If you have never heard of Fort Collins, you are missing something special. After growing up in Ohio and spending most of my adult life living in Arizona, even thinking about living somewhere where the snow flies even occasionally never crossed my mind. My wife’s younger brother Brian Fuller moved there about 15 years ago and was always after us to come up and see him. Not long after visiting him, my wife decided we should move up there. At first I was reluctant. Ok, not so much reluctant as “No way, you’ll have to drag me up there, don’t want to leave the warm desert, etc. (minus all the swearing.)” Let me tell you something, it was great! This is a vibrant city with great people. And not just great people, but HAPPY people! I have honestly never lived anywhere in the country where the people are as genuine as the people in Fort Collins. They have a love and pride for their city that I haven’t seen anywhere else. Oh, and one other quick thing to note. In my personal observation, it is a beer lovers’ paradise.
The city itself is nestled up against the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. There are great views at every turn. Being only 45 miles south of Cheyenne Wyoming and 65 miles north of Denver, Fort Collins has a lot to offer. If you are a sports fan, you aren’t far from Coors Field for a Rockies game, Invesco Field for a Broncos game and the Pepsi Center for a Nuggets or Avalanche game. The population in Fort Collins is over 125,000 which includes over 24,000 students who attend Colorado State University, one of Fort Collins largest employers. They also boast major employers such as Anheuser Busch, Woodward Governor, Waterpik and Hewlett Packard just to name a few. You have the best of both worlds here, small city with a major city feel. The climate is temperate with low humidity and over 300 days of sunshine. There is major shopping, a lot of great outdoor activities and loads of history. But for me, it was all about the food, the drink and the people.
This is a town that flourished with the advent of the micro-pub generation. The larger microbreweries here are doing amazing things and I am not just talking about beer styles. They are also heavily involved in the community and environment. The only thing that is going to be tough for some of the smaller micro-pubs as well as the larger ones is the hop crisis. I heard about this from just about every brewer. The weather and a major warehouse fire which housed a very large supply of hops are making it hard to obtain this high in demand commodity. They are worried about the hop crops being in bad shape world-wide but recently, I heard that the hop outlook is coming around. Unfortunately, highly hopped beer prices will have to increase to a premium. As of this writing, hop prices have tripled. But as I have seen, there is optimism here in Fort Collins. I believe this town and these breweries can overcome this shortage and invent ways to continue brewing beer in the same quality as always.
Old Town Fort Collins with the Rocky Mountains as a backdrop.
The food here is also amazing. You can find any type of cuisine from bar food to international to very fine dining and wash it down with one of the many microbrews available at every bar and restaurant. The ones mentioned in this section are some of my all time favorites and the rest became new favorites. I do have one suggestion though. If you come to Fort Collins to check out the cuisine and sample the beer, plan to stay a couple weeks in order to truly take it all in. This is just too nice of a town to try to rush through. Walk around Old Town and window shop. Take the time to slow down and drink the beer! You won’t regret it, trust me.
Colorado has been called the Napa Valley of craft beer by Time magazine and with over 100 craft beer brewers in the state, I believe it. For more information about what Colorado has to offer in craft beer, check out
http://www.coloradobeer.org
If you have never heard of Fort Collins, you are missing something special. After growing up in Ohio and spending most of my adult life living in Arizona, even thinking about living somewhere where the snow flies even occasionally never crossed my mind. My wife’s younger brother Brian Fuller moved there about 15 years ago and was always after us to come up and see him. Not long after visiting him, my wife decided we should move up there. At first I was reluctant. Ok, not so much reluctant as “No way, you’ll have to drag me up there, don’t want to leave the warm desert, etc. (minus all the swearing.)” Let me tell you something, it was great! This is a vibrant city with great people. And not just great people, but HAPPY people! I have honestly never lived anywhere in the country where the people are as genuine as the people in Fort Collins. They have a love and pride for their city that I haven’t seen anywhere else. Oh, and one other quick thing to note. In my personal observation, it is a beer lovers’ paradise.
The city itself is nestled up against the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. There are great views at every turn. Being only 45 miles south of Cheyenne Wyoming and 65 miles north of Denver, Fort Collins has a lot to offer. If you are a sports fan, you aren’t far from Coors Field for a Rockies game, Invesco Field for a Broncos game and the Pepsi Center for a Nuggets or Avalanche game. The population in Fort Collins is over 125,000 which includes over 24,000 students who attend Colorado State University, one of Fort Collins largest employers. They also boast major employers such as Anheuser Busch, Woodward Governor, Waterpik and Hewlett Packard just to name a few. You have the best of both worlds here, small city with a major city feel. The climate is temperate with low humidity and over 300 days of sunshine. There is major shopping, a lot of great outdoor activities and loads of history. But for me, it was all about the food, the drink and the people.
This is a town that flourished with the advent of the micro-pub generation. The larger microbreweries here are doing amazing things and I am not just talking about beer styles. They are also heavily involved in the community and environment. The only thing that is going to be tough for some of the smaller micro-pubs as well as the larger ones is the hop crisis. I heard about this from just about every brewer. The weather and a major warehouse fire which housed a very large supply of hops are making it hard to obtain this high in demand commodity. They are worried about the hop crops being in bad shape world-wide but recently, I heard that the hop outlook is coming around. Unfortunately, highly hopped beer prices will have to increase to a premium. As of this writing, hop prices have tripled. But as I have seen, there is optimism here in Fort Collins. I believe this town and these breweries can overcome this shortage and invent ways to continue brewing beer in the same quality as always.
Old Town Fort Collins with the Rocky Mountains as a backdrop.
The food here is also amazing. You can find any type of cuisine from bar food to international to very fine dining and wash it down with one of the many microbrews available at every bar and restaurant. The ones mentioned in this section are some of my all time favorites and the rest became new favorites. I do have one suggestion though. If you come to Fort Collins to check out the cuisine and sample the beer, plan to stay a couple weeks in order to truly take it all in. This is just too nice of a town to try to rush through. Walk around Old Town and window shop. Take the time to slow down and drink the beer! You won’t regret it, trust me.
Colorado has been called the Napa Valley of craft beer by Time magazine and with over 100 craft beer brewers in the state, I believe it. For more information about what Colorado has to offer in craft beer, check out http://www.coloradobeer.org
