Sierra Nevada Brewing Company

Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. was established in 1979 by homebrewers Ken Grossman and Paul Camusi in Chico, California, United States. Sierra Nevada Brewing is one of the top breweries operating in the United States. As of 2016, it is the seventh-largest brewing company in the United States. The brewery produced 786,000 barrels of beer (922,353 hectoliters) in 2010.The brewery was named "Green Business of the Year" by the United States Environmental Protection Agency in 2010 for its practices in sustainability.HistorySierra Nevada Brewing Co. was founded in 1979, with founders Ken Grossman and Paul Camusi expanding their homebrewing hobby into a brewery in Chico, California. Along with the brewery's location, Grossman claims the company's name comes from his love of hiking in the mountains of the Sierra Nevada. With $50,000 in loans from friends and family, Grossman and Camusi rented a 3000sqft warehouse and pieced together discarded dairy equipment and scrapyard metal to create their brewing equipment. They later were able to acquire second-hand copper brewing kettles from Germany before moving to their larger, current brewing facility in 1989.The first batch brewed on premises was its Pale Ale, in November 1980. The following year, the brewery introduced Celebration, an IPA, which it continues to release as a winter seasonal. The company sold 950 barrels of beer in its first year, and double that amount in the second.