"New Belgium Ranger IPA" 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."