Pineapple Habanero Gangster Frog Puts the Heat After the Fruit

One of two Gangster Frog variants pouring at Hoppin' Frog's tasting room. Pineapple arrives first and habanero closes it out, which is the order that keeps a chili beer drinkable rather than merely hot.

• Style: American IPA
• Release Date: 2026-09-21
• ABV: N/A
• Hoppin' Frog Brewing Company (Akron, OH)

Hoppin' Frog has taken its Gangster Frog IPA and split it in two directions at once. Pineapple Habanero Gangster Frog IPA is one of the results, pouring now at the brewery's Akron tasting room as a draft exclusive for a limited time.

The brewery describes it as combining bright, juicy pineapple with a lively kick of habanero heat. The order matters, and Hoppin' Frog spells it out: tropical sweetness hits first, then gives way to a spicy finish. The brewery frames the result as a balance of fruit, hops and heat.

That front-loaded sweetness is the part worth noting. Capsaicin accumulates on the palate rather than clearing between sips, so a chili beer that opens with heat tends to flatten everything that follows it. Placing the pineapple first leaves room for the base beer's hop character to register before the habanero arrives to close things out.

Habanero also contributes more than temperature. The pepper carries a distinct fruity, faintly floral quality of its own, which sits closer to the pineapple and the tropical end of an IPA hop bill than a grassier chili would.

The beer is a variant of Gangster Frog IPA, the hop-forward core recipe the brewery has previously spun into other versions. No separate ABV has been published for this variation.

Pineapple Habanero Gangster Frog IPA is available on draft only at the Hoppin' Frog Tasting Room in Akron, alongside its sibling Cafe Gangster Frog IPA, for a limited time.