Budweiser Brewery

Tuesday - 29 June 2004 - Fort Collins, Colorado: I hate to type this yet again, but we had a fabulous day! I mean how terrible can a day be if it is spent with friends and you tour a Budweiser brewery? Our day started with a walk through the downtown shopping area of Fort Collins. The town is very cute, with wonderful shopping and nice restaurants. We went into a deli. Well, in the day it is a deli. By night I think it is a college beer hall. (If we went back tonight after 9 pm, we could drink 25-cent pints of Keystone Light and listen to Karaoke. I am so happy I'm no longer in college.) Anyway, we had a decent sandwich and a decent stroll and drove out to the Budweiser Brewery.

This Bud is for you

Anheuser-Busch is very serious about their beer. I, as a customer, appreciate this. Their tours are very good, with friendly, attractive tour guides (med student at Creighton) and very organized. You are gathered in a group and lead into the plant. We learned about the history of the company and about the brewing process. Humans have been brewing beer for over 6,000 years. Obviously, it is good stuff.

Antique beer cart on display at the brewery

It takes one month to brew a bottle of Bud. Ingredients are water, hops, barley, rice and yeast. There are two important things that make Bud Bud. First is that the yeast is the same strain (carefully protected) used since the first batch in 1876. As a baker, I can tell you: it's all about the yeast. (According to our guide, if we had a Bud in 1876, it would taste the same as a Bud today. I, of course, will never know if this is true.) The other special part of the Bud recipe is the beech wood aging process. In this step, the beer is aged in tanks lined with chips from the beech tree. This allows the fermentation process to produce natural carbonation. Nothing artificial is added to Budweiser. It is the single most popular beer in the world, BudLight is number two.

Beechwood aging


Can-filling process

Anheuser-Busch had been tracking their National Sales and had been expecting me! It was simply fascinating to hear all the numbers spewing out of our tour guides mouth! Every day this plant produces so many cans of beer that it takes 170 tractor trailers and 18 rail cars to haul it away! So far this year, this plant alone has produced more than ONE BILLION cans of beer, and that is only 8% of Anheuser-Busch's production! The beer produced here is distributed to states north and south of Colorado. (The beer we drink at home is made in California.) We were also taken to the stables to meet a few beautiful Clydesdales and one little foal. The grounds and gardens at the factory are outstanding and there are huge bouquets of flowers everywhere - even in the ladies room! After our tour I "tried" (what a hoot) BudLight. The BudLight I tasted was 4 days old. It was good! The tour took nearly 2-hours and of course, they had a gift shop! We really enjoyed our visit to yet-another Mother Ship. We spent the afternoon and evening with our friends.

RV Park: Fort Collins Lakeside KOA (was Heron Lakes RV Resort)