New Belgium Brings Back Bière de Queer for 2026 Pride Release

New Belgium brought back Bière de Queer as a 5.5% ABV tiki-style ale built on pineapple, lulo fruit, hibiscus, calamansi and rum natural flavor, a combination that reads bright and tropical before the Pride messaging even enters the frame. It stayed in 12-ounce cans, and New Belgium brewed it again at its flagship plants in Fort Collins, Colorado, and Asheville, North Carolina.

The brewery had not announced release dates, distribution regions or on-sale timing, but its Beer Finder was already positioned to point drinkers toward retail and on-premise availability once the beer landed. That makes the 2026 run feel less like a one-off stunt than a seasonal marker, one that fans can track the same way they track the return of a favorite summer sour or hazy IPA.

Bière de Queer has always carried more than a flavor script. New Belgium says it is the first craft brewery recognized as one of the Best Places to Work for LGBTQ+ Equality by the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index, with a 100% score four years in a row, and the brewery frames the beer as part of a broader push to transform craft beer culture through diversity, equity and inclusion. New Belgium also says each year it brews a unique batch of Bière de Queer in celebration and support of the LGBTQ+ community.

That positioning has real history behind it. In 2021, brewer Kelly said, "I chose National Coming Out Day because coming out can be one of the hardest things for a queer person to do." That release was timed to National Coming Out Day, and New Belgium said it would donate $1 per can to LGBTQ+ community partners, including Blue Ridge Pride in Asheville, the Pride Resource Center at CSU in Fort Collins, and the LGBT Asylum Project in San Francisco.

The beer still sits inside a larger company playbook. New Belgium says Bière de Queer is part of its Human Powered Beers program, which uses beer as a conduit for social and environmental change, and the brewery’s Poured for All program offers free inclusivity training created with HospitableMe for bars and restaurants. Its Pride Month Guide to Rainbow Washing says every purchase of Bière de Queer sends $1 to the Equality Federation, and New Belgium says its giving model has donated more than $31 million overall.

That is the useful buying cue here: Bière de Queer seems built to work on two levels at once. The cause gives it meaning, but the liquid is what keeps it in the cooler. If the 2026 batch tastes as vivid as its pineapple, lulo, hibiscus and calamansi recipe suggests, New Belgium may have the rare Pride beer that sells on flavor first and message second, with both doing enough work to matter.