When Has Sierra Nevada Ever Let You Down?

Sierra Nevada within the past year also made a fairly significant change:

“Sierra Nevada Brewing Company has a new CEO.

Brewery founder Ken Grossman named former chief operating officer Jeff White to the position last October, the California-headquartered brewery confirmed to Brewbound. Grossman, who had served as the craft brewery’s only CEO since the company opened in 1980, has transitioned into the role of chairman.”

https://www.brewbound.com/news/sierra-nevada-appoints-new-ceo-eyes-5-percent-growth-in-2019

So, since October 2018 there has been a new CEO at Sierra Nevada.

I personally do not believe that the many changes we have been seeing (e.g., discontinued brands like Nooner, etc., changes in strategy of mix-packs, acquisition of Sufferfest brewery, etc.) is a ‘coincidence’.

It has been argued that these changes are for the ‘betterment’ of Sierra Nevada’s business prospects going forward. They have had recent declines as measured by beer sales (by volume). Maybe these changes will turn the business around and for 2019 they can report an increased beer sales volume? If so, will these increased beer sales volumes be sustainable over the next few years?

I suppose we may learn more in a few months once business metrics get reported.

Cheers!

 

@JackHorzempa, that is definitely worth noting. I consider it a pretty minor change considering that the new CEO was the previous COO and Ken didn't leave the company and the ownership didn't change. Mr. Grossman has got to be in his 60s so it's not surprising he'd be looking to reduce his responsibilities. As to the recentish changes, they just seem like typical adaptation, I mean even the much requested beers on this board (stout, kellerweiss, porter) are still available to places where that can gin up enough demand.

 

But other than some freaking out about big, evil Heineken (sarcasm), has Lagunitas actually changed?

 

There is no doubt that an "adaptation" is occurring and perhaps the CEO will report that is was for the 'betterment' of the business. As a customer I am not presented with the beers I like to purchase (e.g., a Fall mix-pack) so things are not 'better' for me.

As with any business they get to choose which customers they want to provide good service to. As a customer I get to choose where my beer money goes. In the recent past (and for a duration of decades) my beer money used to go to Sierra Nevada.

Cheers!

 

Yes let down numerous times....but I still LOVE SN! Otra Vez,Nooner,Flipside,Ruthless Rye[how about a consistent recipe SN?]'Hazy IPA [GIVE ME A BREAK!],Hop Bullet and many others.
SNPA,Torpedo and Tropical Torpedo and the wonderful Celbration fill my fridge with SN goodness. But I still LOVE SN!
*the post you have just is an opinion of the reviewer and in no way reflects the opinion of BA and/or it's members.Thank you.

 

Always been a fan of the OG Sierra Nevada Pale Ale; never let me down. Admittedly, with so many craft brewers out there, it is easy to pass it by, but I still drink it occasionally and it still is very good.

Loved the label on their Celebration (fresh hop) Ale, and that was the reason I first bought it. But when I tried it, I was equally impressed and has been a staple in my Winter beer drinking season and again, the Celebration never lets me down. So good on a cold winter night, especially if you happen to be in Tahoe for the holidays.

 

Sierra Nevada is a great brewing company by any standards. The Pale Ale is a benchmark beer that has presaged beer advances for decades. Beer lovers owe them a debt of gratitude for consistency, longevity, enough innovation and re-invention to stay perpetually top quality, forward thinking, and truly value oriented. I trust the products and buy them often. Otra Vez does not fit into my rotation, but my taste doesn't mean the beer is not well made. And I could add paragraphs about their values. Long live Sierra Nevada Brewing Company!

 

I like them a lot, and in previous years probably bought 5+ cases of their beer when they had the various hop packs. I think this year I am running about 1.5 cases. I misses those samplers, I know they were probably a big PITA to package, but all they had to do was call me and I would have come over and help box them....

Edit, forgot celebration is about to come out, will probably grab another case or ....

 

Perfectly put.

Narwhal, Hoptimum, Celebration also are personal favorites. Narwhal in particular is a must buy each year for my cellar, and right now I can't wait to grab a sixer or 12-pack of Celebration. It's great until April or later as far as I'm concerned.

Sierra Nevada has not let me down. Some of my ratings of their beers are relatively low, but as I examine those lower ratings, I see a lot of those came early in my craft beer journey when me and my palate didn't understand half of what was going on.

We're lucky to have a national brewery as good as SN.

 

Well (and at the risk of repeating myself)... As I saw it, Maytag, Grossman and those other early "craft" brewers in the US - McAuliffe, the guys at Boulder, Newman, hell, even Uncle Jim (Koch) nearly a decade later, etc - did not see themselves as creating "new" beer styles so much as recreating/reviving older US-brewed beer styles that had died out, were nearly defunct or, in the case some style (e.g., porter) "...weren't feeling very well..." (apologies to Wait, T.). This whole "innovation" mania came along much later.

Maytag went to the UK to study their brewing industry in the 1970s when he was planning Liberty Ale and Old Foghorn, even stopping off in Philadelphia to visit Ortlieb brewmaster Bill Moeller who was then brewing McSorley's Ale - open, top-fermented and dry-hopped. In a 1979 Brewers Digest article, McAuliffe credited 8 books with his brewing education - only one of which was published in the 20th century. SN's first beers were Pale Ale, Porter and Stout and Grossman studied the industry journals in the library at UC Davis.

The concept that using a different variety of hops makes a beer a "new" style (SNPA is an "American Pale Ale" because it used Cascade hops, Liberty Ale is the first American IPA because it used Cascades, etc) is also a post-craft era conceit. I just went through some early SN info, and the hop variety used is not even mentioned in some brewing industry articles (ditto for New Albion Ale, which was IIRC all-Cascade, too). Cascades had already been used by Coors (apparently only briefly) and by Blitz-Weinhard (soon after a Pabst-owned brewery) for their superpremium lager, Henry Weinhard's, by the time SN started brewing with them.

Sure, well after the US craft pale ales originated, it makes sense to now differentiate APA from the original UK Pale Ales, given both the influence NAA/SNPA had on the US brewers who followed but also because during their two century existence the UK ales had evolved to become very different beers.

Both Grossman and Maytag have credited the Ballantine ales as part of their inspiration. Post-Repeal, Ballantine used only US hops, including US-grown Brewer's Gold - a hybrid developed in the US from a wild North American hop. So what sort of hop was that? And what sort of India Pale Ale was Ballantine? UK? American? (By the 1980s, Falstaff had changed the recipe to include Cascades).

 

Awesome post @jesskidden . I'll also add that when Maytag went to the UK, the IPAs there at the time weren't like the English IPAs a century prior.

 

Yeah, that's what I was referring to when I wrote:

...but it was an awkwardly worded sentence .

Hell, I, a regular Ballantine India Pale Ale drinker at the time, will never get over the shock of having a Labatt IPA, circa late-1970s... I refer you to the Greil Marcus' infamous first sentence Rolling Stone review of Dylan's Self-Portrait. (An album that I have come to love).

But it gives me another chance to note something I forgot to mention - in 1908 the US hop growers exported 22.9 million lbs of hops (mostly Clusters given US hop crop of the time), 21.7 million going to the UK and about 1 million more to "British North America" and "British Australasia" but I doubt anyone considered those British, Canadian, NZ or Australian beers "American" because of it.

 

According to Pattinson, those Pacific hops were attractively inexpensive.

 

Otra Vez and Brut IPA for me. I have had about 17 beers from them and I rated most above 3.5. I view them as being consistently good.

 

Tropical Torpedo was a miss for me.

And then the aforementioned replacement of Glissade with hoppy beers and the fall mix pack going away (specifically the Vienna Lager).

 

When I couldn't find Narwhal this year. I mean damnit, I buy a case of the stuff so I can crack one whenever the itch scratches for a good stout through the year.

Otherwise they're one of my favorite breweries. Hell, I already have a 6 pack of Celebration hanging out in the fridge.

 

Pale Ale -> Still a classic
Oktoberfest -> I look forward to it every single year
Nooner -> One of my favorite Pils
Otra Vez -> Killer on a hot day

I guess just their meh hazy was a let down? But I don't really go to them for hazies so that's more on me.

 

The Anniversary IPA looks like it'll be making something of a comeback as the Spring seasonal next year. Might not be the same formula, but it'll be a roughly 6% Cascade heavy beer, which sounds like it'll be in the same ballpark.

https://www.newschoolbeer.com/2019/...ear-long-40th-anniversary-brewhouse-tour.html

 

I am confused why you listed this beer. You do realize this beer was discontinued, right?

Cheers!

 

Their Hazy Little Thing IPA is, per their reports, their #4 seller now and a beer they credit with putting them back in the growth phase again. I think it is a great drinking beer and has most of the good things I like about the style and none of the bad.