NEW BELGIUM BREWING

IT’S HARD TO BEAT A COMPANY that gives each employee a cruiser bike on their one-year anniversary. Plus there’s the free beer: one 12-pack a week, plus a ‘shift beer’ a day. That equal love for bikes and brews has been a core value of this 100 per cent employee-owned brewery from the beginning: co-founder Jeff Lebesch dreamed up the idea for Fat Tyre, the label’s iconic craft beer, while riding his mountain bike through the Belgian countryside in 1988.

Today, employees (known as ‘co-owners’) do hot laps around the Fort Collins cyclocross track at lunch, and they gather for group rides at both locations (Colorado and North Carolina). There’s a fleet of cruisers they can borrow any time, and Worksman cargo bikes in use at the warehouse. The company holds events such as Bike to Work and Strive Not to Drive, and offers on-site fix-it stations. Co-owners in Fort Collins can ride inside, at the in-house gym. Workers get R2 300 a year to use for gym memberships, races, or bike tune-ups.

New Belgium’s bike-friendliness extends well beyond its walls. The company puts on the Tour de Fat, a travelling philanthropic beer, music, and bike festival that has raised more than R46 million for bicycling non-profit organisations since 2000. It hosts two race series a year to benefit the local youth team, Ciclismo. The brewery worked with the city of Fort Collins to expand parking near its facility without sacrificing bike lanes or pedestrian safety, and gifted riverfront land to the city of Asheville to help build a ‘greenway’. EMPLOYEES: 780 T HQ: FORT COLLINS, COLORADO, AND ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA