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.
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