New Belgium Brewery

Our last stop for the day while we were out picnicing through the mountains Packing A Picnic, Packing A Picnic – Part 2 – The Poudre Canyon, Packing A Picnic – Nature Walks – Part 3 – On The Trails and touring around was the New Belgium Brewery in Fort Collins. We were amazed at how big the brewery was, but then again, it is a major distributor for Fat Tire Ale and all it’s other beer and ale siblings.

Fat Tire and New Belgium Beer is a local, Colorado company. It was started in 1988 after a trip to Belgium by the owners and co-founders Kim Jordan and Jeff Lebesch. They fell in love with the beers of Belgium and wanted to bring them back home to Colorado. New Belgium Brewery had humble beginnings in Kim and Jeff’s basement. Since its humble beginnings, New Belgium Brewery has grown into being one of the most successful craft breweries in the country. Today, New Belgium Brewery is no longer family owned or even 100% employee owned. It was bought out by Lion Little World Beverage in 2020, however they are doing their best to maintain its humble roots and beginnings, which still give the company the feel of a samll, family owned and operated business.

The New Belgium Brewery offers a wide range of beers and IPAs from which to choose. And for us non-beer drinkers, they also have some delicious sodas and sparkling drinks as well. Mike, and Lauren tried some of their beers, while Larry had a sparkling drink and I enjoyed an all natural black cherry soda.

The New Belgium Brewery also offers tours of the facility, which would have been very interesting, however, we arrived in between tour times, so we were unable to tour the facility this trip. Maybe next time.

Since New Belgium Brewery all started with a bike trip through Belgium, the logo is a red bike, similar to what Jeff and Kim used to tour around Belgium on.

Another fun aspect of the New Belgium Brewery is that it is designed for entertainment. There was a large park area and a stage where we enjoyed the music of not one, but two brass bands, while sipping on our cool liquid refreshments. There were also a few food trucks scattered about the property as well, for our culinary enjoyment too.

These were the liquid refreshments we enjoyed.

There was a couple sitting next to us outside in the pavilion, who was nice enough to let me photograph their sampler flights as well. As you can see, their is a wide variety of liquid refreshments.

And we certainly didn’t NEED anything else to eat, but when has that ever stopped us?! 🙂 Larry ordered some pulled pork nachos to enjoy and Mike and Lauren ordered some street tacos. Believe it or not, I was good, and really did not eat anything. I was still to full from our picnic.

Stopping at New Belgium Brewery was a perfect way to end an already perfect day. New Belgium Brewery is located at 500 Linden Street, Fort Collins, CO. They are open most days from 12-8 and from 12-9 from Thursday -Saturday. Next time you are in Fort Collins, it is definitely worth a trip to stop in and whet your whistle. I am pretty sure, no matter what, you are going to have a real good time.