New Belgium Brewing – Ranger IPA

This particular Friday night, I was looking for something other than my typical Yuengling lager. I was about ready to pick up a heavy oatmeal stout (unseasonably cold right now for South Carolina) when a matte-finished, dual-tone green box caught my eye. The box has a utilitarian appearance and was tucked away in the very corner of the case. I couldn’t resist the magical three letters on the side: I – P – A.

New Belgium brewery has been making beers since 1991 out of Colorado, one of the craft-brew hotspots in America. Many might know them from their “Fat Tire” amber ale, which I often see here in Greenville on tap.

The Ranger IPA comes in at 6.5% ABV, in line with the style. It boasts 3 different hops: Cascade, Chinook and Simcoe (interestingly enough I typed this line after the one later mentioning Cascade hops). Chinook hops have an extremely high alpha acid level (bitterness), and have a delightfully spicy taste to them.

The beer pours with a perfect head and smells amazing. New Belgium claims a full pound of hops in every barrel, and the floral notes punch you in the face before your wet lips ever hit glass. I wonder if a full pound is a lot. . . .

Most of my IPA recipes call for roughly 4 oz. hops per 5-5.5 gal. batches. A keg of beer is a half-barrel and is roughly 7 gallons, making a full barrel roughly 14 gallons, or a little less than 3 home brewer batches. That means 16 oz. of hops in the Ranger to approximately 12 oz. in a typical IPA. That’s a lot of hops.

My initial taste is what I like out of an IPA. It’s floral, not fruity or citrus-like, like you can get from adding too much a single hop like Cascade. While hoppy, the beer is extremely well-balanced and has a great mouthfeel. Since IPAs do not have a lot of malt, they can tend to feel watery on the tongue. Like 2 salty balls, this beer sticks on my mouth and leaves a great aftetaste.

Unfortunately, every IPA that I taste gets ultimately to my favorite, Dogfish Head’s 90-min IPA. The Ranger sadly falls short of my hoppy datum; it also doesn’t match Delaware’s less-boiled 60-min IPA.

After my first, the 6.4% ABV kicks in my empty stomach, but one thing i find is that IPAs rarely give you an alcohol burn of off-taste, and neither does this one.

All in all, this is a very good IPA; I’m definitely not disappointed with my purchase.

For: hop-heads who want an ass-ton of hops in their beer; those who like well-balanced IPAs

Not For: those who prefer their IPAs more citrusy or grapefruit-like.

Rating: 7.5 / 10