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FACTS:
After 32 years New Belgium has changed their recipe and rebranded their flagship beer Fat Tire. Per New Belgium, the new beer is intended to be “crisper” and “brighter” in hopes of attracting a new generation of drinkers. In comparison, the new Fat Tire is more of a Golden Ale whereas the original fat Tire was an Amber Ale, now the label simply reads “Ale”. The ABV remains the same at 5.2% but the IBU’s have decreased from 22 to 15. They’re actually still using the same malt, yeast and a lot of the same brewing process.
Apparently, sales of the original Fat Tire have dropped over 52% in chain retail nationally since its peak in 2016, however their overall sales since 2016 are +58%. A huge part of that growth is from their Voodoo Ranger series, which makes up almost 80% of New Belgium’s volume in stores.
New Belgium states that in 2020 Fat Tire became America’s first certified carbon neutral beer and they are committed to be completely carbon neutral by 2030. Check out this link for all of the details on what they did to make it happen and what they are doing going forward: Drink Sustainably.
MY OPINION:
The original Fat Tire was pretty hard to beat. Although I didn’t drink it every day, when I would have it, I was always reminded of how good it was. I prefer Amber Ales anyway, but to me this is a completely different beer. I’m sure a drastic change like this was discussed thoroughly in company meetings, but why wouldn’t you just make a new beer and name it Fat Tire Golden (or something along those lines) and not completely get rid of the original?
Hopefully at some point they’ll brew the Amber again – even if it’s for a “limited time only” or a seasonal beer. I’m sure if they do there will be a lot of people that will go out and buy it because it’ll only be out for a limited time. (McRib anyone?)
This reminds me a lot of the “New Coke” that replaced the original Coke, back in the ’80’s, and so many people reacted negatively to it, that they had to go back to the original recipe. It’s the same scenario in that they replaced the original instead of just offering a new product in addition to the original.
SUMMARY:
I’m a huge fan of New Belgium and can say that I’ve been to both brewery locations (Ft. Collins, CO and Asheville, NC) and they are fantastic. Their story of how they started is pretty remarkable and the way they’ve grown to the size that they are is pretty impressive. Their 1554 Dark Lager, Accumulation and Voodoo Ranger series are all excellent, as well as many of their other beers.
Their dedication to climate change is impressive while still making high quality beer. I’m sure I will write about New Belgium again in the future as the more I was researching this info, the more I was impressed with this company. Here is their website: Home | New Belgium Brewing, you should check it out to learn more about them.
Since this site is about brewing beer at home why not try to make the original Fat Tire recipe yourself with a Fat Tire Clone Recipe Kit? You can get it in an Extract Recipe and an All Grain Recipe. Here are the links to the recipe kits. Extract: Fat Tire® Clone – Plump Wheel Amber (Extract) | MoreBeer. All Grain: Fat Tire® Clone – Plump Wheel Amber (All Grain) | MoreBeer. The links for other items you might need to brew each of these will be in each of these posts.
To read more of my blogs check out my Blogs page : Blogs – Home Beer Brewing Kits (homebeerbrewkits.com)
Cheers,
Scott
- Some information above was sourced from an article from the Denver Post: Check it out here: New Belgium Brewing revamps Fat Tire beer with new recipe, branding (denverpost.com) and from Good Beer Hunting: Check it out here: Running Flat — New Belgium’s Iconic Fat Tire Gets Full Makeover After Sales Tumble — Good Beer Hunting