For beer lovers, few releases usher in the holidays quite like Sierra Nevada Brewing’s Celebration IPA. Brewed annually since the early 1980s, the fresh, whole cone-hopped beer rolls out nationwide every fall, with stocks typically depleted by January. Given the brewery’s sprawling size and vast distribution network, it isn’t too challenging for people to get their hands on a 6-pack. However, for true hop-heads, there is a Celebration IPA-adjacent beer that has proved near-impossible for fans to taste: Celly Drippins.
As its name implies, the beer is derived from the drippings of the dry hop bags used to flavor Celebration IPA. Said bags are left suspended in the empty fermentation tanks overnight before the brewers collect the drippings and move them to a smaller tank. The finished product is jam-packed with hyper-concentrated Pacific Northwest hop flavors. According to Sierra Nevada, for every 5,000 cans of Celebration produced, the brewery only obtains one 12-ounce serving of Celly Drippins.
