There are certain beers that you can't help but associate with a specific time of year, and there might be no better example than Sierra Nevada's Celebration IPA. As the year begins to wind down and we enter the holiday season, our eyes instinctively start scanning the shelves for those striking red labels. Once you've enjoyed that first pint of Sierra's signature seasonal release, it's hard to resist leaning into the holiday spirit. Sierra brews this recipe every year with their most recent haul of fresh, hand-selected hops, making each release slightly unique to past iterations. Even though our clone kit doesn't contain fresh hops, we strived to make a recipe that celebrates the character of Cascade, Centennial, and Chinook hops with heaps of citrus, piney, and floral notes.
Our Holiday Hops kit is a classic West Coast IPA with a distinct, but balanced malt character, deep reddish color and plenty of hop bitterness to match the bite of winter weather. Cascade, Centennial, and Chinook hops are employed up and down the brew schedule, from the top of the 90-minute boil to the final dry hop addition days before packaging. We highly recommend using a Chico yeast strain for fermentation—it's a Sierra Nevada ale recipe after all!
Our recipe kits DO NOT include grain bags, yeast or priming sugar. To find our yeast recommendations, choose your preferred kit option above and then select the drop-down menu under “Yeast Options”. For more info, click on the recommended yeast(s) below in the “You Might Also Need” section below. All grains will come milled, unless you select unmilled base malts.