Fat Tire - New Belgium ditches classic recipe

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DoctorDuvel

DoctorDuvel

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I just found out last night that the Fat Tire recipe has been switched out for something almost completely different (beginning last month -Jan.). I just got a few 6packs of the old stuff recently after not having one in many years, and really enjoyed it, and was thinking I'm glad they at least didn't get rid of this one lol. Well, now all of their old beers are gone, unless you count Voodoo IPA as "old". I haven't tried the new Fat Tire, but from what people are saying, mostly it's not good, is like a cheap lager. It's not odd enough that all of their IPAs are rather same-ish, but they had to go and deflate their flagship. Weird decisions over there. Oh well, good thing we can make better beer at home.
 
DoctorDuvel said:
I haven't tried the new Fat Tire, [...]
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I had one recently as part of a mix-six (new label, "enjoy by" date indicated it was fresh, taste agreed it was fresh). It's been a while since I had the 'old' recipe Fat Tire, so no attempt at a side-by-side comparison will be made.

To me, it was a light, easy drinking 'amber'; definitely not a bitter WCIPA or a NEIPA hop bomb. When I'm looking for a lighter, easy drinking 'amber', it's on my list of beers to consider.
 
I thought the original was easy enough. The problem is trying to appease the "younger crowd", even though I was once the younger crowd and loved the original. I think they've even stopped calling it an amber. I'll try it eventually, but as many have already said, why not just create a new beer than change the beer that built you. Anyway, not worried about it lol..just talking
 
Too bad, Fat Tire was my go-to beer on tap at my favorite pub when I wasn't feeling a PBR or a Yuengling's....
But now I have an excuse to make my own clone version.....
It looks like they changed the label on the new version, I'm going to get the older stuff if I can find it and then compare my clone to the old and new versions.
 
Fat Tire was my “gateway” into craft beer in 1999 when I was stationed in Colorado. Fat Tire and Breckinridge’s Avalanche, but Fat Tire first. Whenever we could afford it, we passed by the Busch Lite to grab a 6 pack.

Fat Tire was my favorite beer hands down for at least 10 years, and the reason I decided to try home brewing for the first time after I left the Army.

It’s a shame that they’d destroy a classic. Ditching 1554 hit me hard as well. That was another I absolutely loved. It came later, but was a staple of my return visits.
 
Airborneguy said:
Fat Tire was my “gateway” into craft beer in 1999 when I was stationed in Colorado. Fat Tire and Breckinridge’s Avalanche, but Fat Tire first. Whenever we could afford it, we passed by the Busch Lite to grab a 6 pack.

Fat Tire was my favorite beer hands down for at least 10 years, and the reason I decided to try home brewing for the first time after I left the Army.

It’s a shame that they’d destroy a classic. Ditching 1554 hit me hard as well. That was another I absolutely loved. It came later, but was a staple of my return visits
Click to expand...
 
I used to like Fat Tire, when I lived in Chicago. I have been back in Canada for years so I haven't had one in a while.
Maybe it's like the "New Coke" thing a marketing stunt - they'll bring it back so people will want the old classic again
(or maybe not)
 
I wonder if it’s an attempt to conform more to current tastes. I see even Sam Adams has “remastered” their Boston lager.
 
I don’t think I’ve had the new version yet. I noticed a difference immediately when they started brewing for the east coast. I don’t think that was a different recipe, just a result of the new brewing facility.
 
Airborneguy said:
Fat Tire was my “gateway” into craft beer in 1999 when I was stationed in Colorado. Fat Tire and Breckinridge’s Avalanche, but Fat Tire first. Whenever we could afford it, we passed by the Busch Lite to grab a 6 pack.

Fat Tire was my favorite beer hands down for at least 10 years, and the reason I decided to try home brewing for the first time after I left the Army.

It’s a shame that they’d destroy a classic. Ditching 1554 hit me hard as well. That was another I absolutely loved. It came later, but was a staple of my return visits.
Click to expand...
Fat Tire was one of the first bottled craft beers that I loved (i discovered craft in a brew pub). New Belgium made so many great, unique and classy beers, and i think they were at their peak (creatively) when they were adding a rotation of seasonals like the mentioned Snowday, so late 2000s/2010's era - buying their beer was automatic. And they had those beautiful labels, replaced by generic computer graphics! Lost their soul, replaced by the marketing department lol
 
rmr9 said:
I wonder if it’s an attempt to conform more to current tastes. I see even Sam Adams has “remastered” their Boston lager.
Click to expand...
Yes, that's essentially what they said they're doing. I wonder if "current tastes" is something of a feedback loop. Constant catering to this taste to people who don't know of anything different but might enjoy other tastes if exposed to it? - kind of what craft beer used to do. Well it still does i think (especially brewpubs/taprooms), just not the big breweries so much.
 
FWIW: BYO Magazine (Dec 2010) has an article with New Belgium clone recipes (including Fat Tire and 1554; but not Snowday). BYO also has a "Big Book of Clone Recipes" book which includes Fat Tire and 1554. It's likely that the cloud recipes sites have these two recipes (unmodified) as well.
 
BrewnWKopperKat said:
FWIW: BYO Magazine (Dec 2010) has an article with New Belgium clone recipes (including Fat Tire and 1554; but not Snowday). BYO also has a "Big Book of Clone Recipes" book which includes Fat Tire and 1554. It's likely that the cloud recipes sites have these two recipes (unmodified) as well.
Click to expand...

I’m going to put a 1554 clone on my list for May. Gotta look this one up.
 
Moderator's note:
The last 5 posts were deleted because they were of political nature or replies to them.
Political discussion is not allowed outside our (supporters only) Debate forum.

However, you can discuss the quality of the beer, or lack thereof, as much as you like, here.
 
wdavis2003 said:
They said they changed the recipe, more or less, to appease to the low cal crowd.
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That seems weird. Why not just come out with a low cal beer for the low cal crowd. Trying to get the younguns to try a new version of something that they've already decided is too heavy is probably going to be a harder lift than marketing a new variety geared specifically to their taste. They didn't stop making Budweiser and Miller when they brought out the light versions.

Maybe it'll turn into a new coke / old coke thing, but I don't suppose the gen z crowd would even get the reference.
 
I am another one who made the move to craft beer because of Fat Tire. I was living in New Mexico but frequently went to Ft. Collins CO for work. Spent quite a bit of time in the New Belgium tasting room over the years. You used to be able to get a free flight of 4 beers daily. 1554 became one of my favorite beers and was a regular purchase, and inspired my most popular homebrew recipe. I moved back to Ohio before they opened the East Coast brewery so moved away from New Belgium products. At Christmas this year bought a 24 sampler pack because it had 1554 in it and I hadn't had one in maybe 10 years. The 1554 was good but not nearly as good as I remembered. I chalked it up to changing tastes but it would seem maybe it is a changed recipe as well. I have enjoyed the Fat Tires in the sampler, although I am thinking they were pre-change bottles. I have greatly enjoyed the other offerings from this sampler so nothing negative about New Belgium. Businesses are businesses. They have to constantly change and adapt. I don't think they would be making such a significant switch unless they thought it was a good business decision. Maybe they were seeing declining sales so knew they needed to switch things up a bit. I will continue to brew my 1554 inspired brew every year and enjoy it, and if I am somewhere where a New Belgium beer is available and it tickles my fancy, I will still happily buy them and drink them.
 
Bought a 12-pack in new packaging a week ago. Knew instantly when I poured it was different/lighter. Taste was bland. Actually took it back to store & exchanged for an older box in blue & red. I always look for freshness dates; hard to see on dark blue front of box. All the old ones I’ve seen have a March 2023 best-by date. Fat Tire (usually with a 20-30% splash of stout) has been my go-to for a couple years since a VW project car crowded out my garage brewing. Very disappointed if the old Fat Tire is going away!
Good news tho, project car I see almost ready to drive & I can go back to making 10-gallon batches. Beats paying $20+ for a dozen too!
 

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BrewnWKopperKat said:
FWIW: BYO Magazine (Dec 2010) has an article with New Belgium clone recipes (including Fat Tire and 1554; but not Snowday). BYO also has a "Big Book of Clone Recipes" book which includes Fat Tire and 1554. It's likely that the cloud recipes sites have these two recipes (unmodified) as well.
Click to expand...
I got that book as a gift last year and it has some really good recipes. I use it often to see what other breweries do when I'm coming up with my own recipe.
 
Count me in as another where Fat Tire was a staple craft brew. My dad would always come back from Colorado with a trunk filled with cases of the stuff. Only lasted a month or two, but it was always a good month to be at home. Between Fat Tire and Summit, they were my intro into some really good beers.

I'm not sure if this is true, as I haven't been able to confirm it, but up until the mid 2000s Summit Brewery in MN and New Belgium had a pact where they wouldn't sell in each other's home state. So we would always bring cases of Summit EPA for my uncle in Colorado when we went and brought back cases of Fat Tire on the return trip.
 
I always thought it was kind of a gateway drug to craft beer. I guess that changed because craft beer seems to be skewed pretty heavily to Hazy IPA and fruit sours these days - so maybe the gateway needed to be different
 
I picked up a 12 pack of the old version and new version for fun. I was quite disappointed in the old version, it's completely different than what I remember and it's not even amber anymore. No biscuit at all. It's not that much different than the new one to be honest. They are both essentially overpriced blonde ales trying to be a craft lager. Seems like another one swallowed up by a large brewery and then homogenized into boring beer.
 
Here’s a thought. I notice three different Voodoos in the deli beer case today that caught my attention then saw this thread. I recall drinking fat tire when there wasn’t many craft beer choices. But it’s been a very long time since I had one. Probably since there have been an explosion of choices including local beers I prefer to try. I have a few older go tos like Sierra Nevada and Dog fish, and add Blue Point [local here that made the big time]. While Fat Tire certainly was a fine beer and is nostalgic for me, I just sorta moved on without it. The market has gotten very crowded and if you aren’t growing you gotta find ways to redeploy your assets. Look at how Bud has expanded way beyond its core to meet the changing demands.
 
Pennine said:
I picked up a 12 pack of the old version and new version for fun. I was quite disappointed in the old version, it's completely different than what I remember and it's not even amber anymore. No biscuit at all. It's not that much different than the new one to be honest. They are both essentially overpriced blonde ales trying to be a craft lager. Seems like another one swallowed up by a large brewery and then homogenized into boring beer.
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That’s funny you say there was no biscuit. I had one on tap a few months ago after not drinking Fat Tire for years.
I thought the same thing…no biscuity bready thing that I always associated (and loved) with the beer. I just figured it had sat in the keg for too long.

Does anyone remember New Belgium Shift lager? I remember it as being a tasty session lager.
 
Here are a couple of additional links on 'clone' recipes for 1554. /1/ /2/ /3/.

The NB page for 1554 /3/ includes some additional information:
1554 defies the style guidelines of modern beer. Although dark in color, 1554 is not a porter, stout, schwarzbier or bock. Rather, it is a rebirth of a lost beer style called zwert (Flemish for black), which uses gruit for bittering. The oldest reference to zwert beer comes from 1285. However, our brewing inspiration came from a book published in 1554, which was the height of popularity for zwertbeer. First released in 1998, our whimsical improvisation includes a variety of specialty dark malts, a dash of licorice root, and a European lager yeast that’s fermented at ale temperatures.
Click to expand...
 
When I buy Fat Tire, I expect it to be the same beer that it used to be. For those of us who don't keep up with the recipe changes, I feel that the breweries should either give the new version a new name or make it clear on the packaging that it has been changed. Otherwise, it's a bait-and-switch.
 
wdavis2003 said:
I saw a news report about this a few days ago. They said they changed the recipe, more or less, to appease to the low cal crowd. They are aiming to reach that gen z group.. or is it millennials? Hell I don't know anymore
Click to expand...
Too bad they just didn’t come up with an entirely new recipe to market to that demographic and have the integrity to keep Fat Tire as is. JMO.
 

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