California dreaming (Sierra Nevada)
Ben McFarland visits the Sierra Nevada brewery in California and explains why its Chco time
Chico is a town that rarely gets its knickers in a twist. To say Chico is laid back is like saying San Francisco, a four hour drive away, is a little hilly and just a bit camp.
A small yet sprawling Californian-college town, Chico is where students party hard and the elderly retire harder; where the mercury reaches three digits at the height of summer; where hippy back-markers in the Rat Race just about keep up with the leisurely pace of life; and where real estate prices are growing faster than anywhere else in the whole of the United States.
The prospect of being within stumbling distance of one of America’s most celebrated craft breweries will, no doubt, have bumped up the house prices by a few dollars.
Sierra Nevada is arguably the biggest success story to come out of America’s craft brewing revolution. In 25 years, it’s grown from micro to macro and managed to sell a lot of beer without ‘selling out.’
When Anchor Steam and New Albion Brewing Company, regarded by many as the founding fathers of the American beer renaissance, were craft brewing up a storm on the West Coast in the late 70s, Sierra Nevada was an increasingly sparkly twinkle in the eye of one Ken Grossman.
A keen homebrewer since his teens and a chemistry and physics graduate from California State University, Ken had just opened a home-brewing store in Chico.
“Anchor Steam and New Albion were starting to come into the market and I was intrigued and excited by this,” recalled Ken. “I went and had a look.....
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By Ben McFarland
Section : International Brewery
Page number : 20
