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Jeff on summit of Mt Snowdon, Wales, UK, during 1985 bike tour, with first-generation Specialized Stumpjumper mountain bike.  Following this tour, Jeff created a home-brew in honor of the trip, and named it Fat Tire.  

Jeff in the San Juan mountain range of Colorado, 1986, with the same reliable Stumpjumper bike, on the self-designed, state-crossing Colorado Grand Mountain Bike Tour

Inside specialty beer bar 't Brugs Beertje, Bruges, Belgium, 1987.  Jeff met here with co-owner Jan DeBrunye and became enraptured with the quality and culture of Belgian beer, and formed the idea to create an American craft brewery specializing in Belgian style beers.

Following the 1990 marriage of Jeff Lebesch and Kim Jordan, the couple expanded the small house where they lived in Fort Collins, and added a basement to the west side (left side in sketch) of house to locate the brewery 

Sketch of basement brewery layout.  Square vessels were used where possible to maximize usable floor space; however the brew kettle is round in order to allow a whirlpool action to settle the hop and trub solids at the conclusion of a brew.

First piece of public press announcing the New Belgium Brewing Co. opening, by local Fort Collins newspaper The Coloradoan.  We deliberately tried to keep the news quiet for as long as possible, so that the introduction was fresh on the consumers' minds.