United Nations of Beer

Sierra Nevada Brewing

by UtahSteve
(Ogden, Utah)

Great Beer Shirts!

Sierra Nevada Brewing
Chico, CA

After a ski season full of low temperatures and two weeks in the Northwest US where the temps did not exceed 60, arriving in Chico is somewhat devastating as the air temperature is 86. I hate heat.

This was somewhat ameliorated by my arrival at Sierra Nevada Brewing. I inadvertently timed my arrival to coincide with a tour which was actually informational. Rather than describing the brewing process here I will try to review how Sierra Nevada is trying to reduce its carbon footprint and revolutionize the brewing process at the same time.

All of the roofs of the buildings have had solar panels for some time, but a Solar Array covering a large parking lot has recently been added, not only creating electricity but adding shade for the cars parked there. These panels, together with four hydrogen generators, create 2MW of electricity; which is enough to provide 85 per cent of the power needed to operate at full capacity. During off hours they are able to sell the extra power.

In addition to meeting the power needs of the brewery, they also recover 100 per cent of the CO2 produced as well as the methane gas produced by the food waste composting piles. They have reduced their landfill waste to 2.5 per cent of the total waste by recycling and reusing.

There is also now an experimental hop farm adjacent to the brewery that produced 1200 pounds of hops last year and the company has also added an employee/community garden.

The beers are all very well done, especially the new Southern Hemisphere Harvest which is a fresh hop ale brewed with hops from New Zealand. This ale also seemed to be the most popular with all the employees, as I was sitting at the bar with a lot of them.

If you happen to see this one in a bottle I would highly recommend it.