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(Courtesy Sierra Nevada Brewing)
We can get pretty cynical about these seemingly endless official beer days but the crew at Sierra Nevada Brewing are friends of ours, and they do brew a very decent Hazy IPA.
Here’s the deal…
At what point do we just admit it…that this whole special beer day thing has gotten out of hand? That nobody cares.
Can we all get real for a minute and call these specially branded “beer days” for what they’ve become in 2023? Nothing more than content-generating marketing opportunities that feel increasingly tiresome.
We admit we’re as guilty as anyone having shamelessly promoted questionable “beer days” like International Gruit Day, National Lager Day and even National Bock Beer Day in the past. So yes, you can call bullshit on us here at American Craft Beer… You wouldn’t be the first.
So when we learned that Sierra Nevada Brewing was championing “National Hazy IPA Day” we were ready to dismiss it, but we can’t because were fans of Sierra Nevada Brewing.
Founded by Ken Grossman and Paul Camusi in 1979, the brewery has survived the test of time and they’ve still has a passion for what they do. Now the seventh largest craft brewery in the US, Sierra Nevada has breweries in both Chico, California and Mills River, North Carolina where they brew several popular Hazy IPAs.
And given that we enjoy of the style that came out of New England in the early 2000s as much as anybody, it’s hard for us to ‘jump ugly’ when learned that Sierra Nevada had spearheaded the campaign to make National Hazy IPA Day, (which was celebrated for the first time on August 17th), an annual ‘beer day.’
“Hazy IPA has rapidly become one of the most popular beer styles, and we felt it was time to set aside a day to celebrate its indelible mark on the craft beer world,” Lesley Albright, Vice President of Marketing at Sierra Nevada Brewing told Forbes. “National Hazy IPA Day is about inviting others to join us in the celebration of this delicious beer style and to shine a light on it”
Sierra Nevada Brewing explained it created Hazy IPA Day to celebrate the craft beer community and the Hazy IPA style as a whole. Got it. The California brewer also happens to make the top-selling Hazy IPA in America, Hazy Little Thing, so yeah there was a marketing element to this beer day as well.
All good, we’re not mad…
But maybe you give us a little ‘heads up’ next year, so we can hype the date for you.
