Sierra Nevada

Sierra Nevada's founders set out with a simple goal: brew the beers they wanted to drink. It started small, with a homebrew shop, a love of American hops and plenty of passion. Decades later, they’re still at it, and the passion burns brighter than ever.

Ken Grossman learned to homebrew from the father of a close friend. From an early age, he was enamored by the sights and smells of the fermenting jugs of bubbling beer, wine and sake. His first attempts at making beer were rudimentary at best, but began lifelong passion for the art of fermentation.
   Originally from Southern California, Ken Grossman joined friends on a cycling trip down the North Coast of California, but first made a stop in Chico to check out Cal State University with his childhood friends who were enrolled at the college. He fell in love with the town and the Northern California culture and decided to move to Chico.
   Ken opened a homebrew supply store in downtown Chico, simply named The Home Brew Shop. As he and fellow homebrewer Paul Camusi got more into the craft, Grossman’s brewing became more and more elaborate, and, soon enough, people were eager to sample his new brews.
   There weren’t many hops available for homebrewers in the 1970s, and many were of poor quality. Grossman decided to go straight to the source. He drove from Chico to Yakima, WA, and persuaded hop brokers to sell him 100 pounds of “brewers cuts”—samples sent to breweries to try before purchasing bales. He returned with the whole cone hops and began brewing the hop-forward beers Sierra Nevada is famous for.
   Grossman began planning a new small-scale brewery based in Chico. He took the name of his favorite hiking grounds in the nearby mountains and decided to launch Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.
   At the time, there was no such thing as small-scale or “micro” brewery equipment. Everything needed for a brewery had to be repurposed or custom built. Grossman spent months driving through rural dairy communities throughout California and Oregon searching out scrap stainless steel tanks and equipment to use. He taught himself refrigeration and welding and fashioned most of the new brewery out of recycled dairy equipment. The fledgling brewery was finished in the fall of 1980, and Ken needed a brew to test out the hand-built equipment. His first batch of beer was an American Stout. In the following decades, the recipe for Sierra Nevada Stout has changed very little from that day.
 

Dry Hops

One of the ways to get strong hop flavors into beers is through dry hopping. Dry hopping refers to the addition of whole-cone hops to the fermentation tanks. The addition of hops to cold beer allows the aromatic oils and resins to infuse the beer with flavor and aroma without adding any additional bitterness.
 

Experimental Hops

Hop farmers, breeders, brewers and brokers are always looking for new and interesting hop varietals with compelling flavor characteristics and intriguing properties. Sierra Nevada has a unique relationship with hop growers and often has access to limited and experimental varieties. Some of the varietals, while interesting, don’t add enough value and never make it into commercial production, while others — like the recent hop Citra — take the brewing world by storm. Every day new varietals are being tested and some have become signature flavors for Sierra Nevada.
 

The American Style

Worldwide, Americans have something of an outsized reputation. Bold, brash and brazen. To some, that boldness is perceived as arrogance, but for themselves it’s just daring spirit and a thirst for adventure. The term “American” in brewing is not necessarily a sign of origin, but rather a brewing ethos and homage to that daring nature they love so much. In the early days of the craft brewing movement, there were far fewer beer styles and what was on record largely comprised the historical ales of the UK and the lagers of Germany. As American brewers began experimenting with homegrown ingredients and their own techniques, they inadvertently created beer so unique it defied conventional categories. Instead of a traditional pale ale, there all of a sudden was American pale ale — a new, rowdy hybrid of the older beer, intense with hop flavor and aroma. American-style beer is shorthand for the kind of brewing they do at Sierra Nevada — a reference to the use of a clean, crisp and neutral yeast and a healthy dose of hops quite appropriate for the adventurer in us all.