Sierra Nevada Anniversary Ale

bottle 350ml at home from Alko 4,55€ Color:light brown nice tiny tight head and lace later on Scent:pine hops Taste: grapefruit hops kick at first,sweet malts on back ground. Alcohol hidden under pine hops. Nice IPA

Nice copper color with a puffy white head that recedes to a small layer on top with nice lacing. Strong grainy hop aroma, slightly harsh. Nice malt backbone with a good hop bite. Grainy but good, definitely not the floral hops of the SN Pale Ale. Great on its own and your hop preference will distinguish whether you reach for this or their Pale Ale first.

12 oz bottle via Safeway. Pours a clear amber orange with a large beige head. Nose is floral, orange, grapefruit. Taste starts and ends with orangepeal, and in between there is some grapefruit, lime, and some metallic aftertaste. Also a bit of soapiness. Body is light. Carbonation moderate/high.

This tastes like a cross between a sweeter and milder IPA and a wet-hop harvest ale. Extremely drinkable, could be a top-notch session beer.

Uh oh, smells alarmingly hoppy. Not hazy but certainly on the orange side of the color spectrum. Nice looking head that does not fade. Flavor is big brutal bitter green grapefruit rind and pulp. Lingering bitterness comes across strong, I’d say this is DPA or IIPA territory. A lager lover will find this quite coarse and rude to say the least. Even after the session is over, this stuff lingers like a visitor who has worn out his welcome.

Crushed a few of these with the dude in the middle of nowhere at a demo derby. Pretty awesome IPA, though. Spicy, bitter hops backed with a nice malt profile. But, its sierra nevada, so you know this is solid.

The cascade hops and aroma made this one of my favorite seasonal beers last year so I got more this year. If you enjoy IPA’s, this one is worth trying.

I am a little surprised that this beer is not rated better than it is, but I love this beer. This is another winner in my book! Sierra Nevad used to have one or two good beers, a great seasonal beer [Celebration Ale] and several decent beers. Not anymore ... they are creating some real winners! This beer has a great hop aroma, if I didn’t know better, I would say this tastes as if they dry hopped it [most likely with Cascade hops ... possible Centennial hops]. They pulled out all the stops in hopping this beer a time when hops are relatively rare and quite expensive! The body of this beer is perfect, the maltiness is balanced perfectly against the hop bitterness [which is fairly bitter]. It is hopped like a bigger IPA than it is as far as my impression goes, but it is lighter in body [yet balanced] .... they made this work with a very precise choice of aroma hopping. Truly excellent. This beer does not show much in the way of caramel notes, and I think that is probably a good thing for an IPA [and for most of Sierra Nevada’s beers, they stick to light caramel malts if they use them]. I think the color of the beer is a little off .. I don’t know what it is, but it doesn’t have a "rich" color to balance the flavor of the beer [this does NOT affect my enjoyment of this beer in anyway]. The beer holds a good head, so their is a fair amount of protien ... so many American brewers do an unnecessary protien rest on their ales and ruin the body [and the head]. Great job Sierra Nevada!