New Belgium news roundup: New winter seasonals and a new market

Look, we are constantly posting news about the craft beer industry, and we are still unable to keep up with everything New Belgium Brewing is doing. So let’s catch up on what’s going on with the Fort Collins, Colo.-based powerhouse.

Opening up Massachusetts in 2017

New Belgium Brewing will begin selling beer across Massachusetts on Feb. 13, 2017, making Mass. the brewery’s 46th state of distribution. New Belgium is proud to partner with the following wholesalers across the state:

Girardi Distributors LLC (AB)
Atlas Distributing Inc. (M/C)
L. Knife and Son (AB)
Craft Brewers Guild. LLC (Indy)
Seaboard Products Company (AB)
Williams Distributing Company (AB)

Initial draft offerings will include Fat Tire, Ranger IPA, Citradelic IPA, seasonal release and sour beer offerings like La Folie. In 12-ounce bottles, consumers will find Fat Tire, Ranger, Citradelic and seasonal release as well as 22-ounce sour beers.

Five beers coming out for winter. Let’s learn about them

Accumulation White IPA is all about hops and wheat with four bold hop varieties. Mosaic and Amarillo hops give Accumulation a tropical aroma with a nice, bitter bite. Add in Nugget and Centennial hops and you have a medium body beer that pours unfiltered, white-gold, with a soft fruit flavor of peaches and a hint of citrus. It comes in at 6.2 percent ABV and 70 IBUs.

New Belgium + Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ale, its latest collaboration with Ben & Jerry’s. To create this recipe, New Belgium dug up its favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe and then whipped hefty doses of chocolate, brown sugar and vanilla into a dough-hued blonde ale base. What you get is a full-bodied beer with a perfect balance of vanilla and chocolate. It comes in at 6 percent ABV and is available now.

Anne-Françoise Spiced Dark Strong Ale is the final beer in the New Belgium Lips of Faith Belgian-collaboration series to celebrate the brewery’s 25th anniversary. New Belgium’s brewmaster partnered with Orval’s first female brewmaster, Anne-Françoise Pypaert, to craft a counterpart to the classic golden ale: Spiced Imperial Dark Ale. This beer is brewed with specialty malts, dry-hopped with herbal French Sprisselspalt and then spiced with citrusy grains of paradise and spruce tips. Toasted American oak spirals are then steeped in the beer for two weeks, adding a subtle spicy, vanilla flavor to tie the chocolaty malts and citrus spices together. Anne-Françoise Spiced Dark Strong Ale comes in at 9.5 percent ABV and is available in New Belgium markets in four-packs and on draft.

Bretta IPA, part of New Belgium’s Hop Kitchen series, which showcases New Belgium’s hop heavy beers, first came out this summer, but a portion was set aside to cellar. This cellared version is available on draft. Bretta IPA crosses wickedly wild Brettanomyces yeast with some of New Belgium’s favorite fruity hop varieties. Bretta is conditioned on two strains of Brettanomyces for a month, giving it citrusy, piney hop notes thanks to Equinox, Galaxy and Warrior. It has a bite that lingers, but a sweetness that emerges with a touch of pineapple. The cellared version of Bretta IPA has 75 IBUs and comes in at 7.5 percent ABV.

Clutch is back. New Belgium’s wood cellar team and Maryland-based band Clutch first joined up in 2011 to make this darker-than-black, genre-bending Lips of Faith release. This marks 25 years for both New Belgium and Clutch so to celebrate New Belgium is bringing back this sour stout. Clutch storms the senses with deep cocoa, biting roast and a fruity funkiness from a blend of sour Oscar pulled specifically from French oak foeders to complement the heavy stout base. ABV comes in at 8.5 percent. Clutch will be available in early December.