Alpine / New Belgium Collaboration

Sounds awesome..especially the distribution!

 

Should be good stuff.

 

So, brewed towards the end of June and sounds like it is already done fermenting being that they "used an incredible 2 tons of four different hop varieties just in the dryhopping" - depending on the dry-hop schedule that could put them out towards the end of July (with a LENGTHY DH). Prep, bottle, and package can't take much more than a week I would think even for such a large scale brewery so lets say bottled and packaged by end of July/mid-August - now you're at almost 2 months already. The statement "release it for the opening of the Great American Beer Festival" then tells me that it will sit around for a couple months before even being released, no? I hate to be picky or sound like a jerk but isn't that quite a long production time/waiting period for a beer that is meant to be a bearer of massive and intense fresh hop flavor?? I could just be talking out my a** here, I've got no idea the time it takes for a large scale brewery to finish a brew from boil to bottle. They could possibly want the "young beer" to set and round out a bit so they're allowing a little bit of play with the release date......just thought I'd throw in some food for thought!

Cheers!


EDIT: I bet this will be one hell of a beer regardless, I anticipate I will thoroughly enjoy it.

 

i was thinking the same thing. any rangers out there?

 

Letting a hoppy DIPA sit for 2 months (or work it's way through distribution) with a goal of hitting the shelves for GABF is re-fucking-diculus. West-Coast style hoppy offerings should be distributed ASAFP and in bars within weeks of packaging, not 2 freaking months later.

I'd like to say I'm excited to see this, but a 2 month old DIPA is simply not acceptable. Alpine knows this, it's their bread and buttah. Somebody send NB a Pliny and have them read the label.

 

if you're in the business of marketing/selling beer it makes perfect sense.

 

Bullshit, they're in the market of making excellent beer. If marketing is driving your business, then you've failed the basic premise that the beer comes first. If this was their goal, they should be brewing this beer 1.5months in advance of GABF to make sure the beer makes it to market in it's prime. Not 3 months old with fading hops.

Maybe this is why New Belgium doesn't make a DIPA, they don't understand how quickly a beer needs to hit the market to be 'fresh'. Ranger, is at best, an average IPA. Bitter yes, but missing that flavorfull hop punch that Alpine is renowned for. Waiting 3 months to bring it to market misses the essence in what is an Alpine beer.

Too bad.

 

Le sigh. I'm with MacNCheese on this one. Too bad.

 

Well, it seems the information I had was wrong and the beer will be available for retailers to order at the end of July!!! Look for it in early August.

 

Why wouldn't Odell want them to use "Lex Lupulin"? It's just a twist on a hop pun.

Just did a quick search and there are 11 beers that use Lupulin in the name, and two of them are called St. Lupulin! Odell and 21st Amendment have IPAs called St. Lupulin. Kind of weird they asked them not to use "Lex Lupulin".

 

I visit alpine beer co. every few weeks, and they said it would be an alpine style double ipa, meaning ABC made sure they could do all of their Hopping tricks/techniques on the large scale before they agreed to do the collaboration. I would assume this one would be released as soon as ABC thinks it would be ready.

 

Well 2 months is way better, I hope to see it here soon. As well as being on tap at Alpine (please don't call them ABC, no one locally does).

Some good news on a Monday!

 

plus San Diego already have an ABC

 

lol.

No brewery should ever use the term "ABC", ABC is the enemy!

 

Seconded

 

Whenever I hear "ABC" I think of the Jackson 5, "ABC, 123..." something. Then I think of little Mikey as a kid, knowing is going to grow up to be one big old wierdo, then I gets the sads, then I drinks.

 

I just had the last collaboration they did at Alpine, Gouden Vallei and was pretty impressed. Hopefully I can get my hands on some of this.

 

saw this today, "New Belgium (Fort Collins) - The new collaboration brew between New Belgium and Alpine Beer Company called "Super India Pale Ale" is close to being on the shelves. It will hopefully be there by #IPADay on Thursday, August 2nd. Look for it in 22oz Lips of Faith bottles."

 

Sweet! I hope this lives up to all the hype I have been hearing. My hop craving needs a fix!