New Belgium Is Delivering Its Latest Beer Via DeLorean

As of 2019 there were over 8,000 breweries in the United States. While COVID-19 will very likely close a significant number of them, beer drinkers have no shortage of local and national brands to choose from, and that means that breweries have to up the ante when it comes to their promotions. Case in point: New Belgium Brewing has announced that a few lucky people can get its 1980s-themed IPA, Voodoo Ranger 1985, delivered to them via DeLorean.

If you're the kind of person who would like to have your beer delivered to you Back To The Future–style, there are a few conditions. First, this promotion is running today only (Wednesday, July 15) and only in the city of Chicago. Plus, according to New Belgium, you can only "enter the contest" by placing an order for the beer via Minibar.

Beyond it being an excuse to dress up New Belgium's skeletal mascot in shutter shades, a fanny pack, and a cobra jacket, it's unclear how Voodoo Ranger 1985 has any actual connection to the year 1985. In the book Complete IPA, beer writer Josh M. Bernstein writes that the Great American Beer Festival only awarded its first medals for IPAs in 1989, and that "when the American craft beer movement first fizzed to life in the late 1970s and early '80s, the landscape was brimming with cold, yellow lagers." Plus Voodoo Ranger 1985 is a hazy IPA—a style that didn't even exist in the 1980s—with added mango flavor, which definitely wasn't a thing in the '80s.

New Belgium's beers are typically pretty good, though, and there's a good chance that some of you enjoy beer and live in Chicago. This means that there's also at least a small chance someone reading this article can place an order, get their beer delivered by a cinematic stainless steel time machine, and post pictures in the comments detailing the experience. That possibility, even if it's unlikely, is too good to pass up.