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What could possibly lure away the chiefs of Russian River Brewing Company in the midst of the annual spectacle that is their Pliny the Younger release?
A killer 12-pack.
Russian River, along with 12 other star brewers from across the country, have teamed up with craft beer behemoth Sierra Nevada Brewing to brew a dozen unique beers for a variety pack celebrating the Chico brewery’s expansion facility set to open soon in North Carolina. Sierra’s high-caliber collaborations won’t just be on store shelves in July; they’ll also be released at a series of festivals across the country that the brewery is planning for a few beer-soaked weekends this summer.
Sounds like one helluva caravan.
“(Sierra founder) Ken Grossman isn’t one for limelight and fanfare, if he can help it,” brewery spokesman Ryan Arnold said. “He realizes that he wouldn’t have gotten to the point where he’s able to open a second brewery without all the others who’ve built up American craft beer to what it is today.”
Participants in the Beer Camp Across America program read like a VIP list of the craft brew world. In no particular order, Sierra has teamed up with Allagash, Bell’s, Ninkasi, Cigar City, Russian River, Victory, Oskar Blues, Three Floyds, Firestone Walker, New Glarus, and two North Carolina brewers – Wicked Weed and Green Man – participating through the Asheville Brewers Alliance.
Russian River’s Vinnie and Natalie Cilruzo dropped by earlier this week to brew a third pilot batch of their hoppy Belgian blonde. Like many of the brewers, they’re in the midst of perfecting their recipes for production. Each is dreaming up their own recipe, some with regional twists. Ninkasi, for example, is working on a latte-inspired milk coffee stout brewed with Oregon native Stumptown coffee. Cigar City’s maibock promises some tropical hop flavors to match its palm-studded location.
The travelling roadshow will include stops in or near each of the participating brewer’s hometowns and will end in Mills River, North Carolina, home of Sierra’s new facility. The new brew house will up production at Sierra Nevada – already the country’s second largest craft brewery – by 350,000 barrels a year, with room to grow to 800,000.
“For the last few years, we’ve been maxed out at around a million barrels here in Chico,” Arnold said. “That’s truly not comfortable for this brewery.”
Sierra isn’t the only NorCal brewery bumping up production in a big way. San Francisco’s 21st Amendment signed a lease months ago on a new San Leandro facility that could ultimately up output by a quarter million barrels a year. Magnolia Brewing is slated to open its new and eagerly awaited Dogpatch digs sometime soon. And Lagunitas is in the process of launching their new production and taproom facility out in the Windy City.
With a laugh – and maybe just a touch of rue? – Arnold acknowledged the irony of adding a dozen new collaboration beers to the production schedule just as the current facility is all-but-bursting at the seams. In practical terms, the limited production space means this crazy-ambitious variety pack – set for release in all 50 states in July – may not be on shelves for long.
“It will be a fairly brief window that the variety pack will be on shelves, assuming people dig it and are taking it home,” Arnold said.
With that lineup? I wouldn’t worry about it, Ryan.
