A new kind of Belgium: Hipster beer, bikes, and bookstoresNicole 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.
Crossing the almost empty parking lot (which has premium parking spots reserved for vehicles which get 40+ miles to the gallon), Miller points out a gigantic white bubble, looming like a Prisoner-era Rover some 300 yards away. This bubble is the site of New Belgium’s wastewater-treatment plant. The first wind-powered brewery in the US, New Belgium now supplements about 20% of its burgeoning electricity needs with the methane produced by anerobic digestion. Upon entering the Thunderdome, I notice the prevalence of natural light distilled through suntubes and large-pane windows, not to mention a ping-pong table standing by at the ready, quite contrary to the sort of dingy gloom you might expect from a bottling plant capable of producing 700 bottles per minute. A chandelier of hand-blown beer bottles winds up the stairwell, and Miller challenges us to guess how many bottles there are (I win the contest, but if I told you the number I’d have to kill you afterwards.) Like beer-label watercolorist Ann Fitch, the chandelier’s maker is a local artist, and a friend to the New Belgians.
As if a reduced carbon footprint, ESOP business practices, local art, free employee bicycles, and tasty brews were not enough to recommend New Belgium to the rabid anti-hipsters (Fat Tire? Isn’t that an ironic beer?), their community participation and philanthropy might well tip the balance. One dollar of every barrel brewed gets donated towards a variety of causes, from the non-profit Wolverine Farm Publishing (publishers of bicycle ‘zine, the Boneshaker’s Almanac, and free DIY resource the Guide to Ecstatic Living), to the Fort Collins bike co-op, to half-price theatre tickets and a “bike-in” movie series. Their road-trip carnival, the Tour de Fat has helped raise money ($18,000 in 2008) for our very own SFBC and the Bay Ridge Trail Council (even though they lamely stopped selling beer at 4pm, what’s that all about?), as well for other bicycle advocacy groups in a total of 11 cities. Try as I might, I’m finding it hard to find anything at NBB to find fault with. What’s a contrarian to do but capitulate and sample another round?
At New Belgium it seems, you can have your beer and drink it too. Now if only they’d open a whiskey distillery, I’d be set. How about it guys?
New Belgium Brewery,
500 Linden, Fort Collins, CO
(970) 221-0524
www.newbelgium.com
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