Like Coors before it, New Belgium's Fat Tire ale lost a lot of its allure once it became available in local bars and liquor stores. Any beer geek worthy of the title will tell you that there's more to New Belgium than just Fat Tire. more ›

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The buzz over Urban Assault Ride has been high and the event is finally upon us. This Sunday marks the Chicago debut when two-person teams will ride to checkpoints around town to complete crazy obstacle courses and win prizes in a cross-city bicycle scavenger hunt. The obstacle courses have been finalized and are as follows: more ›

We at Chicagoist love all things bike including events that promote biking throughout our city. Which is why we are very excited that Urban Assault Ride is coming to Chicago on Sunday, September 28th. UAR is a bike scavenger hunt where two-person teams ride to checkpoints around town to complete crazy obstacle courses and win prizes. ("Crazy" like: bike jousting, big wheels, keg walk, slip n' slides, bouncy balls, etc.) It culminates with a huge after party with food, New Belgium beer, live music and more games. more ›

Joe "M500" Marinaro just e-mailed us with an update on life without a car to get him around. He took a quick photo of his first trip to the grocery store (Whole Foods South Loop) on the bike he received when he traded in his Jeep. more ›

New Belgium Brewing's Tour de Fat is only four days away. Already, someone's decided to trade in his vehicle for a bike and it's a longtime Chicagoist reader. Matter of fact, it's someone we'd thought would do it. more ›

There are many things to like about New Belgium Brewing. All employees are also owners in the company; they practice open book management; they're a sustainable company using wind power and methane from processed water treatment to produce their own electricity, recycle waste water and utilize the latest green practices in their buildings; they give their employees a bike after one year of employment. more ›

The more we dive into New Belgium's selections, the more flabbergasted we become at the popularity of Fat Tire. Sure, we've said ourselves that Fat Tire serves as an entry beer to the other offerings New Belgium brews. If conventional wisdom says that you only get one chance to make a good first impression, then Fat Tire would seem like the wrong entry point for New Belgium. more ›

Saturday night found us in the company of old friends enjoying Lebanese food at Semiramis in Albany Park. Semiramis is a BYOB restaurant, which can lead to some unfortunate food-and-drink pairings if one isn't careful, or worse, if someone in the group decides to play sommelier for everyone (for the record, we know better). So everyone made their own decisions about what they wanted to drink, and we picked up a six-pack of New Belgium "Skinny Dip" across the street at the liquor store. It wouldn't have been our first choice from New Belgium during summer; that would have been Blue Paddle. And someday New Belgium should have their full complement of selections available to Chicagoans. It just wasn't to be on this day. more ›

Our apathy towards Fat Tire aside, Chicagoist quickly discovered that the New Belgium Brewery would be our idea of a dream brewery, and working quality control there is in our top five dream jobs, if we didn't have to pull up stakes and leave Chicago in order to do so. more ›

It’s been two months since Fat Tire Amber Ale, from Fort Collins, Colorado-based New Belgium Brewing Company, made its long-awaited (legal) Chicago debut, complete with commemorative labeling on the bottles. Like the inspiration for Seinfeld’s Soup Nazi, who’s looking to open franchises eight years after that show was consigned to syndication, Chicagoist is striking while the iron is quickly cooling, weighing in on the fast receding Fat Tire phenomenon. more ›