If you’re like me, you like IPA beers, and you’ve at least heard of Sierra Nevada beer. After a simple start in 1979 by two homebrewers in Chico, California. Sierra Nevada has become the seventh-largest brewing company in the US. (The largest privately-owned brewery in the United States.) One taste of their flagship Pale Ale, and you’ll understand their success.
Disclosure: Some links on our site are affiliate links. If you purchase a linked item, we will make a commission, at no extra charge to you.
Deciding to turn a hobby into a brewery, they used discarded dairy equipment and scrapyard metal to create the brewing equipment. After their initial success, they expanded by purchasing used copper brewing kettles from Germany. The first copper brewing kettles sit in their Chico, California brewery. In 2014, a second brewing facility was opened in Mills River, North Carolina.
The opportunity to take a Sierra Nevada brewery tour will not disappoint. The brewery offers numerous tours. Tour topics range in length and samplings. The standard Chico Brewery Tour is approximately 45 minutes in length. This tour takes you through the entire beer-making process. They keep you moving but never do you feel rushed and the guides are very open to questions while sharing their passion. Touring through the air-conditioned storehouse for the hops, where you will be able to rub some in your hands.
Later in the tour, you’ll have the chance to look into the whirling mash tun of a batch underway (don’t worry, I didn’t know that is what it was called either). I enjoyed being able to stand under the 800 barrel fermentation tanks because you always have to take the picture as if you were drinking from it.
Last, we head into the Tasting Room to enjoy our samples. Picking a favorite can be difficult, so I’ll leave it for you to decide for yourself.
All of this reminiscing is making me thirsty, so I’ll leave you with a couple of interesting facts about Sierra Nevada Brewing Company
- Winner of the EPA “Green Business of the Year Award” 2010
- Powered by Solar Energy with 10,000 photovoltaic cells covering the rooftops
- Over 99.5% of the Chico, CA breweries solid waste is diverted from landfills
- The Mills River, NC location is the only LEED Platinum-certified brewery in the US
- The Mills River, NC location is also a certified Platinum Zero Waste Facility
While in Chico visit the Bidwell Mansion too!
Comments are closed.