In the spirit of the season I went out to my local beer store and picked up a few different Christmas brews, or winter brews if you prefer. I will review some of the beers that are easy to get out west, while Jim will focus on ALL the other beers. I know that you all see me as the whiskey guy, but lets face it Whiskey is great any time of year, but they really don’t change that much from season to season. Wild Turkey doesn’t make a Christmas Turkey Whiskey that they bring out just for the season. In distilled spirits they have gone the direction of gift boxes or bundling a whiskey with bar ware, or a flask, etc. You can’t really review the flavor of a flask, so I will be doing some cross over for the season.
Jim posed the question a couple weeks ago what does Christmas taste like? As far as winter or Christmas brews are concerned they seem to be all over the map. Some dark, some light, some hoppy, and others marzen, there seems to be no distinct style. That is ok, since I would hate to drink a beer that tasted like gum drops, Yuck! There is a brewery out west here that has done a seasonal for the last couple of decades. They have focused on food pairings for the season and have crafted a brew that is made to go with the season’s celebrations…
Sierra Nevada’s Celebration Ale is a winter time staple that is designed for food pairings and to complement the flavors of the season. This is a big hoppy beer that weighs in at 65 IBUs and 6.8% ABV. Their web site says 65 IBUs, but I have tasted beer with higher IBU content that really tasted less bitter than this. The pour on this beer is bold with a big head that stays throughout, interestingly there was some lacing, but not a lot left on the glass. The nose is that of a typical IPA or Imperialwith lots of citrus, grapefruit but with a touch of cinnamon spice too.
The flavor of this brew is very citrusy with lots of grapefruit flavor, almost like when you bite into the outside of a grapefruit to peel the rind off. The cinnamon in the nose doesn’t appear until the beer warms up a little. Cold this beer is just a hop bomb, but as it warms up a touch of complexity comes through with the cinnamon and malt flavors appearing on the backside. 
All in all, I really didn’t see how this brew emulates Christmas or the holidays. It has a festive label, and I suppose it will pair nicely with lamb chops or beef. But we need to remember to keep in the spirit of the season, and while this beer wasn’t particularly Christmasy, it was tasty and I would recommend you give it a try. But not you Scott since you don’t like hops!
-Don
Beer & Whiskey Brothers 
A buddy of mine has a 5 gallon keg of this in his kegorator. I agree with you – it is a great beer but doesn’t really have much ‘holiday’ characteristics to it
Sierra Nevada makes a good brew, but as they have gotten larger, their flavor profiles have become more nondescript. My understanding is that they used to have more “holiday” zest to them than they do now.
I love Celebration and was glad to hear that my local store finally got it in so I will be going by to pick up some along with their Harvest Wet Hop Ale.
It was good beer. I’m not arguing that point, just not “special” as I would define something that really knocked my socks off.
I LOVED Sierra Nevada Celebration 2007 & 2008. The 2009 version is good, but not as “holiday” tasting as the past two years. SN had a busy year with Kellerweis, Torpedo and Life & Limb. Maybe they got stretched out a little too much… I will still drink plenty of it!
The Harvest Wet Hop Ale is excellent. I think it’s better than the Estate Ale.
Mike I thought this was a quality beer, a very good beer, would pair well with holiday food, etc, but I didn’t see it as a stand alone beer that I would just want to drink because it was available. Great with a meal though, and lacks anything “holiday” in the flavor, unless you give hops to people as gifts!
Maybe they feel that since they do have some really nice offering for the more serious beer drinker – they went a bit more mass market with the Celebration Ale…its probably a huge money maker for them…
That is true Jeff, if you go to their web site they basically have their beers segmented three ways, year round production, seasonal, and special run. This was in the seasonal, so they may want to bring those people into the fold that wait for this every year, thus it is a little more main stream. Just a guess, but it could be plausible.
Don, I actually went back and reviewed my post from last year and I ended up giving it a very respectable 3.5/5 because it just came off like a quality beer – but yeah, big hops there. I remember being able to smell the beer from across the room! I won’t get it again but I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to others who dig the style. (No idea what is Christmassy about it though)
Here’s my take if you’re interested.
I was talking to my beer guy at the Co Op yesterday and he said that the Celebration Ale was just a winter IPA with a red color for the holiday. Knowing your love of IPAs I kind of called you out in the last line of the post. So my question to you is, when you drank it last year were you able to finish it?
Yep. I do my best to finish everything I open and give it as fair a shake as I can. I’ve only poured maybe 2 beers since I started this – (came close with a few others) but I had no problem finishing the Celebration Ale.
I”ve been a busy boy and picked up this, some Troegs Mad Elf, Anchor Steam’s holiday offering and a four pack of Ayinger Celebrator, which I associate with Christmas, probably because of the little ornamental doodads hung around each bottle.
I’ve only had the Mad Elf so far, and I think it has this Christmas thing nailed. It’s brewed with cherries and honey which give it a sweet, malty taste and it has an ABV of 11.6%, which chases away the cold (or the demons of loneliness, depending on your situation this holiday). I’ll be reviewing it later, but I’m happy that at least one of these seasonals tastes like Christmas, at least to me.
Santa may have put a little something in the box with the Life and Limb. Perhaps you could find something you like in there too.
Nice Jim. I thought the Mad Elf was a good Christmas beer too. Looking back, I think I was drinking it while reviewing it which explains why my review was so stupid.
People are saying its a lot more expensive this year for some reason. Perhaps its gotten more popular?
Don,
I’ll confirm what you’ve said. A lot of breweries, once they get bigger, dumb their product down. I think it did use to have more zest than now. Oddly enough, they’ve just done a collaboration with Dogfish Head. Maybe that will re-awaken their passions.
I think the collaborations are a lot like sabbaticals for Master Brewers, so perhaps they learned from each other as my understanding is that Dogfish Head is increasing their annual capacity by 50,000 barrels. I hope the Life and Limb is a case where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. We’ll see.
By the way, I think we are going to do Delirium Noel for “Sip with us Saturday”, so I’ll be drinking an X-mas brew before long.
Maybe between all of us we can get a pretty good cross section of the market of seasonal brews.