Celebration Mini Vert

Howdy.

I was fortunate enough to pick up four bottles of vintage Celebration (2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011) at Blue Max in Burnsville, MN yesterday. I remember a few months ago seeing a post or two about how Celebration actually ages gracefully for a hop-forward, low-ABV beer, which is what prompted me to take a chance on them. Plus each bottle was less than $2, so where's the harm?

Has anybody ever tried vintage Celebrationa, particularly from the above listed years, or done a mini vert lke this?

 

Pending, I'll let y'all know how it turns out. Thanks initially for the interest.

 

By the way, Todd, thanks for moving this. I was debating whether to put it here first, but I wasn't sure.

 

So we chilled these bad boys for about two hours. Two pours of 6 oz each from each bottle.



Sorry for the poor image quality on this one. The 2008 was, naturally, the one that I looked at with the most trepidation. It poured that nice orange and didn't have much of a head, but when I sipped it I was surprised to find it extremely carbonated. The hops had completely disappeared and so had most of the holiday spices. What was left was a big, carbonated malt bomb. It was bitter, but not unlike Bigfoot. On to 2009.



The 2009 was similar, but the carbonation was decreasing quickly. No hops, big malt, beginning to recover the sweetness, but still pretty bitter.



(Obviously I had too much at this point. Look at those uneven pours!) The 2010 was probably the most interesting, but only in comparison to its fellows. The spices were slowly beginning to come back, and the bitter malts were definitely fading into sweetness.



The 2011 was nearly identical to the 2010, with perhaps a little more spice behind the malt.

All-in-all, I would recommend doing this if it's easy, or if you had the opportunity to buy pre-aged beer, but if it requires even the slightest amount of effort, pass. The hops were completely gone even in the 2011, and much of what makes this beer unique was lost to the years, only shadows coming back in the 2010 and 2011. As they say, fresh Celebration is clearly superior, though it's truly a different (lesser) beer as the years go by. Still, it's always fun to experiment, and I'm glad I got to do this regardless. Hope y'all enjoyed.