Harpoon Brewery &
Beer Hall
306 Northern Avenue
Boston, MA 02210
(617) 456-2322

Housed in a colorful industrial building a block from the waterfront on Boston's south side, the Harpoon Brewery and Beer Hall offers some of the best and most popular beers brewed in the Boston metro area. Launched waaaay back in 1986, before the term “craft brewing” had even been coined and when “microbrewery” was not in the dictionary, Harpoon has been brewing better beer for decades, and has been in the current location almost from the beginning.
The beer hall is very large – probably seats at least 200 – and true to the beer-lover's tradition, offers only pretzels (fresh and homemade) to go with the beer.
Harpoon has at least a couple of dozen taps dispensing a wide selection of beers.
One of the advantages of operating a beer hall at the brewery is that the brewer can experiment freely with new concoctions, and Harpoon takes full advantage by offering quite a few selections that are available only on tap at this single location.
Harpoon's forte is beer that is heavily hopped, so the taproom is an IPA paradise.

Boston Beer Company/Sam Adams Tasting Room
30 Germania Street
Boston, MA 02130
Tollfree: 800-372-1131

Based on sales in 2011, Boston Beer Company was tied with Yuengling for the largest American-owned brewery.
Since they produced 2.5 million bbl of beer that year, they hardly qualify as a microbrewery.
We include them in this section nevertheless.
The Sam Adams Brewery in Boston is a brewery, not a brewpub.
It has an address that should be easy to find.  Except that the streets are all one way away from the facility. 
Once found, the brewery has a handout for exiting the neighborhood. 
The Brewery tour starts every hour.  The first speaking stop is just inside the door...in a classroom setting where they discuss beer ingredients, with samples of barley and hops. 
A few steps away is the brewing operation.  They have two or three kettles, and a half dozen fermenters.  They appear to be 71/2 barrels systems.  They explain the smallness as these are the research and development facilities.  Sam Adams is constantly changing recipes, especially the seasonal beers. 
The next stop on the tour is the bar.  They serve 7 oz. servings of three of their beers, give a spiel, and answer questions.
Their website is pretty glitzy.