Good Beer is Born Here

After I took stock of my year’s best beers, I concluded that I am really infatuated with Sierra Nevada. When I admtted to myself what a crush I had on them I did what any mature adult would do and stalked them on the Internet. What follows is a selection of what makes this particular brewery so dreamy.

Sierra Nevada’s business plan is easily compatible with my life philosophy, something I can’t say for many other for-profit institutions. (I’m scared of making money.) For example, they believe in living sustainably and try to run a business that leaves as small a footprint on our planet as possible. Their brewery in Chico, California runs in part on solar energy collected from their land through one of the country’s largest privately-owned solar arrays. They also collect excess energy to reuse through heat recovery devices on brew kettles and boilers and even recycle the CO2 created during the brewing process.

The brewery also knows the importance of community. Though Sierra Nevada is one of the largest breweries still considered “craft,” they maintain a presence in the town of Chico. At their Taproom and Restaurant you can find meals cooked with vegetables from their farm and quaff an Estate Homegrown Ale brewed with the organic hops and barley harvested from their back 40. In 2000 they opened The Big Room, an auditorium that seats 350 live-music lovers. I’m thinking of moving to Chico.

This next one will surprise no one: they are hop heads. Oh, and how. In the early 80s Ken Grossman, creator of Sierra Nevada, made a pilgrimage to Yakima, Washington, and fell madly in love with the Cascade hop, much in the same way I did when I had my first Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. They are now known for their hop-forward beers and have been quite innovative in that respect. Their Torpedo IPA is not named for its ability to get you bombed pretty dern fast, as I’d previously believed, but for an invention they came up with to add some serious hoppiness to a beer without the accompanying bitterness. They pack a stainless steel cylinder with dry, whole-cone hops and run fermenting beer through it. Brilliant!

Lastly, I have a deep connection with my favorite Sierra Nevada brew, Celebration Ale. Turns out we were born in the same year! We’re both of the year of the rooster (though “rooster” is never how it’s printed on those paper placemats at Chinese restaurants, leading to many a squirmy dinner with parents or teenage boys I really liked). According to the Chinese, we are both confident, motivated, pompous, and blunt, making me suspect the creator of that month was a “rooster,” himself. The beer is the hoppiest holiday beer I’ve ever tried (and therefore my favorite), but its hints of orange and Christmas tree do remind one of the season.

Dear, dear Sierra Nevada! You have such a lovely operation going on out there…don’t suppose you need a free-lance writer / beer tester, do you? They say I’m motivated!