Last Saturday I scored a couple tickets to a XPN sponsored event at Flying Fish Brewery in Cherry Hill (Thanks Tyler and Megan!). 88.5 XPN is member supported public radio broadcast from the University of Pennsylvania and Flying Fish is the largest craft brewery in New Jersey. If I could make a recommendation for both it would be checking out Funky Friday on XPN every Friday from 5pm to 7pm while sipping a Flying Fish Grand Cru.
The event consisted of a tour of the brewery and tasting of a couple of their beers. I was drooling at some of the equipment they had. It was interesting to compare their setup with that of Ommegang Brewery where I visited last Labor Day. Both produce beer, but the layout and design was unique to each. It's a lot like the uniqueness when comparing homebrew setups. You need to determine what setup works best for the brewer given the space available. Here are a couple pics I took:
The event consisted of a tour of the brewery and tasting of a couple of their beers. I was drooling at some of the equipment they had. It was interesting to compare their setup with that of Ommegang Brewery where I visited last Labor Day. Both produce beer, but the layout and design was unique to each. It's a lot like the uniqueness when comparing homebrew setups. You need to determine what setup works best for the brewer given the space available. Here are a couple pics I took:
Where the magic happens. I think this is a pretty typical size for a 40 gallon per batch brewery. One thing I noticed was the large amount of pumps used to transport everything from the grains thru the finished product.
Conical fermenters with a huge blowoff tube attached that was bubbling like crazy as the CO2 is released. I forget exactly how many fermenters lined the walls, but they took up a large portion of real estate in the brewery. 
The bottling machine was said to be by far the most expensive piece of equipment. Flying Fish is distributed with in a 90 mile radius, so it's guaranteed fresh.Wedding Beer Update: Before the tour I finished brewing another test batch. Its ingredients don't follow traditional German purity laws. It does, however, use a famous German yeast strain named Weihenstephan (Wyeast 3068). Coors brews a similar style "craft" brew. I have you figured it out yet? I won't say what it is, but I will say it was delicious when transferring for secondary fermentation this weekend. Along with this I also bottled the IPA test batch. These two recipes will be served at the wedding as long as there aren't any bad surprises. Pictured below is my yeast starter for the final test batch and the washed 3068:
So for a wedding present...you want brewing equipment...is that what this is all about!! :-)
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