The Great American Ale Trail - Christian DeBenedetti [40]
Their dues to society paid, they later dared the regulators to approve a new beer called Undercover Investigation Shut-Down Ale, printed with some choice anti-establishment Benjamin Franklin verbiage and pointed mockery of the agents who had been unable to get anyone to sell them any pot—it was, naturally, always offered for free.
KEY BEER
Lagunitas Pils Czech Style Pilsner (6.2% ABV) is on the verge of becoming a new standard, a go-to beer suited for all occasions. And it may have a goofy name, but their Sonoma Farmhouse Hop Stoopid Ale (8% ABV) is a serious beer in the Double IPA style (aka Imperial IPA), with cavalcades of tangy West Coast hops “for those mornings when you have to cut right to the chase.”
Chico
SIERRA NEVADA BREWING CO.
1075 E. 20th St. • Chico, CA 95928 • (530) 893-3520 sierranevada.com • Established: 1980
SCENE & STORY
These days Sierra Nevada’s beers are easy to find, but not long ago, out in the fertile farm country of the northeastern Sacramento Valley in Chico, home brewer Ken Grossman—on an obsessive quest for the perfect pale ale—was the only one drinking them. While roasting his grains at home, jury-rigging brewing equipment out of fish tanks and washer-dryers (for an ill-fated experimental malting operation), and squeaking out rent as a bike shop repairman, he dreamt of bigger things: real brewing kettles, the copper kind. He had a long way to go and little money. In 1976 he opened a home-brew store “to feed my hobby, really,” Grossman recalls.
Grossman doggedly kept home brewing, keeping meticulous notes, dreaming big. Inspired by Anchor and New Albion, he wrote a business plan with a partner in 1978, then hit up the banks, who weren’t the least bit interested. To get started, “I spent all my savings, all my business partner’s savings, and the savings bonds my grandfather had given me for school,” Grossman recalls. Finally, with the help of family and friends, Sierra Nevada (named after the mountain range), brewed its first batch, a stout; the first pale came a few days later. (A dozen batches went down the drain until he arrived at a brew he was happy with.) And with his young daughter in the passenger seat, Grossman delivered the first pallet of Sierra Nevada beer from the back of a beat-up one-ton ’57 Chevy pickup.
The pale ale he labored so long to get right struck a chord, and today, the piney, balanced brew is widely imitated, and one of the two best-selling craft beers in the United States, next to Samuel Adams Boston Lager. Grossman, who was fifty-seven in the end of 2011, got those gleaming copper kettles, to say the least. Production stands around 765,000 bbl ( just under 24 million gallons) a year for a variety of styles, all of them excellent, and the awards wall is running out of space.
Tours take in lovely trompe l’oeil murals in the brew house from a glassy elevated platform and other marvels no other American brewery can boast, like one of the largest private solar arrays in the country, utilizing heliotropic cells. There is nothing unconsidered, dusty, or out of place; the scope is awe inspiring, and the rows of 25,000 gallon conditioning tanks lined up in majestic symmetry are a sight to behold.
Today, the operations take up fifty acres, with estate-grown hops and a 35-acre barley field. The taproom and restaurant has its own organic herb and vegetable garden the size of a Walmart. The brewery’s own cows are fed partly on healthful spent grain from the brewing process, and the restaurant and taproom cook over almond wood fires. The bright and comfortable eatery is full of art nouveau stylings, stained glass, and brilliant copper trim work. And no matter what beer you try, from the lightest Summerfest lager to the Estate line (using all ingredients from the property) and high-octane barley wines and collaboration beers, the beers are all superbly crafted (try