Review: New Belgium Voodoo Ranger Juice Force IPA
Easily the juiciest, forciest IPA I’ve encountered from New Belgium’s Voodoo Ranger series, made with Mosaic, Chinook, Phato, Galaxy, Strata, Lotus, and Sabro hops. Immersive notes of tangerine, apricot, mango, and pineapple dominate up front, while the finish eventually unfolds to reveal some hoppy bitterness that gives the beer a little backbone. The fruity sweetness is palpable, and it eventually started to remind me of a classic glass of Tang. If only Tang was available in a grown-up version.
New Belgium sent me a 19.2-oz canned version of this beer — which I’m going to suggest can easily serve two before it wears your palate out. Maybe three.
9.5% abv.
B+ / $11 per six-pack
New Belgium Voodoo Ranger Juice Force IPA
USD11
8.5
“…made with Mosaic, Chinook, Phato, Galaxy, Strata, Lotus, and Sabro hops.”
I love the ‘Force’ series by Voodoo Ranger. They are fun, one-and-done brews. Session ales they are not. But I am shocked to see that there is actual hopping in these things. For starters, one can get the tallboy 19.2oz can for $3.99. And second, and far more important, the sweet fruit flavors of the Force series led a lot of reviewers to question if it is ale at all, let alone an IPA. One reviewer speculated that it was more like an artificially flavored malt liquor -just some two-row infused with heavy natural and unnatural flavors (and maybe some real juice). The Force series remains one of my favorites and it remains one of the beer world’s mysteries as to why something so fun is so relatively cheap.