Remember Fat Tire? Second Dawn Brewery Does, and It's Created an Homage Brew

It's a dream for many people working at large food and beverage companies to put a personal stamp on the products being made every day. For Ross Koenigs, that dream has become a reality: Steel Horse, an amber ale in the vein of Fat Tire, launched last week at Koenigs's Second Dawn Brewery at 2032 Dayton Street in Aurora.

Koenigs worked at New Belgium Brewery for years, helping develop what is now the Voodoo Ranger series, while making plenty of Fat Tire. "It was a question: If I was ever in charge of and could entirely change that recipe to what I wanted, what would I do?," he recalls.

Koenigs left New Belgium and opened Second Dawn Brewing in early 2023. That was around the time New Belgium made major changes to its signature Fat Tire to make the beer easier drinking, as well as paler than the classic amber-colored beer so many craft beer drinkers grew up on.

Prior to overhauling the beer, New Belgium had seen a drastic reduction in sales for Fat Tire – over 50 percent overall since a 2016 peak, and 33 percent in the Colorado market alone, with five consecutive years of decline. "They have a brand that is now thirty years old," says Koenigs. "They're trying to recruit a new generation into it, a generation that can really carry this brand forward."

The idea to recreate the Fat Tire wasn't on the agenda when he opened Second Dawn. It popped up late last year, when a handful of bar and liquor store accounts told Koenigs that there was a gap in the market for an amber beer like the old Fat Tire. "They said there's just nothing really out in the market anymore that's like the old Fat Tire," he recalls, and it wasn't long before he came up with a recipe. “I thought, why shouldn’t we do it?”

The name Steel Horse comes from an old colloquialism, according to Koenigs. "It's basically a trusty old bicycle," he says. While it might remind you of Fat Tire, the actual steel horse conjures up another famous Colorado landmark: Luis Jimenez's "Mustang," the sculpture by the airport commonly referred to as Blucifer. While Koenigs says the brewery didn't want to rip off or infringe on that landmark, he admits it can be seen as a subtle nod to the statue.

Much like the Steel Horse not being Blucifer, the new beer isn’t exactly a clone of the old Fat Tire.

"I upped the bitterness, dried it out and [made changes] to drive a couple of subtle and nuanced notes that I wanted to shine through a little bit more," he says. He’s using Willamette hops, German malt and a light dry hop to help push a bit of citrus hop flavor through the caramel, biscuit and toffee malt flavors.
The result is a Fat Tire-type amber ale for the seasoned craft beer drinker. While New Belgium took Fat Tire in a direction that is lighter and less hoppy, Koenigs is going in the other direction. Steel Horse retains the trademark biscuit and toast from Fat Tire, as well as the light citrus hop flavor. It's the type of beer you can drink all afternoon with friends.

The early reaction (even among some New Belgium alumni) has been so positive that Koenigs is going to make the brew a part of Second Dawn’s core beers. His ten-barrel batch of the beer has already been completely allocated between draft and distribution, and Steel Horse will join Tijuana Champion Mexican Lager, Wolf of the Woods Italian Pilsner, West Coast IPA and House Party Hazy IPA as a year-round offering – as long as it continues to sell well. "I have the scale and the risk tolerance that I can kind of take up the mantle and still provide something that hopefully people have some nostalgia for," he says. "I don't have to sell in Kroger or in all fifty states," he adds.

For a former employee who was part of so many successful projects at New Belgium, it can be tempting to lean on that experience when talking about Second Dawn. Koenigs is proud of where he came from, and he wants people to know that he’s an experienced brewer — but he also wants Second Dawn to stand on its own.

"It certainly helps with being able to introduce ourselves into the world," he says. "But quickly, I just want to be able to transition away and be like, 'Well. this is what we're doing and keep telling the story of good beer and good community.' We have a very neat community here in northwest Aurora."