New Belgium Celebrates 50,000th Batch

50,000 — it’s a big number, and, like all big numbers, when people reach them they tend to celebrate them. We just brewed our 50,000th batch of beer. It’s taken us 23 years to get to this point, and I think I speak for everyone here at New Belgium when I say we are pretty dang proud.

Above:  Rob added hops and salts to the kettle during our 50,000th brew (which just so happened to be Fat Tire).

Originally, every 10,000th batch of beer was celebrated by brewing Abbey Grand Cru for New Belgium coworkers; it’s a bigger, slightly boozier version of Abbey meant to be aged. We broke from tradition when we hit the 40,000 mark and made (what is now the very infamous) Cobra Horse. An imperial lager (aka malt liquor), Cobra Horse weighed in at 9 percent ABV. In the words of brewer Mike Cothran, "Cobra Horse is our production mascot if you will. He is half horse and half king cobra. A mythical creature that Bo Lytle (another brewer) created as his childhood mythical rock band. We adopted the name, and revel in it when hanging out together as a group."
 

I would just like to say (for the record) that Cobra Horse is bad a**.

Cothran and the rest of the brewing team changed things up yet again to celebrate brew number 50,000. They planned ahead for this one, brewing a blackberry Frambois Grand Cru in the pilot system a few weeks ago. At 15 percent ABV it is the biggest beer we’ve made (on record) for production. It’s also really tasty.

The Blackberry Barleywine, which was enjoyed during the 50,000th brew toast at the brewery on Friday.