Recently, New Belgium announced a new line of beers that it will be using to flex some creativity muscle and help reflect innovation and trends going on across the country in the near future.
Just in 2018, the widespread popularity of Brut IPAs has triggered a nation-wide surge in creating and marketing the dry, bubbly IPA. New Belgium will debut its “Up Next” series in January with a Brut IPA and then leave its options open for other styles to run through each quarter of 2019.
The Up Next Series will be a way for New Belgium to crowdsource ideas from its nationwide network of employees
“Our coworkers live and work all across the country, experiencing first-hand localized food and beverage trends as they emerge,” said New Belgium’s Jesse Claeys. “We’re talking to each other about what’s happening at restaurant hot spots, surprising beer style interpretations popping up in tasting rooms, new flavors catching on in non-alcoholic beverages and the like.”
Claesy said the opportunity for education on new takes on styles through reading, eating and drinking is ever-going.
The Up Next Series offers New Belgium a chance to mine its internal knowledge on what’s about to be hot and what’s not.
“[We can] debate and then unleash our brewers to put their spin on what we think is up next, flavor-wise,” he said. “To that end, the series is very flexible. We’re keeping it fluid so we can react quickly to the new and exciting stuff we’re seeing in bars, restaurants and shopping carts.
“We’ll go forward with those niche trends that we think are going to resonate the most among a national beer-loving audience.”
People are looking for beverages that blur the lines and break new ground said New Belgium Research & Development Brewer Ross Koenigs.
“We want to keep bringing new drinkers into craft beer with flavors that take inspiration from outside the category,” he said in a release. “The only limit is our imagination.”
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