brewery tours
We love showing others where our award-winning beer is made! Book a private tour with beer tastings using the link below.
During your hour-long tour, you'll hear many reasons we boycott bland. We'll start in our grain storage & milling room, make our way to the brewhouse, pass through our fermentation, cellaring, and packaging operations, and then move on to our beer cooler. After the tour, you'll have a chance to sample a four-beer flight. The tour costs $15 per person and is limited to 30 people per tour. In addition to beer samples, we're sending you home with a specialty logo pint glass!
Advance-booked tours are available Tuesday through Friday after 5:00 pm, Saturday & Sunday starting at 10:00 am. A minimum of 10 people (or tickets) is required.
Book A Tour!
Please email our events team using the link below to book your private tour, or find out more information on our private tours.
Our brewery
Brewing
Our award-winning brewery features a 60-barrel brewhouse (including a 6000#-capacity mash tun, 60-barrel primary brew kettle, a double-batch/120-barrel brew kettle, both with external calandrias, a 60-barrel dedicated sour kettle, and whirlpool vessel), all capable of producing and growing to over 150,000 barrels annually as currently configured, along with a 10-barrel pilot brewhouse.
Fermenting/Cellaring
Over 3,200 BBLs of fermentation & cellar tanks (ranging in size from 10, 30, 60, 120, and 240bbls) for over 60,000bbls in annualized capacity at present and growing. Along with many wood barrels & foudres for beer aging.
Packaging
A canning line for filling either 12oz, 16oz, or 19.2oz cans (including a 24-valve, 4-seamer CFT rotary filler/seamer featuring double evacuation & counterpressure filling, plus date coding, ionized air can rinsing, Filtec gamma-ray fill inspector/rejecter, a high-speed pressure sensitive P.E. labeler, iPak tray former for automated/glued trays, Craft-Pak applicator for applying 4 & 6-pack handles, hi-res seam inspection equipment and a Climax CanDo C3 4-lane cartoner with 4, 6, 8 and 12-pack capabilities for either single flavor cartons or up to 4-flavor variety packs), and a Comac keg washer/filler.
Quality Control
Our full-time lab provides quality control services such as sensory panels and lab testing equipment for dissolved oxygen & CO2 levels, yeast viability/cell counts, PCR tests and plating for various beer spoiler microbes, ABV, VDK, forced fermentations, ATP swabbing, and more.
some history
You can trace the roots of DESTIHL (pronounced as 'des-tih-l') back to the first five-gallon batch of beer made by Founder & CEO Matt Potts in a glass home-brew kit given to him by his wife, Lyn, for Christmas in 1995.
After many years of practicing law and brewing professionally in Elmwood, Illinois (with his first brewpub concept), Matt & Lyn decided a new venture was worth pursuing.
The first DESTIHL Restaurant & Brew Works opened in Normal, Illinois, on November 23, 2007.
Following much success with the beer brewed at DESTIHL Restaurant & Brew Works and then winning several major beer awards to garner national attention and demand for its beers, the team directed attention toward growing its brewery operations. In May 2013, DESTIHL Brewery commenced in the G.E. Warehouses in Bloomington, IL, with the first batch of beer brewed on May 31, 2013.
Since its formation, numerous craft beer industry insiders, organizations, and competitions have recognized and honored the production brewery. By the end of 2015, there was more demand for DESTIHL beer than could be produced at the G.E. Warehouse production facility. So in June 2016, construction began on DESTIHL Brewery and Beer Hall's massive 47,000 sq. ft., $15 million-dollar brewery complex in Normal, IL, on about six acres of land. All brewery operations ceased at the G.E. Road facility in March of 2017, and the new brewery was commissioned by April 2017. The new brewery and beer hall opened to the public on May 27, 2017.
Your products, our brewery.
Contract Brewing
From flexible scheduling and raw material sourcing to packaging, we can work with you to find the optimal arrangement to get you what you need to grow your business in and with DESTIHL without the capital required for a physical plant and production staff.