In anticipation of the 25th Anniversary of the Celebrator Beer News magazine, which takes place this year, we decided to make a special beer to commemorate our silver anniversary. So in December of last year, the largest Sierra Nevada Beer Camp took place when eighteen writers for the brewspaper assembled in Chico, along with state Assembly Member Wesley Chesbro, who leads the beer caucus in Sacramento, got together at Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. to make a beer. Our intrepid chronicler, Mike Condie, put together this great little 15-minute video of our Beer Camp.

The beer we made will be available at locations around the country starting around now and through SF Beer Week. Each writer at Beer Camp got to find a home for his or her kegs in their hometown. For example, my kegs will be at Taps in Petaluma and as a guest tap at Russian River Brewing.

The beer we made is essentially a Double Pale Ale, based on the original Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. We then imperialized it and changed the hop bill, with an eye toward reflecting past, present and future symbolically with the hops. For past, we of course used Cascades, for the present we chose Citra and for the future an experimental hop with no name, only a number. The beer finished at 9.3% a.b.v. Look for it during SF Beer Week events. It will also be pouring at the Celebrator 25th Anniversary Party at the Oakland Marriott on Sunday, February 17, the final big event of the 2013 beer week. Perhaps I’ll see you there.