New Belgium Ranger

Ah, the Ranger. Not our first experience with this. My Gia kitten is all about smelling this, by the way. It's very intriguing to her. 4 to 5 times of moving the pint glass, she keeps walking over to it, smelling it. The first experience was January of last year, I seem to remember it wasn't terrible, but there was something rather earthy about it.

6.5% ABV, 70 IBU, sounding perfect for this night where it's sweaty inside, yet cooling down outside. This pours a lighter orangey amber color with small amount of white head. The aroma is piney, citrusy, a little dank, with a nice caramel-like fragrance that adds to the complexity of this. The flavor on this is different than I remember. It's very aggressive with the hops giving a pineapple/tropical fruit sort of flavor. There's not much on the malt end, to where I think more came out in the nose. This isn't as earthy as I remember. This is rather pleasant. Almost an herbal tea to the back that leads into lingering bitterness. This is a lighter body than most IPAs, with a nice medium resin left in the mouth.

With that being said, I pass this off to my awesome counterpart as I wind down and prepare to wake up 7 hours from now to head to work on a Saturday.

4.3/5 caps

-Nathan-

Hey, Nathan, don't let the man keep you down. Just say no to working on the weekends. Oh wait, I  forgot, it's a mandatory shift tomorrow, and you're the sole breadwinner in the family. I take that back. It's not like we have better things to do, like sleep in and review beer in the morning.

As I recall, this beer is amazing... there was only one thing about it I didn't care for, and that's how it made your breath smell afterwards. Normally, I don't mind beer breath. This was a tad offensive. Regardless, I recall it tasting fantastic. Let's see if it still does. I pick up some pineapple in the nose that adds to Nathan's description. The taste goes from bright pineapple and lychee flavors (yay), to some pine, to some toffee, to freshly dug earth, to an almost metallic bitterness on the back end, and then some more pine. I get a little more body out of this than Nathan did, it would seem. Or maybe just different flavors are coming out now that it's had a bit of time to warm.

I find it an enjoyable beer. I look forward to the time when New Belgium distributes to Ohio finally. Please? Pretty please?

4.3/5 caps

-Jennie