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 The New Belgium Brewing Blog
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Friday, May 18, 2012
The "let's go to the" series of posts is back, it has been too long and I figured it high-time to take a trip to the chemistry lab. It's a wonderful and welcoming place that offers lots of science-y stuff to look at: Anton-Parr machines, beakers, Erlenmeyer flasks, pipettes, distillation columns, Hoffman Foam Stability Testers, round bottom flasks, the list only gets nerdier from there... But the coolest thing in the lab, by far, is the Gas Chromatograph with a Spectrum Detector and Olfactory Port, or as I like to call it– the Smell-O-Meter. The Smell-O-Meter is an amazing tool. It can profile finished beer, in process beer, or raw materials (along with anything else you want to really (like really-really) smell). It takes a small sample of (let's say) finished beer, heats it up and then breaks it down into isolated chemicals that can be analyzed individually. And by "analyzed" I mean smelled, with your nose. The machine is huge, probably 3'x4'x3' and has an external, touch-screen PC attached to it to read and comment on the analysis. And then it has a tube that protrudes from the side that you stick your nose in and smell what the machine is cooking. Here is a close up shot of the tubular, protruding olfactory port, or, as I like to call it, "the nose hole." 
This machine is awesome, but I don't want to just talk about how awesome it is, I wanted to convey the full Smell-O-Meter experience. So, a few days ago I accompanied my co-worker, Cody, into the lab and we had Grant the Chemist walk us through the process. That day's sample was Belgo IPA, and some real fun ensued. So let's get to the meat of it all, let's go to the chemistry lab! It was a Monday morning and Grant the Chemist was ready for us in the lab. Here is Grant the Chemist: 
Before we got there he had prepped the sample of Belgo. To prep the sample Grant the Chemist has to use a weird-looking-syringe-type-thing. It pulls just the right amount of beer and readies it for the machine. Here's a look at the weird-looking-syringe-type-thing full of Belgo:  Then you plug that sharp end into the big machine and it starts breaking down the sample. As the Smell-O-Meter breaks down the chemistry of the beer it starts sending the individual part's aromas through the nose hole to take in through your own nose holes. Here is Cody giving it a go: 
After Cody got some smells in we cranked the Turbo Speed to 100 (I am not sure what that means (or what it does)) and then I sat down for some smelling: 
The aromas starting coming through, and as they come through you press the touch screen to describe what you are smelling: 
The sample's individual smells come through the nose hole one at a time. When you smell something you hit the button that best describes the smell in your nose, and then the intensity of that chosen smell. Each smell lasts for a few seconds and then the next one comes through. A total sample run takes about 40 minutes and the number of smells possible is very huge. When I asked Grant the Chemist how many there could be he said "not really sure, might as well say a trillion." Out of those possible smells, and looking at that touch screen, you can see that some are good smells, and some are not. If you break anything down that far the mix of total smells that make up the whole smell will be large and diverse. When something like "pineapple" comes through the nose hole it is like pure, unadulterated pineapple. You hit the right button and then say to yourself "I wish the inside of my nose smelled like this all the time!" But then something like "pungent" comes through and you make this face: 
So the job isn't all roses and candy. It's hard and takes a lot of training. Cody and I used the Smell-O-Meter for the first time and we found 36 unique smells we could name (or guess at) in Belgo IPA, Grant the Chemist found 60 on his previous run of the same beer. It's clear, he is a much better smeller than the two of us. As Cody and I were going through the 40 minute process we were discussing that we may achieve better results in a more relaxed environment. The Smell-O-Meter has a regular chair to sit in, the lights in the lab are exactly how you would imagine lab lights to be (very bright), and the music situation could be improved. Not to mention the window that looks into a high-traffic hallway (you get gawkers): 
As we got to talking about how to improve the area, and therefore improve our results, Cody got to drawing. He designed the Smell-O-Meter environment required for us to succeed: 
As you can see from this blueprint, in the new Smell-O-Meter environment, the smeller would be face down on a massage table with the machine's nose hole coming through the underside, the lights would be low, and the smeller would be wearing noise-cancelling headphones attached to a stereo playing the relaxing (and complete) musical catalog of Enya. In this type of situation I would have brought my results to 48 unique smells (at least). When the 40 minute run was finished we looked at the graph of every smell we picked out, and it showed us the actual part of the aroma we were smelling, how much was present and when we smelled it in relation to everything else: 
This molecule (do I call it that? Compound maybe?) was at minute 9.094 and it was found in the sample of Belgo at a level 200ppb. Pretty cool, and way over my head. And then there was this thing, it glows, it's blue and I have no idea what it is. But I thought you should see it: 
The Smell-O-Meter is a pretty great machine, we use it to make our beer better. We can use it to pick out hop aromas in order to optimize dry-hopping, we can make sure the yeast is producing all the right levels and spectrum of esters, we can use to make sure we are getting the full potential from raw materials, and we can use it to maximize process consistency. The possibilities are (almost) endless, and really fun to talk about. At the end of our smelling session Cody and I realized that we had a long way to go before we could be chemists (I'm a blogger and he is a statistician). As it turns out it takes more than a lab coat and access to a nose hole. But Grant the Chemist was helpful, funny and OK with us wasting his time, and we appreciated that. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed going to the chemistry lab... Until next time, -JUICEBOX
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Tuesday, May 15, 2012
It's time to celebrate American Craft Beer, are you ready? Starting May 14 (yesterday!), and going through the weekend, America is a-buzz with great beer. There are events happening in all 50 states and that means if you are in America you can celebrate. Here is a link to the Brewer's Association's page that is listing a lot of the goings on country wide. Check it out, then check your own calender, then go some place great and drink an American Craft beer. Around these parts (NBB) we have lots of things going on for ACBW. Firstly, the Fort Collins collaboration- Collusion 2012. All nine Fort Collins craft breweries got back together for the third year and brewed up another gem. Filled with Colorado barley, hops, honey, and snow (seriously, snow, right out of Rockey Mountain National Park). The beer defies style. I tried it last night at Equinox and I can describe it as great, kind of light, and totally drinkable. Here is a video of the making ––> Pretty sweet huh? And that being watched, you should know that you can get a glass of Collusion at all of the involved Fort Collins breweries, including New Belgium, right now. But act quickly, because the liquid is limited and you'll want to get your tongue on it before it's gone. And on top of all the colluding, the Liquid Center here at NBB is blowing up with events all week: trivia today, Loose Lips taste contests tomorrow and Thursday, a brewer's panel is also happening on Thursday, and then some beer poetry on Friday. It's going to be a hoot (I even heard rumors of kereoke...). And, you can (and should) come in and sign the Declaration of Beer Independence at any time during the week, it is hanging right on the wall. Go ahead, sign it, let the world know that you support craft beer. So get after it friends, start drinking now, because this is everyone's beer week! -Juicebox
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Tuesday, May 08, 2012
 Michael Craft (pictured left) is the NPO and bicycle advocacy liaison for the Tour de Fat, and he is, generally, all about bikes (and a proud employee owner of New Belgium Brewing). And today he's the guest blogger here at NBB.com. Below is his re-cap of Bike Summit Season (that's a thing). Take it in, enjoy the good word of bicycle advocacy, and know that people like Craft are fighting the good fight for all of us lackeys who just like to ride bikes and not think about politics...
Take it away Craft––>
It’s hard to believe that Bike Summit season is over and the Tour de Fat season is about to start, for me at least. This year’s Bike Summit season started off in Denver Colorado, where Bicycle Colorado hosted their 2nd (now annual!) fantastic event, February 6th and 7th. Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, the Alliance for Biking and Walking’s Jeff Miller and USA Pro Cycling Challenge's CEO Shawn Hunter welcomed all of us to a sold-out event at the Curtis Hotel. We spent the afternoon talking about how to become effective bicycle advocates and how to ask our representatives for their support. As many of you know, every politician wants to hear about two things: money and jobs. Luckily, bicycling represents those two items very well, specifically to the tune of $1.2 Billion dollars annually in Colorado.
The day ended with some tasty brews from New Belgium. Dig made its debut, and folks definitely “dug” it. Twenty years ago, we put a bicycle on our Fat Tire label because we love bikes. I don’t think anyone could have foreseen what an iconic image of sustainability the bicycle has become. Promote what you love and be sure to love what you promote, luckily for us at New Belgium, that’s beers and bicycles. Tuesday was the day at the Capitol. Our specific ask this year was to support House Bill 1084 which would end the Hit & Run Loophole. This House Bill would increase the penalty for leaving the scene of a serious bodily injury crash from a class 5  felony to a class 4 making it equivalent to drunk driving. Current Colorado law gives drunk drivers, especially repeat offenders, an incentive to not stop at the scene of a crash and call for help of injured people. Instead, current law rewards drunk drivers with a lesser penalty for fleeing the scene and trying to hide out until they are sober. The consequence of this loophole may be life or death for someone needing immediate medical attention at the scene of a crash. Bicycle and pedestrian fatalities are four times more likely to be the result of a hit and run than other roadway crashes. HB 1084 goes to a vote in the House Appropriations Committee in a couple weeks.
Two weeks after the Colorado Bicycle Summit, I was off to Madison for the 4th Annual Wisconsin Bike Summit. Nearly 400 bike enthusiasts from every corner of the state made the trip to the Capitol to learn about bicycle infrastructure and programming, share success stories, and meet with their elected officials to support cycling and ensure every ride we take in Wisconsin is safe, enjoyable, and fun.
The biggest news to the bicycle advocacy world came out this very same week. The Alliance for Biking & Walking, Bikes Belong, and the League of American Bicyclists have agreed that uniting the three organizations would dramatically improve their effectiveness in increasing bicycle use in the US. This is very exciting news, the formation of the “Big Three” into the “Big One” will surely increase everyone’s voice for bicycling into a more effective, and better represented, unified front. No news just yet on what they will be calling themselves, but I hope it has a superhero ring to it.
Four weeks after the Wisconsin Bike Summit, I was off to our Nation’s Capital for the National Bike Summit. The NBS brought over 800 cyclists from 49 states to show policymakers that bicycling is an important transportation option for a powerful, and growing constituency, in communities all across the Nation. “Bicycling represents a popular, equitable and growing mobility option that creates jobs, cuts healthcare costs and protects  American families from skyrocketing gas prices. Still, members of the U.S. House of Representatives are poised to eliminate dedicated funding for cost-effective programs that make bicycling safe and accessible in urban and rural communities across the country.” The ask for our senators and Congressional Representatives was to support the Petri/Johnson amendment which would help preserve less than 1.5% of the entire transportation budget for bicycle and pedestrian efforts.
I think one of the most wonderful things about bicycle advocacy is that it is a bipartisan issue, or “bike-partisan” as we like to call it. Whether you are a Republican or Democrat, it is hard to argue that bicycling couldn’t help the obesity epidemic that is plaguing this country, that bicycling represents thousands of jobs and billions of dollars across our land, and that bicycling is a sustainable vote for the environment. It certainly doesn’t hurt that the NBS is held in Washington, D.C. What a great city! If you think our country doesn’t have much history, an afternoon exploring D.C. will prove you wrong. The Cherry Blossoms were in full bloom, adding icing to an already tasty cake. A few personal highlights were seeing many of our Tour de Fat Non-Profit friends, getting to talk about the Tour de Fat having an inaugural show in Yards Park (located behind the Department of Transportation building) on June 16th, and of course enjoying a few tasty brews with passionate bicycle advocates. Special thanks to Director Jarvis of the National Park Service for signing my National Park Passport. I’m not anti-car, I’m just pro-bike. I think we can make a difference in the world by making bicycling safer and more accessible, for everyone. Small changes such as making smarter trips in our cars, save errands until multiple stops are necessary, try to be Car-Free a couple times a week, challenge yourself to commute by bike within a 2 or 3 mile radius of your house, soon you’ll instinctively rethink your travel options. I understand the freedom that our cars represent, I love being in charge of my music too, but at least consider carpooling. Riding your bike or walking as your primary form of transportation will be as second-nature to you as recycling. Sooner than later, your face will be sore from smiling and your legs will look increasingly sexy, all thanks to man’s greatest invention: the bicycle… Thanks for reading, Michael Craft
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Wednesday, May 02, 2012
We love making sour beer. Over the years we have tried to make more and more sour beers. But it takes a really long time to age the beer in wood, to let the little buggies do their work and take the beer into the sour-a-sphere (I just made that word up). The newest Lips of Faith offering happens to be a wonderful and sour beer, it's called Tart Lychee. The name says it all. But to say some more I will break the beer down for you, a full review. Overview: A new sour blended Lips of Faith with lychee fruit and cinnamon. Tart Lychee is 56% wood aged sour ale, and 44% ale brewed with lychee fruit and cinnamon. Lychee fruit is incredibly sweet and it plays nicely off its wood aged, sour companion. This beer is sour and sweet and amazing. 7.5% ABV Appearance: A cloudy golden with a furious white head. The bubbles come quick, and then recede almost as fast. Aroma: Total sweet lychee fruit domination (a very good thing), citrusy with a tangy bite. The cinnamon is mostly hidden by the lychee fruit, but the aroma is definitely inviting. Taste: The tart punch comes first, but it's backed with sweet strength. The lychee fruit casts a huge shadow here, but the malt is present and standing the beer upright. The cinnamon comes as just a hint, but the hint rounds out the sweetness just right. This gentle spicing brings the beer more depth. The beer has only Target hops for bittering, but the nature of the citrus sweet (lychee)/sour (wood aged beer) brings a big nod to Cascade hops. Grapefruit is a flavor that comes to mind with this beer. Cascade hops are not in there, but you could have fooled me. The sour is explosive, but not overbearing. At  first, the sip seems to be the most sour beer I have ever had, but that fades, and I change my mind mid-drink. While Tart Lychee is very sour, it's not a complete tongue ripper, it's balanced and wonderful. Body/Mouthfeel: Dry, tart, perfect. Overall: This is an awesome take on sour beer, I love it. I admit my bias (everyone should), but this beer is the best. Definitely my favorite sour since Le Terroir. Maybe I like it better than Le Terroir (or maybe I am just saying that because I drank my last Le Terroir?)? Either way, this beer is perfect, and if you like sour beers this should top your list (if you don't like sour beers you should try it too, it may change your opinion). I give Tart Lychee a 10 (out of 10). This beer just released yesterday, so it should be trickling into most of our distribution areas this week. Tart Lychee is a Lips of Faith beer, which means the batch was pretty small and distribution will be limited, but make sure to use the Beer Finder and locate yourself a bottle, or a tap line, to give it a go. One last thing on sour beers before I take my leave. As you know the wood cellar is expanding, which means more sour beers. To make our sour beer, we age a non-sour beer in big oak casks (called foeders) until it sours. It takes upward of two years to fully develop. So we are building more now to have more later. Over the past month or so a few coopers (barrel makers) have been here building us some new foeders. I took the opportunity to time lapse the construction on a couple of these big oak barrels. Take a look:
Pretty sweet huh? And on that note, I'm out. -Juicebox
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Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Food and beer pairings are bigger than grizzly bears right now (but not nearly as cute (or ferocious)). The reason beer and food are coming together is they really make the perfect fit; the perfect, two part meal. The huge variety of both beer and food can unite to make the right two choices sing sweet, sweet Motown right in your mouth. The other great thing about beer and food is that you can use one to aid in the cooking of the other. Throw some Trippel in your green chili, or 1554 in your gravy, get creative, go with what feels right. And last night it felt right to stick a can of Fat Tire into a chicken's butt, and then cook it. We have all heard of beer can chicken, right? The general idea is that you take a can of beer, drink half of it, and then stick the half-full can right up the backside of a whole, roasting chicken. Then you stand the whole dinner-tower (chicken and beer can) upright and roast it in your oven, or on your grill (whichever fits the tall, and very top-heavy meal-time obelisk). Light lagers work really well for this dish, the easy hopping and well-mannered malty flavors transfer pleasantly to the chicken. In New Belgium's portfolio I would point to Shift Beer as the clear choice for beer can chicken. But this night I wanted something else from the beer. I wanted a stiffer sweetness, and some carmel-y tones for my chicken, and those things could only come from a Fat Tire. So I choose Fat Tire. And I went with a 16oz can because it was more upfront beer drinking for me, and the longer can would stabilize the chicken a little better. I only have a post-roast picture to show, as the pre-roast pictures looked kind of gross. Let me walk you through the prep and cooking of this wonderful dinner. First crack the beer and start sipping. In a bowl make your dry rub. I went black pepper, salt, red pepper flakes, oregano, and cumin (in descending order of pinch sizes). Rinse your chicken, inside and out, with cold water and then pat dry. Take a few more sips of your beer and then rub your spices all over that chicken, again, inside and out. Have the oven pre-heating to 350º. In cooking a beer can chicken you can use your oven, or you BBQ grill, depending on the vertical space, and seeing as I have the world's smallest BBQ, I went with the oven, and it was pre- heating to 350º. Get out a glass roasting dish, 13x9. At this point your beer should be about half way finished, so poke 4 more holes in the top with a church key for more ventilation and flavor transforming. Take the last of your dry rub and dump it into the half full can of beer (more flavor!). Take the spiced up chicken, turn it upright and cram that beer can up its butt. Then carefully set the chicken tower on the 13x9 and put the whole thing into the warm oven. 1 hour and 30 minutes later pull the chicken out and let it rest (this time frame worked for the size of my Colorado chicken, it might not work for yours. Make sure to cook the chicken until it is done at 165º internal temp). Using caution, tongs and a gorilla-like grip remove the chicken from the Fat Tire can. Cut it up and plate. Viola, beer can chicken! I made roasted jalapeño and cheddar mashed potatoes with a basic green salad for accompaniment. You should make whatever sides you deem appropriate. And then, all plated up, what beer could pair with this lovely dinner. Fat Tire would be a good (even great) choice. We used it in the cooking and the flavors are already roasted into the chicken. But is it too obvious? I thought it was, so I went with Sunshine Wheat. There was a gentle heat to the meal, from the pepper flakes on the chicken and the jalapeño potatoes. The Sunshine complemented that heat. And the sweetness of the beer did wonders to the rich, carmel-i-ness of the Fat Tired chicken. I also poured my Sunshine into sweet, vintage Hamm's glasses to class things up (see photo). This was the greatest dinner I have had all week and I would implore you to try this at home. Beer can chicken is a fair bit of work, but the fruits of your labor will be enjoyed. Go forth and create wonderful food. Hugs, _Juicebox
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Monday, April 16, 2012
As a craft brewer who fills both glass bottles and aluminum cans with delicious beers, we inevitably receive questions (and have our own) regarding the environmental impact of each container. A comprehensive, unbiased study comparing the total environmental impact of glass bottles to that of aluminum cans does not exist. So we see a lot of guessing going on out there and many of those guesses are being stated as though they were ultimate facts. Below are some questions we hear often along with answers based on the research we’ve done. Remember, though, that since a comprehensive study has never been conducted, we don’t really know which container is ultimately environmentally superior.
Which container is sustainable? Neither! Both containers have a net negative impact on the environment.
Okay, well which container comes closest to being sustainable? With the data we have reviewed, no clear winner. The beginning of the lifecycle of the aluminum can (mining of bauxite, smelting of aluminum) has a larger impact than glass. But later in their lifecycles, the glass bottle has the larger impact (heavier to transport and more difficult to recycle). At the end of the day it’s possible they even out. The best container is the one that ends up in the recycling bin. Both aluminum and glass can be recycled an infinite number of times and doing so has many benefits: - Reducing impact from mining virgin material (The mining of bauxite for aluminum is highly toxic to the land due to the chemicals used in the process. The mining of the materials needed to make glass is also destructive, but less so). - Reducing energy required to melt virgin material (melting recycled material requires less heat: Recycled aluminum uses 95% less energy and recycled glass uses 30% less energy.) Improving the U.S. economy - Americans landfill $2 billion worth of aluminum every year! - Create more jobs (recycling offers jobs in the U.S. while mining occurs outside the U.S.) But I thought cans are more sustainable because they are lighter to ship? It is true that the transportation of cans, since being lighter and stacking better, requires less fuel and is therefore more ecofriendly than the transportation of bottles. However, this is only one little segment of the entire lifecycle of the container and not enough info to make a verdict. It would be like saying, “Well, I got an ‘A’ in my freshman history class, so that means I graduated college with a 4.0 GPA.” We wish! But remember, we also had calculus classes and biochemistry and perhaps the occasional hangover, and so most of us didn’t achieve A’s throughout the lifecycle of our college career. Just like our GPA depends on several steps throughout our college life, the sustainability of one container or another depends on the many steps throughout its own lifecycle (from mining all the way to disposal). But I thought glass bottles were more sustainable because the mining of bauxite to make aluminum was so destructive and toxic? The same notions apply here as to the question above. Yes, mining of bauxite has giant ecological impacts that are arguably greater than those of mining sand for glass. But, again, it’s only one segment of the story.
What can beer drinkers do to make a meaningful difference? - Recycle your cans and bottles. - If you are at a bar or restaurant that doesn’t offer recycling, encourage them to do so. If they don’t know where to start, tell them they can find recycling facilities here: http://earth911.com/ or request a meeting with their local waste hauler. - Little nerd note: Glass is difficult to pull out at a sorting facility, so throwing it in your commingled bin doesn’t ensures it will be recycled. Implementing a glass-only recycling bin will give the glass the best chance of being recycled. And, of course, the glass needs to stay glass-only until it reaches the recycler! How can my love for drinking beer have the absolute lowest impact today? Drink draft beer out of a reusable cup. What is New Belgium Brewing doing to make a difference? - Conducting and commissioning studies that help us to better understand the environmental impact of our beverage containers and our opportunities to improve it. A greenhouse gas (GHG) study was commissioned in 2011 comparing the GHG emissions of the two containers. ALWAYS KEEP IN MIND that GHG emissions are ONLY ONE part of the story. Not considered in this study are toxicity, water quality and quantity, biodiversity, human health and total ecosystem health. The results of this study, while important to know, are not an absolute verdict on these packages, only a segment of the story. The results of the study showed aluminum cans having fewer GHG emissions than glass bottles. However, the main contributor to this difference was the fact that factories melting glass are getting their power from fossil fuels (high GHG emissions) and factories smelting the aluminum are strategically sourcing their power from hydro (which requires reservoirs & dams, but avoids the GHG emissions from fossil fuels). Of course, hydro power looks great through the lens of GHG emissions. However, generating hydro power requires rivers to be diverted and dammed – a process that has severe ecological effects not accounted for in GHG emissions studies and a process that New Belgium has actively opposed in Colorado and throughout the U.S. - Decreasing the weight of our bottles, therefore reducing resource consumption and the impact of bottle transportation. - We are helping to lead an industry-wide effort initiated by Alcoa (Aluminum Company of America) to increase recycling of consumer packaging and printed materials 20% by 2015. This is a HUGE step. - Through our participation in Future500, we are monitoring potential legislation around packaging called Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), a strategy that “uses financial incentives to encourage manufacturers to design environmentally-friendly products by holding producers responsible for the costs of managing their products at end of life.” - Striving for strokes of genius that will land a revolutionary packaging idea into our laps!
Your friends, -the NBB Team Sustainability PS: Check back next month for our thoughts on BPA
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Thursday, April 12, 2012
The USA Pro Cycling Challenge and New Belgium Brewing are teaming up! We're going to be the official beer sponsor, and that is super awesome. The news was announced this morning, we have signed on for this year's race, as well as the 2013 edition. With the new brewery announcement, the release of Shift beer, and now this great news, it is shaping up to be an amazing summer! We will be on the road with the race, keeping all the fan's thirsts quenched, as well as preaching the good word of American Craft Beer and bicycles! The Pro Cycling Challenge is August 20-26, 2012. It is the biggest stage race in the US and covers some of the boldest terrain in the world. For full course details I will direct you to UPCC's official website (linked above), but I do want to mention the two stages that will be highlights for me: stages 3 and 4. Stage 3 is taking the riders from Gunnison to Aspen. The Queen Stage, the road to Aspen climbs up and over Cottonwood Pass, which tops out at 12,126 feet and features a 14 mile dirt road climb to the summit. And as if that wasn't brutal enough, the course designers follow up Cottonwood with Independence Pass, yet another trip up into 12,000 foot elevations on the same day. At 131 miles, and featuring two of the highest climbs in professional cycling, stage 3 promises to be a defining moment in the race. And then the next day, stage 4, Aspen to Beaver Creek, which heads up and over Independence pass again, two days in a row, both directions, very ouch... I am excited to park myself on Independence Pass for a couple days and watch the race come through (twice). This is a really big deal for Colorado race fans (and the all the out-of-staters that will be joining us hill-side). I will be getting up there early, painting my face and probably taking my shirt off to really enjoy the high elevations, steep roads and all the skinny guys in tight shorts riding uphill. I can also assume that some Shift Beer will be consumed on that hill, just saying... But other than a shirtless blogger and a few Shift Beers what is New Belgium bringing to the race? Well, a beer garden for one. The roving beer garden will set up daily in the finishing town. The beer garden at large scale cycling events is a virtual who's who of beer drinking-bike riders. It should be a real hoot. And then we are bringing our philanthropic ways as well. We will be teaming up with NPO's through the course of the race (ha, a pun) to raise money and awareness for local bicycle advocacy and environmental causes. To paraphrase the immortal Captain Ballyhoo: normally when you drink beer on the side of a road you're a philanderer, but during the USA Pro Cycling Challenge, you will be a philanthropist! And for those race fans outside of Colorado, unable to make the trip for the Pro Cycling Challenge, our local Beer Rangers in your communities will be hosting viewing parties and general Bike-Race-Shenanigans throughout the week in our ever-growing distribution areas. This is not all the details, as some things still need to be hammered out, but I wanted to give you a heads up on this exciting sponsorship. And I wanted to start building some real excitement about "America's Race," because we are very excited to be part of it. So get ready race fans, this is going to be one great summer! _JUICEBOX
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Thursday, April 05, 2012
New Belgium Brewing is happy to announce that Asheville, North Carolina will be the site for our east coast brewery! This news comes to you directly at 2:15 MST Thursday, April 5, 2012 (ish). This afternoon was the press conference with Governor Bev Perdue, NBB CEO Kim Jordan and the rest of our site selection team. The event was hosted at the Asheville Chamber of Commerce . The future brewery sits on 17.5 acres of a brownfield site and we are looking to break ground in the first quarter of 2013. On that schedule the brewery should be up and operational for the first quarter of 2015. We are looking to open with a 150,000 square-foot facility and a planned annual brewing capacity of 400,000 barrels. Room for growth in the ensuing years has been planned for, and the brewery will be open to the public with a tasting room and tours. The plan is to hire 50 co-workers for the opening, with an expected growth of 20 new co-workers per year for the first 5 years of operation. We couldn't be more excited about this. We picked Asheville for our second brewery because it has everything we have been looking for. The city, the natural resources, the beer culture, everything about it seemed to be a perfect fit. We are looking forward to being a part of Asheville and we are excited to see how Asheville shapes our future. See you in North Carolina! -Juicebox
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Monday, April 02, 2012
 16oz cans of Shift Beer are taking over the world! Or, at least, I hope they do, because this beer is awesome. April 2 is the official release of Shift (that's today!!!!!), it's packaged in 16oz cans only, and should be available through our entire distribution area as of right now. This is a pale lager, light bodied, but full flavored, 5% ABV. Shift is a session beer, lightly hopped with Nelson Sauvins from New Zealand, and while being a hop forward lager, this beer is very drinkable, no matter your tastes in beer.
I have been talking a little about Shift in recent weeks, here on the blog, and on the ol' Facebook, you know, building a buzz, getting the facts out to you as they become available. And finally, today, I can tell you that Shift is on your shelves and ready for the drinking. But before you head out into this wide, wide world looking for it, let me give you the full run down for Shift. I want to give you all the information you need to successfully find these big cans of beer and enjoy them to their fullest potential. First, lets talk about the can, it's 16oz's– a tall boy, pounder, pint can, el gigante, or, as I like to call it –> the perfect sized beer. Fat Tire, in 12oz cans, has been around since the summer of '08, and we have added Sunshine and Ranger IPA since, and craft beer cans (generally) have been around even longer. Our can production has been blowing up since we started offering them, and in just four years we outgrew the capacity of our original line. We started looking for a shiny new line last year. The new one we decided on fills lots of 12oz cans per minute, way more than the old line, but we found out pretty quickly that it also filled 16oz cans. So we did what anyone in this position would do, we decided to put beer into those bigger cans. And then we took it one step further, we decided to brew a beer that would fit so well into that bigger sized package it would be exclusive to it. Hence... Shift Beer in 16oz cans only! Boom! The big cans are great for more than just increasing your drinking efficiency, they also make your hands look dainty and cute, and who doesn't need a little of that in their life? And then on to the total package. This is a canned-up, crazy, craft world we live in and there are some folks still having a difficult time deciding which package is best for their beer: cans, kegs, or bottles. Decisions are hard, but the good news is that this decision has no "wrong" answer. All beer packages are good, and none is really better than another. Some folks (like me) prefer their beer in cans, which makes this Shift release all the sweeter, some don't. We created a decision map full of information relavant to your beer package choices. I hope it helps guide your decision: 
But wait, there's more! In conjunction with Shift's release we have created a new mobile app for your smart phone! This is exciting on several fronts. First, the highlights of the New Belgium/Shift App: You can set your clock-out alarm as a "work is done" reminder and then the post-shift Shift drinking can begin. You can use the New Belgium/Shift app to share photos of you and your cohorts enjoying some cans of Shift. And you can share a Shift with your pals on the social networks. You can even use the app to locate a can of Shift. This last one is super terrific. The app reads your location (via your phone's GPS), and then reads our Beer Finder data, and then gives you a lead on your closest package stores and bars serving up these tall cans of awesome! Geo-locating... Who would've thought it would help you find beer? Am I right? The other awesome part of this app is that it auto-updates. So when new parts of the app or totally new and awesome things for the app are released in the future, say a new Ranger campaign, the app updates and morphs into the new app without you having to go back into the app store and download a different app. Oh, and it's free! So that's great too. We have made this app for iPhones and for Androids, so head on into your respective app getting places and download the fun. And then there's this, which is awesome too. 
That is the ad, featured in magazines on every level of the news stand's shelf. And like all of our advertisements it is, in fact, a 3-D thing. That time clock, and typewriter (and everything else) are screwed directly to the giant green board. It stands 6 feet (at least) with a 4 foot breadth, it's gigantic. I bet the Shift piece is the biggest shadow box, 3-D advertisement we've built to date. The other awesome thing about the ad is the hidden hashtag. I am a Twitter nerd, I love hashtags. If you don't know what a hashtag is ask one of your friends that's into Twitter, they'll tell you. But find the hidden hashtag and then jump in on this #ShiftBeer conversation. It will be a hoot! And then finally, Pandora. Who doesn't listen to Pandora? I listen mostly at work. Now there is a Shift Beer station for work, here's the link ––> Shift Work-Time Radio. The Shift Work station is full of tunes to keep you working and accomplishing during your clocked in time. But after work you want party music. So we made an after work station for Shift listening too. Here is that link ––> Shift Party-Time Radio. This post work, party time Shift station will keep the fun turned to 11. So tune in and don't forget to turn it up, like real loud... And that is everything you should need to Shift it up. Get after it, make good turns and good luck. XOXO, Juicebox
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Tuesday, March 27, 2012
I was walking around the office today, killing time, and I kept noticing beer bottles on everybody's desks. Collector's pieces to a certain degree. Only some of these beers were New Belgium's own. In the beer business you drink some beer, and while our beer is fantastic, and available, one is bound to develop favorites outside of one's own portfolio. So I started snapping pictures of the bottles I found. Here is the photo study. Most are empty, some are full, either way, enjoyment was had... 
Hope you liked the photo study and I hope you enjoyed the beer selection. And lastly, what beer bottles would you want (or already have) on your desk? Hugs, JUICEBOX
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