New Belgium Brewery Tour de Fat
Touring beer festival and bike ride makes last stop in Austin
By Joe Layton, 1:19PM, Mon. Oct. 22, 2012
The Tour de Fat was indeed a ballyhoo of bikes and beer, as their advertisements suggested. Although, a more accurate description would be traveling carnival revival.
New Belgium brought Fort Collins-style weird to Austin in full force with a wide range of entertainers and home made bicycle contraptions, including a bike equipped with tennis shoe tires.
The Fat Tire crew held true to their love of crafty beers, offering a rotating menu of specialty beers in one tent including the Peach Porch Lounger and a Cocoa Mole Ale while offering their staple brews in another tent all day. The Cocoa Mole was to be enjoyed slowly for the spices tingled the back of the throat in a delightful, yet strong fashion. All the proceeds from the festival, such as beer sales and parade registration, went to local bicycle advocacy groups.
The bike parade lasted about 45 minutes and shortly after beer-drinking carnie activities ensued for the remainder of the day. Yo-yo and paddle ball masters entertained the young while the Rapping Rhymanese Twins poked fun at the old folk in the crowd. The Le Tigre tent was host to intimate shows that only the attendees shall know about. Additional entertainment included a dude in a cow suit competing with an older lady in high heels and a tutu for a New Belgium bicycle in a heated competition of literal hoop-jumping and hot-pepper basketball. The undeniably funky Karl Denson's Tiny Universe closed out the day with a drunken mid-day dance party.
Costumed crowds enjoyed specialty beers, bike shenanigans, old school carnie entertainment, a man traded in his car for a bike and all was well in Austin.
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