Pink Boots at New Belgium

"It’s rather nice to think of oneself as a sailor bending over the map of one’s mind and deciding where to go and how to go." ~Katherine Mansfield

June 27: Met Grady Hull at 9:00 am, and he introduced me to Alex Dwoinen. Grady and Alex tag-teamed on giving me tours of various parts of New Belgium's extensive brewery. Then I sat in the nice air conditioned brewery control room (with six computer monitors!) and Mike Cothran showed me New Belgium's brewing control program with it's impressive graphics of all the systems.

I had watched the brewers work the control programs at Deschutes, Sierra Nevada, and Stone, but now finally my brain was catching up and I seemed to follow what the brewers were doing on screen better. Grady, Alex, Mike and Matt Gilliland came and went from the control room as needed, but we all managed to gather on the brewhouse floor for the photo above. (Left to right: Teri, Alex, Matt, Grady and Mike.) Note the mosaic tile around the base of the kettle near my boots.

Now, lest anyone think that the kettle above is only 3-feet high at the hip, please be assured that a 200-barrel kettle is much taller than it looks because it continues on down to the next floor.

New Belgium has lots of capacity built into their system. They have a 100-barrel brewhouse as well as this 200-barrel brewhouse, but they only use the 200-barrel system these days. However, once the hot and thirsty days of summer are truly upon us, they will no doubt fire up the "little" 100-barrel guy. They do not currently have a pilot brewery, but the brewers think about it often.

New Belgium only uses their 200-barrel brewery because of efficency, which means using the least amount of energy, resources and labor required to produce the most beer. It takes a lot of energy to heat up a big tank full of liquid, and if it's hot to begin with, that makes the job more efficient. The theory is, why heat up two kettles for 12 hours a day, if you can heat up one kettle for 24 hours per day? So that's what they do.

After spending the morning in the brewhouse, I spent part of the afternoon in the cellar with Mikey "P." Mikey says he used to work all over Michigan - at Bells, Atwater and other breweries. He quit the brewing business and moved to Colorado to be a ski bum. Perhaps the lift tickets were too spendy, but Mikey ended up working at a winery instead of skiing. His buddy told him of an opening at New Belgium, and he's been back in the brewing business ever since.

Mikey showed me some really nifty things that New Belgium does to recapture energy, including a heat exchanger that runs beer in both directions. Yup, you read that right. They don't rely on their glycol systems to cool beer or wort; the glycol systems are just to keep liquids cold. They use heat exchangers to cool or heat all liquids. Thus, one cold beer can be used to cool down another beer. Ask Mikey. He'll explain it.

One other nifty thing New Belgium does, is that they have a four-unit doser that can dose hop pellets (or spices) into a kettle without opening the manway. This is a much safer system as it avoids the possibility of injury and keeps the heat in. Mike Cothran showed me how the four units worked. I told him New Belgium should name the four units after the Beatles. After all, they are the Fab Four.

At the end of the day Alex lead us to the very crowded tasting room (known as the Liquid Center) where we tasted all their Belgian and sour beers (yum) and I met John Rich's wife, Ailey for the first time (please email me the correct spellings). Alex was kind enough to send us home with a bunch of goodies including a hoodie for me, a baseball hat for Jon, two mixed cases of beer, and a 750 ml bottle of Le Folie, because everybody needs to have a folly. Mine is spending money on gasoline. What is yours?

Jon and I spent a quiet evening sitting in our camp loveseat on the gravel back lot behind New Belgium. We watched some of the staff practice their volleyball shots in anticipation of tomorrow's big employee game. Jon read while I wrote "Thank You" post cards to the people at the breweries that had welcomed and hosted me during this trip. We enjoyed some cold New Belgium beer and I saw a red fox lurking about New Belgium's equipment bone yard. The cottonwood trees lost most of their cotton in the breeze. The wastewater treatment plant 's methane burner burped flames now and then. And the sun set slowly, leaving just a hint of pink in the darkening sky.

A Visit to Odells in Fort Collins

"There is no place to go, and so we travel! You and I, and what for, just to imagine that we could go somewhere else." ~ Edward Dahlberg

June 26: Slept in a bit and enjoyed a nice Rocky Mountain morning, sipping hot tea (me) and coffee (Jon) outside while nibbling on some fruit. Hot showers, some blogging, then off to Fort Collins.

First stop was Odell Brewing Company where my contact was John Bryant, marketing and sales. John has a long history in the craft brewing industry, beginning in Oregon and including Deschutes Brewing Co., which was the first stop on my trip.

John lined us up with 12 samplers (one of everything on tap) and when I turned around, there stood Gene Gregg, former owner/brewer of Oregon Trader Brewery in Albany, Oregon. The brewing world is a small world. I lost track of Gene when he sold Oregon Trader and disappeared. Apparently he moved to Fort Collins and is looking to get a brewing job there. (Photo above: John, Gene, and husband Jon Graber.)

The photo at right is of Odells brewing crew. Left to right: Ryan King, Jim Weatherwax and Greg Wiggall. It's hard to tell, but they are standing in front of Odell's 5-barrel pilot brewery. This cute little brewery is parked right in the midst of Odell's 50-barrel brewhouse and assorted giant tanks.

As John Bryant explained Odell's system to me, it is the brewers and their imaginations that drive Odell's engine. Marketing doesn't ask the brewers to "brew something like our competitor" or "make me a light amber ale," rather, the brewers come up with any new recipe or idea that suits their fancy. Then they brew it on their 5-barrel system, and it is up to the marketing guys to sell it. This creative process was the genesis of Odell's popular (and yummy) 5 Barrel Pale Ale. This 5-barrel brewery also drives Odell's annual Small Batch Beer Festival.

John Bryant gifted us with an Odell's t-shirt (for me) and baseball cap (for Jon). Thanks, Odell's!

Then it was off to New Belgium Brewing Company before Brewmaster Peter Bouckaert went home for the day. We drove past Coopersmiths Brewpub. We had planned to drop in, but I hadn't heard from anybody there, so we waved as we drove by. The brewpub was packed, which was great considering it was a Tuesday.

Ran into Peter as he was running out the door for New Belgium's monthly Crown Pub educational series. Assistant Brewmaster Grady Hull gave us a ride over to the Crown after New Belgium's very serious security folks made Jon and I security tags for tomorrow.

Every month, New Belgium's brewers, cellarfolks, laboratory and production people are encouraged to discuss a new or educational topic in the informal setting of the Crown. This month's topic was bottle-conditioned beers, and the meeting was lead by former Eugene brewer (and newlywed) John Rich. I knew John from back in his High Street brewing days.

Jon and I arrived well into the meeting, so we ended up at the "kid's table" and thus too far away to hear or partake in the discussion. We tried all the New Belgium beers on tap, and I was happy to note that the Crown Pub treated both of Fort Collins' main craft breweries equally, as New Belgium and Odell's each had four beers available. Then it was back to New Belgium where we would be parked for the night

The New Belgium crowd at the Crown Pub was much larger than this photo shows, but I couldn't fit everybody in. John Rich is second from right above, in the blue t-shirt