Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale

Brewed by Sierra Nevada Brewing Company
Style: India Pale Ale (IPA)
Chico, California USA

Great bite with initial flavor, hops strong but not overpowering. Easily my favorite beer for the holidays. Love the 6.8 ABV! A 12 pack of these big boys and I’m ready to go

my favorite, takes me to the magical place on the front cover, thick, malty with woodsy hops and a lil bite, reminds me of christmas.

After pouring a SN Porter, I pulled out a Celebration next to a Nugget Nectar sixer that I picked up for comparison. It holds its own. This has a great hop profile with some back end bitterness that makes me smile. Excellent citrus notes and a fantastic color make this a damn fine beer, even next to the Nugget Nectar.

Bottle, dark copper color. Aroma of citrus hops and some sweet malt. Very drinkable beer with a nice hop touch that is not over the top with a malt backup. Heavy carbonation, good.

Had this on draft at Murphy’s Pub in Champaign, IL. Very nice copper colored pour with a one finger width white frothy head that stuck around for a majority of the pint. It left very nice lacing on the side of the glass. The aroma was a bit bland for an IPA but was pleasing. It consisted of faint hops with a very little bit of citrus. The taste was refreshing with faint hops in the background. Definitely a refreshing brew and very sessionable but nothing to get excited about...

Pint on draft. Poured a nice copper color with a decent sized white head that stayed for a while (though that might have just been because of a bad pour). There was barely any smell to it though, which was kind of disappointing; a little bit of hops, but that was all. Tastes of malt and hops, but it was boring, nothing wrong with it, but certainly nothing exciting.

Pours a nice looking copper color. Off-white head with nice lacing. If I sniff real hard I get a bit of sweetness but no pine or anything else. Mostly bitter taste but has some malt to back it up. While I like this it doesn’t taste much different than the pale ale, just add more bittering hops.

Way too hoppy for my taste. Maybe someday I will have acquired the necessary discriminating ability to fairly critique such a hoppy beer.