Welcome to the house of fun (The New Belgium Beer Company)

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. At Colorado brewers The New Belgium Beer Company they ’re looking to Europe with a big smile on their faces. Ben McFarland reports

Any beer lovers heading north out of downtown Denver need to keep the faith. The power of big and brash American beer is omnipresent and, stuck in a sweaty hire car, the lure of refreshment is almost too much to bear.

As I desperately try to untangle the unfathomable one-way system to find the Interstate, I pass under the shadow of Coors Field, a colossal yet crumbling shrine to baseball and the city’s most famous brew. The two are synonymous, thick as Posh Spice, but I have to be somewhere and, even though there was a game that evening, I’m not playing ball.

Further down the highway that makes a beeline for the horizon and neatly dissects the mile-high plains of never-ending nothingness in half, stands another place of worship for behemoth brewing.

This time a suitably razzmatazz Budweiser concert venue and gargantuan depot whose twinkling lights wink at you offering to end the drudgery of driving with promises of chinking glasses, scantily-clad cheerleaders and cool guys called Chuck.

This lad is not for turning though. I put the pedal to the metal and deliver myself from temptation. I’ve been assured that greater drinking delights await further down the Interstate at a small town called Fort Collins – home to the New Belgium Brewing Company, an exuberant and eco-friendly young company a little more than a rock’s throw from the Rockies.

As I turn off the concrete river that is the I25 and Pac-Man my way through the laid back streets of Fort Collins, pulling into the Ne.....

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By Ben McFarland

Section : International Brewery

Page number : 50