Sierra Nevada Brewing Company

Lore & Background

Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. was founded in 1980, with founders Ken Grossman and Paul Camusi expanding their homebrewing hobby into a brewery in Chico, California. The company's name comes from Grossman's love of hiking in the Sierra Nevada mountains. With $50,000 in loans from friends and family, they rented a 3,000 sq ft warehouse and pieced together discarded dairy equipment and scrapyard metal to create their brewing equipment, later acquiring second-hand copper brewing kettles from Germany before moving to their larger facility in 1989. The first batch brewed on premises was its Pale Ale in November 1980. The following year, the brewery introduced Celebration, an IPA, which continues to be released as a winter seasonal. The company sold 950 US beer barrels in its first year and doubled that amount in the second. The first employee was Steve Harrison, in charge of marketing and sales. Head brewer Steve Dresler was hired in 1983, when output was 25 to 30 barrels per week, and retired in 2017. The company distributed its own beer in the early 1980s, struggling with financial and marketing problems. A 1982 article in the San Francisco Chronicle and placement in prominent restaurants such as Berkeley's Chez Panisse helped establish a market. By 1987, production reached 12,000 US beer barrels per year, leading to a new brewery in 1988. In 2000, the brewery opened 'The Big Room', a live-music venue. Camusi retired in 1998 and sold his share to Grossman. In 2010, Sierra Nevada partnered with the Abbey of New Clairvaux, which began producing Trappist-style beers in 2011, though the abbey has not yet been sanctioned by the International Trappist Association. In January 2012, Sierra Nevada announced a second brewing facility in Mills River, North Carolina, which opened in early 2014. From 2013 to 2022, the company operated the 'Torpedo Room' in Berkeley. In January 2017, a voluntary recall of certain 12-ounce bottles in 36 states occurred due to a manufacturing defect possibly introducing chipped glass.

Reader's Guide

Along with the now-defunct Anchor Brewing Company in San Francisco and New Albion Brewing Company in Sonoma, whose owners offered Grossman and Camusi early guidance, Sierra Nevada is considered one of the earliest and most influential breweries which spawned the craft beer movement of the 1980s–90s. Grossman has been dubbed a 'pioneer' by fellow craft brewers in the United States. Whereas many microbreweries of the 1980s went out of business, Sierra Nevada endured to become one of the largest independent brewers in the country, noted for beers with 'character and complexity'. Grossman believed many early microbrewers put out an inferior product due to lack of preparation for the financial and mechanical realities of commercial brewing. For its 30th anniversary in 2010, the company released collaborative beers with Charlie Papazian, Fred Eckhardt, Fritz Maytag (Anchor) and Jack McAuliffe (New Albion). The company has claimed to be neutral on political issues. Its flagship pale ale, described as 'a balance between aggressive hops and hearty malt flavor', is the best-selling pale ale in the United States as of 2012. The brewery's environmental record includes winning the US EPA's 'Green Business of the Year' award for 2010, powering its facility with 2.6 megawatts of solar electricity, converting used cooking oil to biodiesel, and diverting over 99.5% of solid waste from landfill. Its Mills River facility earned LEED Platinum certification in June 2016, the only LEED Platinum certified brewery in the USA, and is also a Platinum Zero Waste facility.

Did You Know?

• The brewery's name comes from founder Ken Grossman's love of hiking in the Sierra Nevada mountains.
• In 2010, Sierra Nevada was named 'Green Business of the Year' by the US Environmental Protection Agency.
• The Mills River, North Carolina facility is the only LEED Platinum certified brewery in the USA.