Fat Tire Amber Ale - New Belgium Brewing

    Fat Tire is an Amber Ale created by New Belgium Brewing which is located in Fort Collins, Colorado. Fat Tire is interesting, as it is commonly the first craft beer that people try. When New Belgium recently expanded their distribution to new parts of the country, I started hearing all about this new "Flat Tire" beer that I just had to try. Now that I've had a good number of different beers I find Fat Tire to be somewhat of an average Amber Ale, though I'm not at all surprised that people were blown away by it when they first tried it. When you go from drinking only light (or lite, as the case may be) beers to drinking an actual craft beer it's not surprising that it would be world changing. I can just see it now, "Hey! there's something strange in my beer! I think..I think it's..flavor!?"

    Fat Tire pours a fittingly amber color with around a finger of off-white head. There is some very light lacing.

    The beer smells lightly sweet with biscuity malts and lightly toasty. There is a very slight floral hop aroma to the beer.

    The Amber Ale is light to medium bodied with a moderate level of carbonation.

Fat tired bikes, you make the rockin' world go 'round!

    Fat Tire Amber Ale tastes of lightly sweet cereal malts. There is only the slightest bit of hops flavor, keeping balance against the sweetness and making for a very drinkable beer. There is no alcohol character at all. The beer has an alcohol content of 5.2% ABV.

    While I find Fat Tire to be only an average beer, I have to give New Belgium credit for introducing new markets to craft-style beers. As I mentioned before, I really am not surprised that some beer drinkers were blown away by the new style. Before the craft wave really hit the Midwest, all we had was basically the macro-brews and Samuel Adams, who might as well be a macro-brewer anymore.

    As with so many other beers, Fat Tire Amber Ale does nothing wrong, yet does nothing to stand out from the crowd. I have a special respect for New Belgium, however, for changing the minds of bad beer drinkers in my area. If nothing else, this would be a great starting point for someone to jump into the craft brew scene. If you have any interest at all in trying new beers, get on your bikes and ride!

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