(Fort Collins, CO) – A hodge-podge of updates from New Belgium Brewing Company…

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A couple weeks back, multiple media reports shared that New Belgium was concerned about residue from summer wildfires contaminating the water supply it uses to make beer. Some context in this video…

Here is an update from New Belgium Spokesman, Bryan Simpson, as of last week:

Currently, we are using the city of Fort Collins’ main water supply, the same water all Fort Collins residents and businesses use. The city sources much of its water from the western slope and that source has not been impacted by the fire. Recently, the city started to draw waterfrom the Poudre River which does flow through the burn zone. During heavy rains, runoff from the burn will enter the river. The city will not draw water from the Poudre during those times. When the water is agitated, they can shut off the flow. They also have filtration systems in place to deal with any spikes.

New Belgium’s response so far has been to donate $10K to the restoration effort and create a contingency plan to test our source water independently. We are very confident the city will continue to provide the same excellent water quality all northern Colorado brewers have enjoyed for years.

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Is New Belgium revenue growth trailing off?

One interesting side note from New Belgium CEO, Kim Jordan’s recent DNC interview with NPR was the reveal that New Belgium hit $140 million in revenue in 2011. Data from New Belgium’s 2009 appearance in the INC 5000 in shows that revenue grew from $84.6 million to $127.6 million (or 51%). Revenue growth in the two years since? Down to 10%.

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New Belgium recently got a number of label approvals: New Belgium Imperial Coffee Chocolate Stout, New Belgium Biere de Garde and Trip Series Imperial Fresh Hop IPA.

More notably, one also just floated through for New Belgium Shift Pale Lager 12 oz. cans. The beer is currently packaged in 4-packs of 16 oz. cans and it has been a hot package in supermarkets this year (more on that this week). Is there a change afoot for packaging?

We’ll update as soon as we learn more about these labels.