Happy beer trail to you in Colorado

FORT COLLINS, Colo. -- Whether you're a certified beer geek with a home-brewing kit or a taproom novice who wouldn't know a robust porter from a "training wheels" wheat, it's hard to resist New Belgium Brewing.

Launched in a Fort Collins basement two decades ago and now one of the biggest craft breweries in America, the college town favorite distributes its flagship Fat Tire ale in 28 states and the District of Columbia. But from its bike-filled parking lot and on-site climbing wall to an airy tasting room dubbed the "Liquid Center," New Belgium still fosters a strong sense of institutional fun. And a free guided tour — so popular it's often booked a solid three months in advance — is a high point of a Denver-based ramble among the more than six dozen Front Range brewing establishments that make up the "Napa Valley of beer."

"We're not just brewers, we're storytellers," says New Belgium's Lauren Mihalko, dispensing a generous sample (one of five during an hour-long tour) as she launches into a spirited explanation of how the brewery's Czech-style pilsner got its name. The short version: Blue Paddle refers to the implement that an employee's grandmother used on his rear end when she caught him sneaking sips of her beer.

Colorado's own suds story started in 1873 with Rocky Mountain spring water and Adolph Coors, the German immigrant who founded what is now the world's largest single brewery. Located in the historic foothills town of Golden, 70 miles south of Fort Collins and 15 miles west of Denver, the plant produces a staggering 1.5 million gallons a day, and its public tour draws about 350,000 visitors a year.

But while familiar brands like Coors' "Silver Bullet" and Bud may still dominate refrigerators and football commercials, craft beers (a term generally tied to a brewery's modest size, traditional methods and independent ownership) are steadily boosting their market share.

And just as the plastic wristbands and corporate evangelism on a Coors tour provide a stark contrast to New Belgium's laid-back bonhomie, Colorado is becoming as famous for its amber ales and IPAs (India pale ales) "as much as it is revered for its snow-covered mountains and spacious national parks," argues Ed Sealover, author of the just-published Mountain Brew: A Guide to Colorado's Breweries.

Craft brewing as art and science

Craft brewing "is a unique skill set — it's a fun way to make a buck, but you have to be both an artist and a scientist," says Dale Ketechis, the affable owner of Oskar Blues Brewery in the farming town of Longmont, just north of Boulder. (Case in point: Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper was a geologist before co-founding Denver's oldest brewpub, Wynkoop, and becoming "brewer in chief.")

And, in Colorado anyway, you have to be willing to push the limits of conventional taste buds.

Visitors "come here for things that will rev them up a little, and they want a beer that challenges them, too," says Mountain Brew's Sealover.

So, although you'll find plenty of mild wheat beers and Pilseners perfect for quaffing after a whitewater run or trip down a black-diamond ski slope, you'll also encounter green chili-flavored ales, gnarly IPAs and aptly named sours fermented with wild yeast in aged wood casks.