Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale - Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.

biboergosum

Alberta (Canada)

4.03/5  rDev -3.6%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 4

12oz bottle, many thanks to DoktorZee for fulfilling a longtime beer want of mine for Christmas 2012.

This beer pours a slightly hazy, medium bronzed amber hue, with three fingers of rocky, chunky off-white head, which leaves some decent fuzzy cogwheel lace around the glass as it slowly sinks away.

It smells of somewhat musty citrus rind and pine tips, lightly toasted bready caramel malt, a touch of toffee, and softly sassy grassy hops. The taste is more orange and grapefruit pithy fruitiness, a wee bit of lemongrass, some leafy spruce resin, and a somewhat overmatched bready, almost crackery malt, the caramel morphing into a echo of lingering expectation.

The carbonation is averagely competent, being all that I want it to be, the body a sturdy, just reconstructed medium weight, and smooth with that tacit acknowledgement of hoppy interlopers. It finishes off-dry, sure, but in a general, brown sugar sense, as the various hoppy notes play on and on and on.

I may have just given off an air of hop fatigue, but that's just not the case. What is true, however, is my weariness of late of brewers who claim an all-satisfying balance in their big-ass bitter offerings, in the hope of worldwide acceptance, I suppose, when nothing of the sort is actually on offer. So, to summarize, this is indeed a pretty stellar IPA, but there's nothing particularly wintery, in terms of malt-upsizing, about it. Glad to have finally made its acquaintance, though, certainly.

Serving type: bottle

12-16-2012 03:35:25 | More by biboergosum

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