Lagunitas Sucks Holiday Ale

November 29th, 2011 by Katie in Other Beer Reviews

A Happy Holiday season to you all! This certainly is my favorite time of year. I hope it is yours too! And may yours be filled with peppermint cocoa, candy canes, kisses under the mistletoe and getting completely trashed and embarrassing yourself in front of the family because you had too much of this amazing holiday ale I’m about to review!

I have to admit, I was a little hesitant to love Lagunitas anymore. I know, I’m shocked too! But when they followed me on Twitter on November 16th, 2011 at 4:16pm EST (creepy I know those details?) and didn’t right away ask me to be their spokeswoman/sexy pin-up girl I was a little turned off. Alas, I couldn’t convince myself to not hunt down the holiday ale and try it. Just know I’m looking at YOU Lagunitas. Doesn’t every brewing company need a short, obnoxious blond who really doesn’t know anything about beer talking about their beer!? I digress.

The story of Lagunitas Sucks is a little funny (it’s hilarious). The company couldn’t produce enough of the old holiday ale BrownShugga’ (that I was DYING to try-thanks guys) and so they produced another version called Lagunitas Sucks. Because, I mean, they really suck for doing this. The best part is, they know, taken from the box, and I QUOTE:

“This sad holiday season we didn’t have the brewing capacity to make our favorite seasonal brew, the widely feared BrownShugga’ Ale. You see, we had a couple of really good years and so heading into this season while we are awaiting the January delivery of a new brewhouse we are jammin’ along brewing 80 barrels of IPA and PILS and such every 3 hours. A couple of months back we realized that since we can only brew a mere 60 barrels of Shugga’ every 5 hours, that we were seriously screwed. For every case of Shugga’ brewed, we’d short 3 cases of our favorite daily beers. It’s a drag. This year, we brewed something that we think is also cool and brews more like our daily brews. The new brewhouse will help insure that this kind of failure never occurs again. It’s a mess that we cannot brew our BrownShugga’ this year and we suck for not doing it. There is nothing cool about screwing up this badly and we know it. Maybe we can sue our own sorry selves. There is no joy in our hearts this holiday and the best we can hope for is a quick, merciful end. F*@& us. This totally blows. Whatever. We freaking munch moldy donkey butt and we just want it all to be over..”

In summary, Lagunitas became hipster and they couldn’t keep up! Probably because of me. (*cough* pin-up girl *cough*)

But the best part of this huge mess is that Lagunitas Sucks Holiday Ale is good! Dang good. I mean it is 9:09am and there is some in my coffee cup right now. I’m kidding! (I’m not kidding.) I’ll be sad to see this one be replaced by BrownShugga’ next holiday! It is a typical Lag beer, strong (7.85% ABV) and almost has a fruity aftertaste of apples and maybe blackberries? Or I was just completely drunk. This is certainly a fantastic holiday beer to pair with your snacks and yummy foods on Christmas Eve in front of the fire. Lagunitas has done it again!

This beer isn’t easy to find, so beware. My typical Lag haven didn’t carry it so I carted my pin-up butt 30 minutes away just to get it. The store that I got it from can barely keep it on the shelves and is begging the distributer for more too. Calling around 5-10 stores to find it was also an adventure.

Katie: “Do you have Lagunitas Sucks?”

Worker: “They what?”

Katie: “They suck! Do you have Lagunitas Sucks?”

It got complicated. So I hope you are able to find it in your local area! It is worth it. So, in conclusion, as always in my Lagunitas reviews on this site:

Lagunitas A Little Sumpin’ Wild (review coming OMG good) > Lagunitas Pils > Lagunitas Sucks Ale > Lagunitas IPA

Do with that what you will.

Merry Christmas to all! And to all a good Lag!