Ranger

New Belgium Brewing Co.
Fort Collins, CO

Available: AR, AZ, CA, CO, ID, IA, KS, MN, MS, MT, NC, NE, NV, NM, NC, OR, TX, TN, WA, WY

New Belgium’s first IPA is brewed with pale and dark caramel malts; spiced with Cascade (citrus), Chinook (floral/citrus), and Simcoe (fruity) hops; and dry hopped with Cascade. The beer is named for the Beer Rangers who represent the brewery regionally, and who requested a beer in the IPA style.

ABV: 6.5
ABW: 5.17
Color: n/a
Bitterness: 70
Original gravity: n/a

Dear New Belgium: Any chance we could put Ranger's fruity-floral aromas in a candle? It's my kind of aromatherapy. Ranger looks like a Colorado sunbeam in a glass—clear and bright orange-yellow—with a vigorous cloud-white head that lingers throughout the glass, leaving bits of lace along the sides. The first whiff, the one I fell in lust with, is very fruity—not citrusy, but almost like Juicy-Fruit without the sugary sweetness. Ranger's sturdy malt backbone quickly shows itself in hints of toasted malt and biscuit, succinctly supporting the fruit that gives way to a vigorous citrus-pine hops profile that lingers long after the sip.
- Lisa Morrison

There’s immediately no doubt about this beer’s IPA credentials. Big, piney hop resins with hints of tropical fruit billow out of the glass. It’s brisk on the tongue and bittersweet, which reveals that there’s a fair amount of malt in there to cushion the hop notes, which are fruity (think melon) but also rather sappy and ‘green.’ I pick up traces of bitter cucumber peel and that may be a part of the mix that some people won’t like too much. But otherwise this is a good, chunky beer begging to be paired with tangy, spicy salsas or curries.
- Jeff Evans

Lisa Morrison
Lisa Morrison, aka The Beer Goddess, writes about beer whenever she can and also gets to talk about it on a weekly radio show in her hometown of Portland, OR.

Jeff Evans
Author of the Good Bottled Beer Guide and The Book of Beer Knowledge, Jeff Evans is an eight-time editor of the CAMRA Good Beer Guide and one of Britain's best-known beer writers.

Comments are closed here.