Fort Collins: cradle of craft beer?
Tim and I moved to Fort Collins in 2012 after traveling the world for 20+ years and set our minds and hands to work creating Horse & Dragon Brewing Company. Even my family, which has a long history in Fort Collins, and my parents — who presumably would be eager to see us move back, though the jury’s out on that — asked why on earth we would open another craft brewery in Fort Collins. “With 12 of them already doing business here, where is there room for you?” we were repeatedly asked.
It wasn’t just because we wanted to be lucky #13. There are a multitude of reasons why experiencing craft in Fort Collins – for both consumer and brewer — is uniquely wonderful. Mind you, I’m not knocking the many other places we’ve had a fantastic experience in a brewery’s taproom and in the city that hosts it, and a whole heckuvalot of those are in Colorado. But here are some of the reasons why Fort Collins is a pretty special craft beer mecca:
1. Biggies who laid the groundwork and led the way. Home to craft giant New Belgium Brewing, hometown favorite Odell Brewing Company, and local brewpub and Old Town cornerstone business Coopersmith’s, all of which starting forging the way into the craft beer business in 1989-1991, Fort Collins has learned over the past almost-27 years how to embrace craft beer. Consumers have well-educated palates and are adventurous beer drinkers thanks to the efforts of these three to introduce us all to the ever-changing and full tastes that craft provides. These three have also been the very models of the cooperation and support for which brewing is so well known. Innovations in processes and resource-saving efficiencies are shared. BreWater, a group comprised of members from almost every brewery in town and with the specific mission of educating ourselves and protecting the quality of beer’s most important resource, meets quarterly and members from smaller breweries in town are constantly benefiting from the knowledge, research, and efforts of the bigger ones. When we were in our planning stages, Tim received a phone call out of the blue from Doug Odell, offering Tim a tour and any help or castoffs we might be able to use. NBB’s sustainability department reaches out regularly to breweries large and small. Coopersmith’s routinely hosts meetings and events for the craft beer and bar/restaurant community. And all of us can be found gathering at one of these three locations for some great beer sampling and camaraderie.
2. A community and terrain with fantastic other options for the local and beercationer alike. I’ll get more into the local craft drinker’s approach in #4, but let me mention the beercation thing here. We have maps (CO, US, and world) on walls in our taproom, and when folks are clearly in from out of town we ask them to put a sticker on their hometowns. Within 3 months of opening, we had hundreds of stickers dotting the maps, including ones on Australia, China, and throughout Europe. These people weren’t coming here for Horse & Dragon – though we hope we are making our mark, our name wasn’t yet out there, we’re off the beaten path, and we were surely not a destination. They were coming here for a great, outdoorsy, small-town-feeling place but big-city infrastructure with friendly locals, mountains and river at hand, terrain that’s easy to bike over and weather that cooperates — and usually with one of those original 3 craft breweries on their minds. As one of 4 platinum Bicycle Friendly Communities in the U.S., Fort Collins’ bike paths and biking infrastructure provides an easy way for the fitness buff and the novice to explore the city and surrounds (and its many restaurants and breweries). Within a few flat miles of each other, there are many different breweries and fresh beers to experience. With the officially Wild & Scenic Cache la Poudre river running through town and nearby Horsetooth Reservoir, Colorado’s great outdoors beckons and is immediately accessible. I’d vacation here if I didn’t live here. (Actually, come to think of it, we do vacation here, every day.)
3. And about that river… Since I’m mentioning the Poudre River, I’ll say that the water supply here is as good as it gets. You don’t have to take my word for it – give the water treatment plants a call and ask for a tour, or take a hike through the hills that supply it. For a town of over 100,000 to have access to a pristine and undeveloped watershed is remarkable, and noticeable to every (commercial and home-) brewer.
4. Businesses and consumers that support craft culture. People here know their beer. There’s a decent amount of pressure on all of us not just to brew, but to create great craft offerings. Two of Colorado’s three “Top 100 Beer Bars in the U.S.” (as per Draft Magazine 2013 and 2014) are located in Fort Collins. Each of them promotes craft and provides multiple taps (in one case 100, in one case 74) for fresh tasty craft beer. While they are at the top of their game in terms of beer knowledge and supply, the other outlets around town are no slouches. There’s a sports bar with 40 taps and bartenders who can describe and opine about the beer pouring off of each. A favorite pinball arcade has 12 taps. Restaurants, from the super-fine to the drop-in-and-dine, offer great craft beer on tap. When we first moved back, I griped to Tim as we walked over to the closest bar/restaurant to our new home when taking a break from hauling and opening boxes. “How can it be that we didn’t check out the closest bar when we looked for houses? We’re here to start the brewery we’ve been dreaming about for 20 years. This place is called Café VINO. It’s just wrong!” 20 taps met us as we sidled up to the bar. All served up fine craft offerings, several of of them local. My kind of town.
Many restaurants in town are willing to give new beers and breweries a try, at least on a rotator tap every now and then. And the best part is – consumers support and even demand this. The first time we sold a keg to a certain local shop we stepped in for lunch. Our beer wasn’t on the menu, there were no table tents or chalkboards proclaiming its existence, the taps were in the kitchen beyond a swinging door, and the waitstaff said nothing about beers on tap. I murmured to Tim that they were never ever going to blow the keg. While we sat there, 2 different tables of diners asked if the shop had a rotator and what was on it. A few days later, we were returning to retrieve an empty keg. 3 cheers for craft beer drinkers – and for the quality and variety that this expertise and willingness to try new things creates in the Fort Collins market.
5. Everyone has a different model and, of course, different beers. From the brewpub to the strictly retail to the manufacturer/distributor, each of the now-16 craft breweries in Fort Collins has a slightly different take on how to get great craft beer onto the tongues of beer drinkers. There’s room for us all to operate, and each of us provides a different experience. And when someone asks if we’re worried that “all the styles have been done already,” I have to smile. Anyone who brews or even read about malts, hops, and yeast has an idea of the number of permutations that go in to that beer we’re enjoying – each one yielding a slightly different sensory experience.
If you’re here already, take a moment and celebrate that fact. If you’re not – we’d all welcome you with open arms. Come enjoy the Choice City and the many craft breweries that have chosen it as home.
Carol Cochran owns Horse & Dragon Brewing Company in Fort Collins, CO with her husband Tim. Horse & Dragon opened in May of 2014, after 20 years in the “one-day” stage, and 16 months of intense planning, construction, and 3-hour sleeps now and then. Pre-H&D, Carol worked in development and event planning and lived in Asia, South America, and Wisconsin – always returning to visit family, mountains, and craft beer in Fort Collins and dreaming about the “one day”. She’s happy one day has arrived.
