Fort Collins

Hey guys,
My ol' lady and I are going to Ft. Collins for a few days. At least one of the days we were going to rent bicycles and make a tour of all the breweries we can.

Any must drink beers?
Which breweries do y'all like the best?

Thanks,

Jeremy

New Belgium Brewing Company, makers of Fat Tire Ale and some really great beers!

duboman said:

New Belgium Brewing Company, makers of Fat Tire Ale and some really great beers!

Click to expand...

+1
New Belgium brewery is great. They give a 90 min tour if I remember right but you have to reserve your spot ahead of time.

If you have to choose just three, then head over to Odell, New Belgium, and Equinox. Odell has my favorite overall lineup in town, particularly the IPA, Cutthroat porter, and the seasonal woodcut offering. New Belgium's beers aren't my favorite, but the tour is immensely popular and well worth your time (be sure to reserve your tour days or weeks in advance on NB's website -- they fill up fast!). Equinox is a homegrown brewery that makes consistently good beer served on CO2, from beer engines, and from firkins (Thursdays). The owners also own the LHBS next door, so if you like something, chances are you can get the recipe.

If you're still thirsty after those three, Funkwerks is very good for saisons. I really enjoy their Tropic King, which is brewed with several NZ hops and, if I recall right, Wyeast 3711.

Not a brewery, but worth a visit, is the Mayor of Old Town, which is a beer geek bar with 100 taps and an impressive list of bottles.

Thank you guys, we're meeting some friends that live there in town and I've already been told we're going to Mayor of Old Town. We're leaving Thursday so according to what y'all are saying we won't be making New Belgium, but personally I'm a bigger fan of the smaller breweries anyway.

Thanks again.

Wow, I am jealous of all of you that get to live in Fort Collins.

It was an interesting 3 day trip, I'm pretty sure we made all of the breweries. I really enjoyed Funkwerks (the belgian IPA is delicious), Odell and Equinox.

Sorry if i almost hit any of you on my bike.

Luckily for you, New Belgium, Odell, and Funkwerks are all more or less next door to each other and a very easy bike ride.

EDIT - Fort Collins Brewery is the third neighbor. Funkwerks is, I believe, just down the street.

I walked from Fort Collins Brewery to Odell at it took a couple minutes. They are extremely close. Funkwerks is just a couple blocks away. I highly recommend stopping in all three. Funkwerks is small but I always seem to have a great time and I love the beers. The staff is very friendly. Odell is a decent tour, especially if you go while the brewery is operational during the week (it's less exciting when everything is shut down). They will give you a free beer on the tour and if you are an AHA member, your membership card gets you a free tasting tray (or half off the pilot tray). Actually, if you have the membership, FCB will give you a discount. I forget if Funkwerks or NB do.

New Belgium is a lot of fun and the tour, even if you don't love their beers, is a great tour. It's long, you get to see a lot of good stuff and they give you lots of free beer on the tour. The downside is that the tours book up extremely fast. No walk-ins. However, there are usually good things to try on tap in the tap room.

I wasn't impressed with Equinox. I thought most of the beers were very bland for their style. I did really like the oatmeal stout though. I would definitely drink that again.

All the breweries are pretty much in the same neighborhood. Check out Funkwerks, Odells, and then Equinox.

If you want to check out more, put New Belgium after Equinox and Ft. Collins Brewery 1st. That's just for convenience's sake.

If you are interested in aged beers in different barrels/decent food check out the Black Bottle. It's out of the way and you can't bike on College. There have a long beer list though from out of town places, but is spendy $$-$$$.

If you first on a first Thursday of the month check out the Liquid Poets.

Edit: Did realize it was this old a post