KOTBR #23 New Belgium Brewery

This Roundtable featured 4 beers by New Belgium Brewing Company - 1554, Abbey, Trippel, and Fat Tire - stemming from an earlier review of Fat Tire that left us less than impressed and we thought it deserved a second chance.

While we felt a little better about Fat Tire this go-around, we still weren't necessarily moved by it.
Overall: 2 Mugs
Jim: 2.5, Chris: 2, Gina: 2, Mike: 1.5

Our favorite of the four was originally based on a Belgian recipe dating back to, well, 1554. This ale is very drinkable, tasting dry and chocolaty with a very light mouth feel.
Overall: 3.68 Mugs
Chris: 4, Jim: 3.75, Mike: 3.5, Gina: 3.5

The Trippel had the highest ABV of the four we tried (7.8%) and carried notes of grape, apple, and plum.
Overall: 3.12 Mugs
Jim: 3.5, Mike: 3, Chris: 3, Gina: 3

The Abbey was all bananas with a light mouth feel.
Overall: 2.75 Mugs
Mike: 3, Gina: 3, Chris: 2.5, Jim: 2.5

Though we may prefer to buy something more local, we can definitely support New Belgium's environmentally-friendly practices, beautiful artwork, and love for beer. We would definitely stop by if we're in the area.

Last one to post is a rotten egg!!

OK, so I know I'm like a week and a half late to the dance. So I'll keep it brief. My apologies to my fellow Knights for holding up the party, and my thanks to Mike and Gina for hosting me that week and a half ago at the New Belgium roundtable.

Let's just cut to the chase:

1554 - 4 mugs. Had a light mouthfeel, and a hint of wheat & chocolate in the nose. Coming in at 5.6%, it's not that potent, but I could drink a lot of them, and that would be potent.

Abbey - 2.5 mugs. It had a typical Belgian fruity nose, with some plum and banana. Even a bit of a banana aftertaste. It's at 7.0%, which is good, but I just don't fruit the beer that much.

Tripple - 3 mugs. It was fresher than the Abbey, with hints of grapes and apple in the nose and on the tongue. It had a light to medium mouthfeel, and coming in at a big 7.8%, it was certainly drinkable.

Fat Tire - 2 mugs. I know some of you swear by this stuff, but it's just not that good. Maybe, if this is all you have, it could pass for a 3 mugger, but once it's stacked against any competition, the Fat Tire goes flat. I didn't hate it as much as our last time, but there still wasn't anything good about this. It was like Bud Light Plus - I couldn't even pick out a nose or a taste on this.

I'll do better next time ;) Maybe I'll just bring my laptop with me to Deano's on Thursday since Fountain Square is now wi-fi.

Windmill-Powered Beer | New Belgium Roundtable @ Mike & Gina's

While our review of New Belgium Brewery beers didn't have us jumping out of our chairs in amazement over the ales that we tried, I would be remiss if I didn't give New Belgium a lot of credit for its business practices. The company is completely employee-owned. What's more, New Belgium places a heavy emphasis on being environmentally-friendly in all that it does. Quite a business model that is.

Still, we sampled some decent beers at this roundtable. On with the review...

1554. I agree with Mike and Gina that this was the best New Belgium beer we sampled. I found that this black ale really agreed with me, with its dry, slightly chocolaty flavor. For a darker beer, it has an amazingly light mouthfeel. Very, very drinkable. Not quite as good as Brugge Brasserie's The Black, but a completely reasonable substitute. 3.75 mugs.

Fat Tire. Better than it tasted in our initial review (in which it was universally panned), but still not an outstanding beer. The nutty notes in Fat Tire's flavor are unique, but just are not my thing. Nonetheless, I'm willing to cut Fat Tire a little slack due to its devoted following west of the Mississippi. 2.5 mugs.

Abbey. This mahogany-colored dubbel is best described as a banana explosion. The nose, the taste--all banana, banana, and more banana. I like bananas, but you know the old saying about too much of a good thing. 2.5 mugs.

Trippel. A blond-hued trippel with apple and plum notes in the nose. Crisp, hoppy, with a medium mouthfeel. The highest octaine of the beers that we tasted at 7.8% ABV. A fine sipping ale. 3.5 mugs.

I join my colleagues in thanking Jason Burk for joining us. He provided a great perspective to the review and contributed to our ever-expanding beer knowledge.

New Belgium

Thanks to all who joined us for the New Belgium tasting. I hope you all had a good time. Special thanks to Jason B. for joining us and providing interesting insight to brewing and New Belgium.

Wholly, I think New Belgium Brewery has a good line of beers. I think those newly interested in drinking better beers should seek out this brewery. The flavors were distinguishable but not overpowering and I think they would serve as a great primer to something more complex.

Individually, I felt that the 1554 was the best of the four we tried and I'll give it 3.5 mugs. The mouth feel was much lighter than I expected, but the taste was good.

I felt that both the Trippel and The Abbey were worthy of 3 mugs. The Abbey smelled like banana nail polish remover and was better when it was warmer than the suggested temperature. The Trippel had a smell more reminiscent of Delirium Tremens and a much, much lighter body.

Finally, I thought the Fat Tire deserved 2 mugs. Drinking it now, I think the nose is barely there and the beer has little taste. But, I remember the first time I tried it (when my palette was conditioned with Big Brother beer) and thought it was very strong. I understand the popularity of Fat Tire and commend New Belgium for offering it.

Thanks also to Knight Jim and Knight Chris for providing the warm-up and cool-down beers.

As a side note...I'd also like to say that if I was picking beer on label alone, New Belgium would be tops. Their artwork is beautiful.

I think I prefer Old Indiana

For Roundtable 23, Knights Jim and Chris, along with Jason B., met Gina and myself at our house for a sampling of beers from New Belgium Brewery of Fort Collins, Colorado.

New Belgium is probably most famous for their Fat Tire Amber Ale - a beer not available in Indiana, yet still widely known by Hoosier drinkers. Gina and I had picked up the New Belgium beer on a recent trip to St. Louis, and then carefully (and under constant icey-cold temperature) transported them back to Indianapolis.

The beers for review were Fat Tire, 1554, Abbey, and Tripple. My personal goal for this meeting was to see if Fat Tire was deserving of its reputation, and to find out if New Belgium is doing better in its lesser known beer.

After warm ups from Brooklyn Brewery and Dogfish Head, we started with New Belgium's 1554 Enlightened Black Ale. It had a tiny malt nose, a dark reddish tea-like appearance, and very light lacing. A taste featured light chocolate notes, and at 5.6 ABV, the alcohol wasn't overwhelming. The overriding characteristic of this beer was its smoothness. It's an extremely drinkable beer - a good beer, but just good. 1554 gets a score of 3.5 mugs.

Back in June we visited Fat Tire by way of blind taste test, but felt that the beer may have been a bad batch. Although I didn't post a review on HBG then, I did post my thoughts on my personal blog - "diaper nose, can't believe they're selling this to people".

I'm happy to say that my feelings on Fat Tire are not as strong now - but they remain negative. Fat Tire has an orangey-apple juice appearance, medium lacing, and a weak sulfury malt nose. The taste reflects those same characteristics, thought it's not as bad as I remembered. It's not an offensive taste, but certainly nothing special. Just sort of blah. I'd give Fat Tire 1.5 mugs.

Next up was the Abbey Belgian Style Ale. It featured a fantastic Delirium Tremens like nose, but instead of Tremens apple taste, Abbey has a strong banana presence. This beer has a coke-colored appearance with slight lacing, and a banana and bubblegum taste, with strong alcohol notes - at 7.0 ABV, perhaps that shouldn't be a surprise. It's a very true to the Belgian style beers I've had previously, and gets better as it warms. But in the end, I've had much better beers in this style. I'd give the Abbey 3 mugs.

Our last choice from New Belgium was the Tripple Belgian Style Ale. It was not unlike the Abbey in having a fruity nose, though not nearly as strong. I picked up a slight malt note and a hint of apple that came through on the front once in my mouth. It was a very light with strong alcohol notes on the back, and a slight sourness. I'd give the Tripple a 3 mug rating as well.

All in all, I can't say that any of the New Belgium samples we had were bad beers - though Fat Tire barely crosses the line from undrinkable. These beers serve as fine samples of their respective styles, but none of them are really outstanding - and certainly not worthy of the hype. There's no reason to worry that you can't find these beers locally - you can find better choices in the products available in Indiana.