I mentally place them just below macro brewers and on our first stop of the tour they poured us a Dig PA and explained this point straight away.
Micro brewers are less than 15K barrels and craft brewers are under a couple/few million barrels (If I remember correctly). Both must be independently owned and this is probably the more important part and limiting factor because the trend is for macros to buy up micros now and attempt to gain that market.
Our tour guide told us that New Belgium is the third largest craft brewer (they are too big to be a micro now) and that they might become the second largest some day overtaking Sierra Nevada. They do not project to ever be as big as Sam Adams the largest craft brewer.
After looking at the size of this operation and realizing it is in the category of Sierra Nevada and Sam Adams on production and taking a closer look at their offerings and quality in the glass I walk away more impressed with them than I expected.
I don't think I'll return to being as big of a buyer of their product as I was years ago but all things considered they run an impressive operation as far as I'm concerned and we enjoyed all our samples from the nice profile of the Dig Pale, to the fresh off the bottling line and zesty Somersault, to the Belgian double, the lips of faith Farmhouse ale, to the oak aged brown sour. They were all interesting, tasty, and well... "good" beers.
The mash tuns were freaking beautiful. They have interior lights as well as viewing glass up top and we could see mashes in various states between doughing in to lautering. Stunning looking mash tuns...the most impressive of any brewery I've seen so far.
New Belgium has a core philosophy that is very evident in all you see here. They strongly believe in being stewards of the environment and use all sorts of solar, wind, and other green energy sources. But it's more than that in their internal culture... I'll sum it up by saying they appear to care about more aspects of life/business than just making money and walking around it there assures you it isn't just lip service. They operate on a philosophy that feels legit.
After that we realized we were pretty close to Left Hand brewing so we stopped into the tap house for a pint. I grabbed the nitro pour stout and it was fun watching them pour my glass. I had never watched a nitro pour done before and it's an interesting process. Several people managed to belly up to the bar after my beer was starting to get poured and they all got served beers and set on to drinking long before my beer was finished getting topped off many times atop the massive Guinness effect pours that would settle down to make room in the glass.
Super creamy goodness.
After that it was some very above average BBQ at The Rib House in Longmont. I've got to say that I'm not sure how or why this place ended up in Longmont in the awesome yet almost creepy Disneyland like neighborhood it's in. Seriously fantastic BBQ at this place and I can give it my highest recommendation.
All in all a fun day of beer and BBQ.
Good times. :)
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