can pick up a kit or get all your ingredients individually right here.
Need a little brewing advice? They can help.
Every time I drop in I make sure to grab a copy of the Yankee Brew News.