Nicole Gluckstern reports from her recent trip to the New Belgium Brewery in Colorado
It’s standing room only in the tasting room of the New Belgium Brewery in Fort Collins, Colorado, and the post-Turkey Day hordes are sampling schooners of brews not yet readily available in California: a kicky espresso ale called Giddy Up, a small-batch cranberry brew, and Mighty Arrow pale ale. There are two tours available — a self-guided walk down NBB memory lane (from hobbyists’ basement to craft-brewing behemoth, the eighth largest brewery in the US), and a tour of the brewery itself. Recently named by the Wall Street Journal as one of the top fifteen small companies to work for in the United States, the front-of-house vibe at NBB is palpably cheery—from the receptionists to the bussers — and our tour guide, Miller is extravagantly even more so.
“I photograph best from the right,” Miller informs the camera-toters, and ushers us into the brewhouse, also known as “The Mothership.”
The New Belgium crew
Starting off in the smallest section of the brewhouse, we are introduced to the mechanics of a 100-barrel brew system from Germany, a section, Miller admits, that doesn’t get used very often. A dizzying array of Brazil-style “ducts” and pipes criss-crosses the ceiling, and strategically-placed fat-tire cruisers lean rakishly against the walls, with a full array of same parked outside in the employee bike racks. The brewing equipment might be German in origin, but the beers are decidedly not. The Reinheotsgebot or German beer purity law allow for only three ingredients to be used: water, hops, and barley, while the Belgians, as well as the New Belgians “throw in everything including the kitchen sink.” Coriander, Montmorency cherries, wormwood—it’s all fair game.
It’s not touched upon in the tour, but something I notice immediately is how clean the joint is, almost freakishly so. You could lap beer up off the floor in case of an accidental flood, though as we pass by the hulking, in-use 200-barrel system, I sincerely hope it won’t ever come to that. Away from the hustle and bustle of the public tasting room we sample some not-for-sale special brews: a 9% variation of Abbey and a limited-edition sour peach ale. My underage “totally awesome sister” (she made me write that) sniffs my glass and pronounces the fruity/spicy aroma “interesting”. I inform her it is sublime as we head to the bottling plant: The Thunderdome.