Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.

Ken Grossman and Paul Camusi, both home brewers, started the brewery in Chico, California, in 1980 with $50,000 from friends and family and equipment pieced together from dairy parts and scrap. The first batch on site was the Pale Ale, in November 1980, and Celebration, a fresh-hop IPA for winter, followed in 1981. Sierra Nevada opened a second brewery at Mills River, North Carolina, in 2014. It is the second-largest US craft brewer, and the Grossman family still owns it. The BJCP uses five of its beers as examples: the Pale Ale for American pale ale, Bigfoot for American barleywine, Narwhal for imperial stout, and its Porter and Stout. For its 30th anniversary it brewed an ale with New Albion’s founder Jack McAuliffe.