"BelgianBeer" news and stories

For nearly two decades, Fort Collins, Colo.'s New Belgium Brewery has been a steady, flavorful force in the microbrew world, turning out beers as dependable as they are delicious. Sample the toasty Fat Tire amber ale, the crisp Blue Paddle pilsener or one of the palate-challenging, category-defying Lips of Faith releases, and you'll be as pleased as punch.

But for all of New Belgium's liquid ingenuity, and a penchant for being ahead of the curve, one beer category has been conspicuously absent: a bracing, bitter, American-style India Pale Ale.

"Since we tend to focus on Belgian beers, we hadn't done anything that was super-hoppy," says Bryan Simpson, New Belgium's director of media relations. "But anecdotally, we were hearing that there was a demand for us to do an IPA. We have a Belgian brewmaster, and he told us we're free to create what we want."

Zotten Belgian-style pale ale. Photo: Jenene Chesbrough

Joshua M. Bernstein, Gourmet.com's beer columnist, has written about brews, bars and booze for New York Magazine, Time Out New York, ForbesTraveler.com and The New York Times.

Belgium Tripel fans dig burly, nuanced brews cut with candy sweetness. American pale acolytes savor smooth ales with a hoppy edge. The suds' styles are as different as cats and dogs, but Pennsylvania's Weyerbacher brewing has unleashed a hybrid that could cause both beer-loving camps to drool.

For its latest summer seasonal, Zotten (rhymes with verboten), Weyerbacher has taken a super-drinkable (why hello, 6 percent ABV) American pale ale and given it a Belgian tweak via the abbey-yeast strain employed in the brewery's medal-winning Merry Monks' Tripel.

But don't mistake the bottle-conditioned Zotten (Flemish for fools) for a chug-a-lug pilsner or lily-livered lager. Zotten slips from the bottle a glowing rusty orange, perfumed with a bloom of tropical fruit, Bubble Yum sweetness and enough pungent hops to imitate an IPA. Surprisingly, Weyerbacher's liquid magicians keep rampant bitterness at bay. The hops provide a springboard for Zotten's rich flavor constellation of pepper, coriander and yeasty bread, before closing clean and crisp with a lingering spicy bite.

The Belgian ale. The American pale. Two great tastes that taste great together.

What's your favorite hybrid beer? Spread some liquid gospel in the comments.