This new sister to the original Chico, California, brewery will be LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified, with a focus on alternative energy, environmentally conscious construction, reforestation, and river quality monitoring and protection. It sits on a 190-acre piece of land on the French Broad River, and most of the property will stay intact as wild space. Sierra Nevada also plans to develop a trail system there with river access.
"We were contemplating the best ways to pull the curtain back and share this new space,” says Sierra Nevada communications manager Ryan Arnold. “We knew we wouldn’t have been able to open a second location without the momentum of the American craft beer movement. So instead of making the celebration about us, we thought, ‘Let’s celebrate the success of American craft beer’.”
And so they are, with the Beer Camp Across America collaboration series. Sierra Nevada is hosting twelve breweries at its Chico location to brew test-batch beers on their 10-barrel pilot system. When the test batches are complete, the beers will be made in one of Sierra Nevada’s 200-barrel brewhouses and put into a collaboration 12-pack that is slated for release in July.
“We’re not quite rocking and rolling in North Carolina,” Arnold says, “but we’re confident that we will be this spring. Production batches [of the Beer Camp Across America series] may be done in Chico or may be done in Mills River where we have another 200-barrel brewhouse.”
In the 12-pack will be collaborations with the following breweries:
- Allagash Brewing Company
- Ballast Point Brewing & Spirits
- Bell’s Brewery
- Cigar City Brewing
- Firestone Walker Brewing
- New Glarus Brewing
- Ninkasi Brewing
- Oskar Blues
- Russian River Brewing
- Three Floyds Brewing
- Victory Brewing
- Asheville Brewers Alliance
Five breweries have already been to Chico to produce test batches.The collaboration with Victory Brewing will probably be an altbier. Russian River’s Vinnie Cilurzo proactively churned out round one of a blonde ale on his own system. For the New Glarus collaboration, Co-founder Dan Carey (pictured at left) has hinted that he is leaning toward an extra special bitter (ESB). Ninkasi’s collaboration beer will probably be a milk coffee stout. Cigar City’s collaboration beer is shaping up to be a tropical Maibock.
The 12-pack will be distributed through Sierra Nevada’s distribution network, so it will hit all fifty states. “A good portion of our partners doesn't have monstrous distribution footprints,” says Arnold. “I say with confidence that New Glarus is one of the top brewers in the country, but they don’t distribute outside of Wisconsin. For many people, it might be their first experience with some of these breweries.”
Another brewery that Arnold gives props to is Wicked Weed Brewing, which is a member of the Asheville Brewers Alliance. “It’s a great example of a young, ambitious craft brewery really making a name for itself. They have a burgeoning restaurant and a cool sour program. [The head brewer] Luke Dickinson doesn’t have a lot of traditional training, but with fervor he has built up his knowledge. The extent of his knowledge is evident in all of Wicked Weed’s success.”
You can check out Sierra Nevada’s blog to see how the collaborations are coming. We love to see brewers working together on collaboration beers. But wait there's more! Beer Camp Across America is a two-part series. When the 12-pack is ready, Sierra Nevada will launch a traveling beer festival across the country that features the same beers and brewers. The 8-city festival will begin in Portland, Oregon, and travel to Chico, California; San Diego; Denver; Chicago; Portland, Maine; Philadelphia; and wind up in Mills River, North Carolina.