New Belgium Brewery Tour

Last year when I was in Denver I had a great Belgian beer called Fat Tire. Someone told me it was local brew, but after coming back to the east coast I kind of forgot about it.

Reading Stan Hieronymus's Brew Like a Monk jogged my memory that New Belgium Brewery was who made the Fat Tire beer. Every since I remembered I've been anxious to tour the brewery.

I don't know how I forgot to post this, but two weeks ago when I was in Denver, I drove up to Fort Collins and went to the New Belgium Brewery. The tour was very cool. New Belgium is the fastest growing brewery in the world and third largest craft brewer behind Sam Adams and Sierra Nevada.

The guy that gave us the tour was recently granted ownership of the brewery. The brewery is employee-owned and privately operated. All of the owners have a say in the operation of the brewery, and it was obvious that everyone loves working there.

New Belgium is very energy efficient in their brewing, recovering most of the heat lost during the boil and recycling it through a heat exchanger. They also recover all of the heat from the wort as it is piped to the cellar before the yeast is pitched. This lowers the wort to the correct temperature and recovers heat. All of this recovered heat is used to heat the boil kettle and water so they are never starting with a cold pot.

The best part of the tour is of course the beer. Any day of the week you can come into the brewery, sit down, and be served four different samples of any of their beers, no charge. I tried the 1554, Abbey, Trippel, and of course Fat Tire.

Fat Tire is still my favorite, but the Abbey and Trippel were excellent. Very complex and satisfying.

Unfortunately, the picture is not of New Belgium beer (It's Ommegang Hennepin), I had no way to get a case of Fat Tire back from Denver. But at least I have a couple of glasses and a t-shirt to commemorate my trip.

APL to Bottle

Bottled the APL, the final gravity is 1.010 making the alcohol content 4.5% by volume. It has a very citrusy flavor from the Amarillo hops, very drinkable.

Blueberry Mead

Here's my latest brew, a melomel (mead with fruit), Blueberry Mead.

12 lbs. clover honey
6 lbs. frozen blueberries
1 tsp. gypsum
1 tsp. citric acid
3 tsp. yeast nutrient
Red Star Champagne Yeast

Mix the honey into 1.5 gallons of water and heat on medium. Stir until all of the honey is disolved, then add the gypsum, citric acid, and yeast nutrient.

Bring the pot up until just before it boils and then remove from heat.

Add all of the blueberries to the fermenter and slowly add the hot liquid. Top off the fermenter with cold water.

I pitched the yeast very warm, between 90-100 F.

It is bubbling very slowly, but is fermenting.


After 7 days, I'll rack off of the blueberries into a secondary and leave for a few months.

APL to Secondary

I moved the American Pale Lager to the secondary fermenter. Tastes great! Very smooth. Dry hopped with the Amarillo. I'll leave it in for a few weeks, hopefully it will clear a little more. The Cascade hops really come through.

American Pale Lager

Brewed this on Monday, New Year's Day. I haven't decided what to call it yet.

Was going to make it an American Pale Ale, but since it's cold enough in the basement now, I decided to ferment it with lager yeast.

8½ lbs. pale malt
1 lb. crystal malt 20L
½ lb. toasted malt - 10 minutes at 350º F
1 oz. Chinook Hops 12% AAU - Bittering
1 oz. Cascade Hops 6.4% AAU - Flavor
1 oz. Cascade Hops 6.4% AAU - Aroma
½ oz. Amarillo Hops - Dry Hopping
1 tsp. Irish Moss


Mash Grains in 4 gallons of water:

45º C for 15 minutes
62º C for 35 minutes
70º C for 20 minutes

Sparge with 70º C water

Add Chinook at 60 minutes
Add Irish Moss at 15 minutes
Add Cascade at 5 minutes
Add Cascade at 1 minute

Ferment with Saflager S-23 around 13º C

I will dry hop with the Amarillo when I move it to the secondary fermenter.

The O.G. read 1.044, but I think that was a little low as I had lots of hop debris in the hydrometer tube. Bubbles started four hours after I pitched the yeast, and fermentation took off. I added about 5.5 gallons and in this 5 gallon carboy, the krausen overwhelmed the airlock for the first two days, had to remove it at one point as it was close to being clogged. It's settled down now, but it appears that it will be a couple more days until it's done. Never had a lager ferment so fast, especially at this temperature.