Sierra Nevada Celebration 2019

Go drink some celebration

 

Last year the rose character was pretty potent. Don't even like the smell of roses, but thought it really made this beer shine.

I think @SierraTerence said earlier in this thread that the rose character really shines through with a good Centennial hop harvest.

 

If there's one thing I've learned from watching British Bake-Off, it's that you have to be careful with rose as it can overpower everything.

 

Thanks for the baking tip Mr. Fastow.

 

Sierra Nevada has the classic spiced caramel malt profile. I find the Celebration has even more caramel malts and spice than the Torpedo. Definitely fits the seasonal Winter profile, but not what I was expecting. I'm not sure I'd even classify it as an IPA. It's so dark, sweet, and spicy, that even for Sierra Nevada it pushes the boundaries.

 

I think that's a commentary on how much the goalposts have shifted since this beer has been out. It's far too hoppy to be any style but an IPA. If a brewery created this beer today they might be inspired to call it a hoppy/american red ale or copper ale or something. But that has more to do with how the US market perception of IPA has shifted massively toward hop derived tropical fruit notes and pale malt with adjunct grains for the body.

 

It's 100% an IPA, albiet a classic more east coast style IPA. Just because the perception of the IPA has changed over the years to the more fruity non bitter NEIPA style, it doesn't mean that this is not still an IPA....which it is. That's like saying HopDevil is not an IPA either.

 

What do you mean by spicy? From the hops?

And by sweet, you mean from the caramel malts?

And by dark, I assume you mean copper red?

Because this last line, "It's so dark, sweet, and spicy, that even for Sierra Nevada it pushes the boundaries" almost sounds like you're talking about Anchor Our Special Ale.

 

IPAs had caramel malt until the mid-1990s when people started just brewing with Pale malt. So which came first?

 

2019 is as solid as ever.

 

Terence, would the US brewed IPAs of the 1800’s (e.g., C. H. Evans, Frank Jones, Christian Feigenspan, Mathew Vassar, Ballantine,…) been brewed using Caramel Malt? If so, which type(s) of Caramel Malt and at what percentage of the grain bill?

Cheers!

@jesskidden

 

So good. Smells great, looks great, tastes great. And $13.99 a 12-pack?

Why does Sierra Nevada suck so much at being shitty?

 

$18.99 here in NJ. I don’t know if it’s shipping costs, taxes, markups or a combination of the three but that’s pretty rough IMO. I remember getting all SN twelve packs at around $15 when I was living in just AZ a few years ago.

Just another reason to hate this shithole of a state.

 

Hey, man. This is a Rutgers grad you are addressing. I really enjoyed the 18 months I lived in NJ, but I'm happy where I am out West where I'm from originally.

 

For what this is worth, I dug out my old copy of Fred Eckhardt's The Essentials of Beer Style, copyright 1989. Listed under IPA, Fred has SN Celebration listed thus:

OG -- 1066, ABV -- 6.4, FG -- 1015, IBU -- 45, SRM -- 6

IBU of 45, bitterness tolerance has really changed.
SRM of 6 is just about what SNPA is now -- surprising.

Wish I could remember my first Celebration from back when.

 

This is always such a great beer. This is the one beer that I know of that tastes very similar to Alpha King. I don't buy Alpha King much in the winter because of Celebration and for 13.99 a twelve pack, it's the best deal in town.

 

Only 6.4% ABV too.

@SierraTerence has the recipe changed over the years?

 

How long do you all typically take to get through a case?

I'm coming in late, but I was thinking about picking up a case to sip through the next month or two.

 

How significant is .4% difference? Except, of course, when you factor in IBU. I have to imagine the maltiness was pretty prominent in Celebration circa 1989.

 

I can never remember when SN first reached the northeast, but I think it was sometime in the very late '80s or early '90s (and, IIRC, there was a period when the distribution of SNCA was cut back due to capacity issues?) but I'd say I've been a buyer of Celebration Ale since it has been available where I lived = nearly 30 years.

What's always surprised me when I do research it is that M. Jackson's S&S Pocket Guide to Beer, editions #2 - #6 (covering 1988 - 1998) give no specifics about Celebration, only saying it "is different every year". For instance, in 88's Ed. 2 (his first mention of the beer):

(* Yeah, 30 years ago 6.4% was "unusually high in alcohol" in the US )

Now, there are occasional errors in Jackson's Pocket Guides, but it seems to me that if this were not the case, over a period of a decade, he would have been corrected and changed the wording in the next edition.

I mentioned recently in the forums (maybe in this thread?) that the earliest reference to SNCA being an "India Pale Ale" that I can recall is a Zymurgy Winter 1987 article about Holiday beers. "Gee," I just thought, "I wonder what the ABV was listed at in that chart..." Checked it, and damn, they didn't ever list alcohol content in the article - likely because it was still prohibited in the US at the time for beers to be labeled with alcohol content. So, I usually take the stats in any article that lists US beer alcohol content with a grain of salt - mostly because they are almost always slightly (or, in some cases, very) different for many common beers. Sometimes, even when quoting brewery spokespeople, the best an author might get is "between 4.5 and 5%...".