Sierra Nevada appreciation thread.

I love SN and have from the start of my beer drinking. When I moved to Northeast Ohio, I was shocked to find that it doesn't get much love here. It makes me sad, but means more beer for me, I guess

 

Their Brown Ale called Tumbler is excellent this season.

 

I just finished a sixer last week, knowing it had just come in and was really fresh, and that won't be my last. It's totally dialed-in this year.

 

A quality brewery that puts out good to excellent beers with fantastic distribution....what's not to love?

 

Add to the fact that they choose to have a self sustaining brewery and contribute to the local community makes that much better!

 

I am more like cavedave. SN blew me away around 20 years ago when it came into MI. Celebration Ale was the beer I couldn't wait for in October but all the others were solid and aggressively flavored for the time. I did not really know about the variety of beers SN made until I went to the brewpub in 2000. SN did not distribute many new beers for quite some time and many other breweries passed them up with more aggressively flavored beers so I did not seek them out too often, other than Celebration Ale Now they have upped their game with newer releases and more specialty distribution.

SN never fell too far from the top of my list for overall best brewery in America. They have climbed back up a bit over the last few years with all the new releases. Their quality control alone easily puts them in my top ten. Most of the top breweries on this site have been flamed for quality control issues, some with regularity. I never have that concern with SN and the bottle dating makes it easy for me to only drink the freshest hops Cheers SN!!!

 

I miss ESB

Honestly though, they're just awesome.

 

Hands down the best overall brewery on Earth. I have 2 friends who drink SNPA the way Bud drinkers drink Bud. They drink. SNPA and don't care to try anythig else.

 

Sierra Nevada set the bar for U.S. craft back in the 80s, which is when I was introduced to them. While they may not have raised the bar much since then with many their offerings, the fact that each of the styles they brew is still as good as, if not better than, anything out there in the U.S. craft market is a testimony to their greatness. Michael Jackson always rated SNPA and Bigfoot as world-class, and I imagine he would do so to this day -- I know I would.

 

I may not like all their hoppy stuff, but I do love SNPA/porter/stout/tumbler/bigfoot/kellerwies.
I am also in love with that beer camp imp pilser very nice I would buy that in a 6 pack like every other week.

 

You should revisit it for sure. I was a long time SNPA fan before venturing out to other things. Tried Torpedo a few years ago and hated it...when I revisited it after expanding my horizons I found I loved it. I had avoided it way too long.

 

I swear there was a qc problem with their recent oatmeal stout, but other than that, yeah great qc, but it is a large brewery. Some of their beers are really good for the scale of production they are on.

 

I still love SN, but a lot less than I used to. Down from a high of about 25 cases /yr. to about a dozen this year.
Still in love with celebration, bigfoot, and summer lager. Bigfoot may be next to disappear from my radar though if putting it in 4 packs ruins the value even more than the price increases the last few years.

 

Think about this - bigfoot has been brewed for 30+ years, since back when American craft beer had functionally zero market share in the U.S. and I would guess a healthy number of unsuspecting swill gulpers that tried it thought it was satan's urine.

Fast forward to now, we have something like 1,500 more established breweries than we did in 1980, and the cat is out of the bag on big, bold hoppy beers. Everybody brews a DIPA or a big-ass stout or an American Barleywine yet Bigfoot can still go toe to toe with any of them (usually at a fraction of the price). To me, that's the most amazing thing about Sierra Nevada; they had the guts to brew that beer in the early 80's.

 

Sierra Nevada is definitely a brewery I should go to more often, they area always my fall back when there isn't much else. My true appreciation for them came when I was on a cruise and 5 days into drinking fruity cocktails and whiskey because not a single beer on this boat had any taste of hops on it, we had an off shore day in St. Thomas. I was wondering around looking for cigars, stumbled into a store and in a singles cooler, there she was, Sierra Nevada Celebration ale and it was fresh. My sole cried out of joy and my ass cried out due to hops.

Celebration, Torpedo, Bigfooot and Hoptimum are Bomb! Can't wait to try their imperial stout this fall.

 

Celebration is the only seasonal that I approve of getting the early release treatment.

You have to love a brewery when one of their employees is a Ba and answers any questions that we ask within a reasonable amount of time.

 

You rang???

Seriously guys, thanks for the love. We're trying our best out here and I'm constantly impressed by the support this group sends our way. It does not go unnoticed.

Thanks again,

-Bill

 

The first time I tasted Celebration (maybe '99 or '00), I thought it was the most bitter, vile beer I ever tried and I could not imagine how anyone could drink more than a few sips let alone an entire bottle. Now I look forward to its release every year and its in my own top 3 IPAs (not counting DIPAs). No one says you have to like every beer you try or force anything on yourself, but I would give it another shot down the road and see if your palate has changed at all.

 

I have never been let down by Sierra Nevada. They are in my top 5 go to brewers when I want a cold one. Celebration is always good! Knocked my socks off last year and I still can't find em.