Holidaze Haze India Pale Ale

Review Date 12/13/2025 By John Staradumsky

  Style: India Pale Ale   Brewery: Saranac   Country: USA   State: New York   $ Per OZ: $.12 (B)   ABV: 6%

Ah, the good old days. Remember them? I sure do. Way back in the nineties are the days I’m talking about, when you could buy a Saranac 12 Beers of Winter Sampler and get 12 different beers to enjoy. These would include one bottle each of six year-round favorites like Adirondack Lager, and one bottle each of six special releases. If you were really lucky, you might get a bottle of Winter Wassail, Wee Heavy, or Caramel Porter.

These samplers persisted into the aughts, but eventually evolved into six different beers, two bottles each. Although this reduced the variety, it was nice to get an extra bottle of a beer you really liked. The samplers almost always included Saranac Season’s Best, which became their holiday flagship and was often sold in six-packs.

It has been some time since I have seen any Saranac 12-Pack here in Georgia (they do several throughout the year), but this December I did something I have none before: I bought an entire 12-pack from Half Time Beverage. I had already bought a full box of 24 beers from them weeks before, you see, but I was ordering another shipment, mostly to get some of this year’s Bourbon County Brand Stout releases. I had space to fill in the box, so in went a Saranac 12 Beers of Christmas pack. For 2025, you get 3 bottles each of:

Frosty Pils

White Out Pale Ale

Holiday Hug Brown Ale

And the beer I am here to talk about today, Saranac Holidaze Haze India Pale Ale. This is the first new (to me anyway) Saranac beer I have had in quite some time, and as you may imagine from my intro, I have been drinking Saranac beer for quite some time. Holidaze Haze India Pale Ale is available by itself in 12-packs as well it should be noted.

Saranac does not speak to their beers individually, but I know from the bottle label the beer has an alcohol content of 6% by volume. I paid $20.99 for my 12-pack, not a bad price indeed, especially for shipped beer. Total Wine sells the sampler for $16.99 in Greensboro, North Carolina, a very fair price indeed these days.

Saranac Holidaze Haze India Pale Ale pours to a hazy orange color with a tight white cap of foam and a nose of light tropical and fresh citrusy fruit. Taking a sip, the beer is light to medium in body, about right for the style. It’s juicy as the nose promised with a hint of mango but much more grapefruit citrus. Finishes with bitter citrus peel and lingers long and dry.

I do like the grapefruit notes here and the long dry bitterness, but I think many hazy juicy fans might find the bitter pith and peel slightly out of sync with the juicy flesh. All the same, this is a tasty hazy IPA and where can you get a bottle of craft beer for $1.42 these days?

I have the brown ale up next, more on that one to follow.

Glad I tried it?  T

Would I rebuy it??