Saturday, we woke up early to try and get in on a
New Belgium beer tour in Fort Collins. We got there right when they opened and lucked out even though they book a couple months in advance and it was a holiday weekend. I guess it was just meant to be. =)
I think Dac, Alex, and I were the only ones who hadn't been before so we were kind of excited. New Belgium is a super cool company... I don't even like beer and would love to work for this place! To make it short, they believe in making a good product, being environmentally friendly, and having FUN. Who doesn't like having fun at work?! AND they have an awesome story.
Matt, John, and Dac waiting for the brewery to open.
Dac sportin' his new hat.
Bikes are their thing. All employees get a rad cruiser after they've been there a year and each year there's a new style that they can buy if they want. How cool would it be to ride around town on this bad boy?
The flavors on tap in the tasting room.
Dac trying the Super Cru.
I'm not a fan of beer. In fact, I really don't even like beer. Like... at all. So here I am trying a much lighter wheat beer - the Sunshine Wheat. I drank MAYBE half. Maybe.
When you sign up for the tour, you get a little button for a free beer.
Dac and I with our buttons.
Alex with his bag of goodies from the gift shop. You might notice he's giving me that "who is this nerd and why is she insisting on taking my picture?!" look. I'm sure he was used to my "documenting" by the end of the trip. =)
Since bikes are such a big part of their brand, practically everything in the place uses rims. The chairs we sat in were made out of rims... here's a rim chandelier...
After that initial beer in the tasting room, we got to tour the place, learn more about the company, and taste more beer. I think we tasted five more including the Abbey, Sunshine Wheat, Somersault (I kind of liked this one), Fat Tire (their most popular beer), and the La Folie (more on that in a minute).
The tanks... It was hot and smelled like wheat in there. Duh.
While we were on the tour we saw this in the parking lot:
We also got to see where they make the wood-aged beers like the La Folie. It's basically aged like a wine. This room even had a rock-climbing wall in it. Before we went in there, our tour guide Bernie (SO awesome!!) asked who all had tried it and liked it. About 3 people raised their hands and only two liked it (Matt and John - go figure). Well, Bernie likes it too I guess. Anyway, it's considered a sipping beer and is very sour. This isn't exactly something you'd pack in a cooler for the tailgate party, OK? Anyway, whatdya' know? I actually kind of liked it!! Most of the beers I could only take a couple sips of. I drank around half of the wheat, 3/4 of the Somersault, but I'll be badagone-danged... I drank this whole thing!!
Here's me being oh so proud of my accomplishment! haha.
After that last tasting we got to go down "the slide". This slide is metal, pretty long, and extremely steep. We got instructions, but of course, I still got stuck on the way down. =) It was fun though. The guy in the cool hat is our beloved Bernie.
For not liking beer, I thought this place was super fun!! I'd definitely go back and have already recommended it to others who are headed out that way. Since this day was packed full of awesome, you'll have to come back to see what else we did! =)
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