Sometimes i feel like I'm just dropping my opinion of how things happened, historically. If anyone has any knowledge that counters any of that, do share.
Not to get too off-topic, but the first brewery I ever visited was Coors, in Golden Colorado. Long before I had a kid. But it seems like there were kids on the tour. You did a little tour, then they gave you four samples at the end of the tour. Craft brewers later seemed to mimic that setup. I did tour at a number of places that did that...Dogfish, Harpoon, Deschutes, Cigar City, Stone, New Belgium, Sierra Nevada, and others. I remember at Deschutes in Bend people would just come in for the four free samples. You could leave with a buzz with no money spent. I remember going to Alesmith in San Diego and they charged, but it was cheaper than the take home beer. Then at some point breweries realized that people would actually pay $9 for a pint of beer at a taproom, and the golden days of taprooms was over. I guess i digress, but i don't remember breweries ever not welcoming kids.