Out in Fort Collins, Colorado, New Belgium Brewing has been making a huge variety of beer. Absolutely huge. I’d like to talk about what’s pretty much a first for the brewery — an India Pale Ale, in the American, Pacific-Northwest style, sold not only on draft and in the brewer’s signature banded bottles, but also in cans.
What comes to mind when people say New Belgium Brewing? Fat Tire Amber Ale. Don’t get me wrong, Fat Tire is a fine Belgian Amber, modeled on DeKoninck’s Amber — a classic Belgian beer from a respected Belgian brewer — and it pays the bills at New Belgium. Oh, does it ever. If nothing else ever puts the brewery’s name on the map, Fat Tire does that in spades, sold in 26 states now, outselling anything else coming from New Belgium.
Fat Tire allows the brewery to experiment, and true to form, the brewery experimented by recently branching out into… standard American beer, sold in what is increasing becoming hip craft beer packaging. Ranger IPA marks a departure for a brewery known for its Belgian-style and strange, excellent no-style beers. Besides Fat Tire, beers like La Folie, an annual Flanders Brown Ale, typically mouth-puckeringly sour, and Eric’s Ale, another seasonal that’s sour, weird, complex, and unbelievably good, are small-batch, kinda pricey, limited distribution, and probably money-losers for the brewery, too. But they showcase the brewery’s commitment to making tasty, tasty beer for lovers of craft beer.
So enough about New Belgium. Why cans? For a brewery that prides itself on its green efforts — its energy needs are met with wind power, it composts, it’s about as green as a brewery can be — aluminum cans are a natural choice, about the only recyclable package that takes less energy to recycle than to make new. Why IPA? I like to think it’s because most craft breweries brew an IPA, but few do it really well. I’d bet a brewery known for creating excellent beer of other styles could knock such a basic style out of the park, no? Let’s see if they do.
My can of Ranger IPA, gifted from a friend in Denver, is opened and poured into a standard pint glass. It’s a deep golden color, very clear, topped with a dense off-white head. The telltale Pacific Northwest hops dominate the aroma, which is no surprise considering the beer is dry-hopped with Cascades, the better to fool your nose into thinking pine and citrus, my dear. There’s a big chlorophyll component to the nose, which usually means it’s a super fresh beer, so I’m pleased about that.
The classic aroma leads to a classic-tasting IPA also. This is a hop bomb, a big dry hoppiness, bracingly bitter, mixing a bit of astringency with a mainly grapefruity-piney flavor. This hop combo, which I’m pleased to say I correctly guessed as Amarillo (aspirin-like in overdoses) and the classic citrus-pine flavors of Cascade and Chinook hops, overwhelms the palate and drowns out the fairly straightforward, background-only malt backbone. The Chinooks contribute a lot of roughness to this beer, a rough dryness that contributes to a pleasant throat-cleaning dryness after every sip. Ranger is simply a wonderful example of IPA in this country.
Ranger is pretty much how I like my IPAs: dry, very bitter, and not at all “balanced” or, worse yet, sweet. If I had to find a way to knock it, maaaaaybe it’s a touch thin. It’s 6.5% alcohol by volume, so, for IPA at least, it’s not terribly strong. It’s not available in New York, but I know you people like to travel, so you can look for it on trips out West. I’d be surprised if it retailed in Colorado for over $10 per six-pack. While there aren’t IPAs brewed locally that approximate the Ranger flavors, I’d say Green Flash IPA, often available at good beer markets as well as on tap in New York City, is probably the closest beer in flavor to it, to tide you over until your next trip to Colorado.
Overall, Ranger IPA is a solid, dare I say sessionable, IPA from the world-class brewers at New Belgium Brewing. If you manage to find it on a trip, go ahead and stash a sixer in your carryon!
BlindBakerNYC says
This really makes me wish I liked beer. Any recommendations on where a non-beer drinker should start?
BeerBoor says
For beer? You’ve come to the right place…
First, you decide what flavors you like and don’t like — flavors that you might find in beer. Hops have a range of flavors and aromas, malt too, to a lesser extent, then there’s overall things like fruity, or merely sour or sweet… we can discuss.
Then we pick out things that you might like, and then I wait to see if you drink it yourself before I order a beer for myself.
BlindBakerNYC says
Silly boor, I haven’t the foggiest idea of what flavors I like. You’re talking to the girl whose only experience with beer is with the likes of Bud and Coors. I *think* I liked Sam Adams Winter Ale; I didn’t have to choke it down, at least.
My beer knowledge and appreciation is about as extensive as my sports one.
BeerBoor says
I meant, what flavors do you like in life, not in beer. Based on what you like in non-beer comesitbles, we can maybe figure out if any types of beer might be of interest.
For instance, you love chocolate. Why not a stout with actual chocolate in it, like Young’s Double Luxury Chocolate Stout?
BlindBakerNYC says
I tried a chocolate stout at the Brooklyn Brewery and was not impressed. It tasted unpalatably bitter to me. Is it similar to Young’s?
I love raspberries, cherries, apples, truffles (the fungus as well as the chocolate), mint, and vanilla, for starters.
BeerBoor says
You had the Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout. There’s no actual chocolate in it (there’s “chocolate malt”, named for the color and the perception of bitter chocolate it can produce), and theirs is rather bitter and strong (10.5%). Young’s is none of those things. Not that you’ll love it, but maybe it’ll be palatable.
We can work with what you’ve started as a list, certainly.
BlindBakerNYC says
I expect to go on a beer tasting with you soon, Mr. Boor!
Hungry says
Does it matter what type to glass you pour beer into?
BeerBoor says
Short answer: not really.
Longer answer: certain shapes, like tulips, have a narrowing in the neck to kind of trap the head, and therefore the beer’s aroma, a little better, so it concentrates the smells. Honestly, other than that, it’s all just trying to be pretty.
I’d serve most Belgians in a tulip, but really, anything can go in a regular old pint glass if you have to. It’s great if you have a brewery’s “signature” glass but at the end of the day it’s not going to matter.
T.C. says
I wasn’t too impressed with Brooklyn Brewery’s chocolate stout either. The Young’s sounds interesting. Hhhhmmm.
And me like beer outta can. Sweet!