Voodoo Ranger Imperial IPA is the top-performing IPA among the nation’s craft brands in grocery and convenience stores, according to new data from Brewbound. In second place? Yet another Voodoo Ranger — Juice Force Hazy Imperial IPA.
Launched in 2017 by New Belgium, the Voodoo Ranger lineup originally only included two beers: the Voodoo Ranger IPA and the Voodoo Ranger Imperial IPA. Since then, the brand has rapidly expanded the line, adding brews like the Voodoo Ranger Juicy Haze IPA, Voodoo Ranger Juice Force, Voodoo Ranger Fruit Force, and more.
As Voodoo Ranger’s senior brand manager Dave Knospe previously told VinePair, much of the success of the Voodoo Ranger line comes from leaning into marketing within subcultures like the gaming community, and allowing consumers to vote on upcoming product releases to foster a sense of community surrounding the beer.
“We use all the same high-quality hops, we have the same team sourcing those great ingredients, the same brewers,” Knospe said in 2022. “We’re just going to take a different approach and say ‘What do these drinkers want?’ They want to have fun. They want to drink with their friends. They want to game. They want to do all these other things that they associate with beer rather than hop profiles.”
The strategy appears to have worked. Brewbound consulted sales data from Circana-backed off-premise channels and discovered that the Voodoo Ranger collection is outperforming every beer of its type. In the 12-week period ending on Sept. 10, sales of Voodoo Ranger Imperial IPA increased by 13.6 percent in dollar and 8.8 percent in volume. Voodoo Ranger Hazy Imperial IPA experienced skyrocketing sales in the same period, with dollar sales up by 55.2 percent and volume sales up 55.3 percent.
Year over year, Voodoo Ranger Imperial IPA has increased sales by 13.1 percent, amassing a total of $117.3 million in sales by the end of the observation period. Combined with Juice Force Hazy Imperial IPA, the two beers account for over 6 percent of craft dollars spent in Circana-monitored channels year to date.
In convenience stores, the Imperial IPA is closing in on segment leader Blue Moon Belgian White Ale in both dollar sales and dollar share. The wheat beer has experienced a 2.1 percent decline year over year, with their dollar share declining by 0.41 percent. Voodoo Ranger Imperial IPA, meanwhile, has increased its c-stores sales by over 14 percent year to date and currently accounts for nearly 6 percent of all craft sales.
Despite the fact that both of the top performing brews in off-premise channels were both Voodoo Rangers, the line has the potential to cannibalize itself. Brewbound says that while beloved brews like Juice Force and Fruit Force continue to grow — Juice Force has amassed $82.1 million in YTD sales, up 98.3 percent, while Fruit Force has acquired $33 million in dollar sales since the Jan. 2023 launch — the flagship Voodoo Ranger IPA and Juicy Haze IPA are actually declining. Year over year, Voodoo Ranger IPA is down 17.6 percent, while Juicy Haze IPA has experienced a 11.3 percent decline in dollar sales YOY.
Even so, the Voodoo Ranger juggernaut has served as a hallmark for New Belgium’s growth in recent years, especially as sales of their iconic Fat Tire continue to fall.
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