Some craft beers have a Holy Grail-esque quality to them — both in terms of their taste and the lengths to which beer drinkers will go to get them. Sierra Nevada’s Celebration has long been a favorite of craft beer aficionados, but the same brewery also produces a related beer in much smaller quantities that has achieved cult status: Celly Drippins.
Celly Drippins is made by taking beer out of the bags used to dry hop tanks of Celebration — and it’s made in very small quantities as a result of this. (The brewery estimates that it gets the equivalent of one can of Celly Drippins for ever 5,000 cans of Celebration.) As VinePair’s Pete O’Connell explained, Sierra Nevada doesn’t usually announce when it’s available; you just have to be in Mills River at the right time.
For 2024, Sierra Nevada changed things up a little bit and announced the tasting in advance — letting fans of the beer know that on Friday, November 22, Celly Drippins would be on tap at Mills River. The announcement prompted some in the craft beer community to weigh the merits of making a trip to the tap room.
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The craft beer pioneer is bringing some well-loved brews out of retirement for a new variety packGiven the process by which Sierra Nevda makes this particular beer, it’s hard to imagine this getting much of a wider release in the years to come. As John Holl noted at All About Beer last year, Celly Drippins was once only available at Sierra Nevada’s holiday party. Now, at least some craft beer drinkers in and around North Carolina have had the opportunity to try it — and if the comments at Untappd are any indication, it was worth the trip. As for the rest of us, there’s always 2025.
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