New Belgium Ranger India Pale AleType of beer: IPA
Container Type: 355 mL bottle
Alcohol by volume: 6.5%
Country of origin: United States
Rating: 73% (see below)
Number of times I've had this beer: 1st
Cost: $1.25
Tasted on: 6/6/10
Colours of label: Brown/Green/Red
Drank From: Bitburger Glass
Label Reads: "Are you a hopinista? Thank our Beer Rangers for inspiring (and begging for) this well-balanced Simcoe, Cascade, and Chinook hopped IPA. 70 IBUs".
website: http://www.newbelgium.com/Best for: sunbathing topless
Ratings:
Taste: 13/20
Flavour: 14/20
Buy again: 17/20
Aroma: 8/10
Satisfaction: 8/10
Complexity: 6/10
Intangible: 7/10
Handwritten notes: Can you feel it? Can you feel the winds of change blowing, ushering out American IPA like so much clear cola and MCDLTs? I like New Belgium, and I like IPA. I like this beer. But enough with the Gad-dang grapefruit mouth grenades. This beer is awesome, and I'd drink it out of John Goodman's belly button after he'd been in the sauna for half an hour. But what makes it different than the 100 that came before (and the 100 that will come after) it? Nuttin'. The whole IPA market is one big saturated citrus torrent pouring into the mouth of every two-bit nouveau-riche beer snob prick with $100 jeans. Ugh. I didn't mean that, I'm sorry. I just really liked the MCDLT. It kept the hot hot and the mutha-fuckin' cold COLD. As nature intended.
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Beer #395 of 3,652
2 comments:
I have to agree with you that this is a tasty American IPA. It is pretty good in my opinion. But I also agree with you to an extent about the IPA's. I actually feel that way about a lot of brews. It seems every brewery has an IPA, a Pale Ale and a Stout. The whole idea when craft brewing started was, "I can make a better beer than this."
Well, they have, and so did he and he and he and he. They all make fantastic beers. But like you mentioned what makes them different. Sure there are subtleties for each brewery and beer they make, but they are all going for the same style guideline, so they end up a lot the same.
One thing I see happening in the future is a boom in the specialty market. That is where brewers will be able to bring things in that are different consistently. What do you think?
Mike
Mike's Brew Review
Well put. I think that there are beginning to be specialty beers out there, the problem is that they are by and large horrendous. For example, in Canada we have Great Lakes Brewing which makes a damn fine Pale Ale (Devil's Pale Ale) but also makes abortions like Winter Spice Ale and Orange Peel Ale.
I noticed a few of these “original beers” popping up in the US too, but most seemed to be fruit flavoured (which I generally shy away from).
There will always be a market for Pales, IPAs, and stouts. A brewery would be foolish (and out of business in a year) if it didn’t make these. That is, except Leinenkugel.
I would like American (and Canadian) micro brews to take a harder look at creating Western spin-offs of some of the strong Belgian beers. Then I could die a happy man.
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