November 18, 2015. | Issue 12, Volume 63 | thebluebanne^
New Sierra Nevada facility open for business in WNC
KADY BRASWELL
Contributing Writer
Walking through the heavy front
doors, the smell of malted barley, hops
and yeast entices the senses. The aro
ma of homemade duck fat fries and the'
steak du jour mingles with the scents
of popular pale ales, stouts and lagers.
Barely a year and a half old, the
Sierra Nevada Brewing Company in
Mills River broke ground in 2014, af
ter the demand for beer outpaced the
supply, forcing an expansion from Cal
ifornia to North Carolina. The move
would supply fresher beer, faster, with
a smaller environmental impact to
thirsty fans on the East Coast.
And it has.
“About seven years ago or so, we
were all sitting around kind of look
ing at the future, wondering what ex
actly we could and should do,” says
Bill Manley, beer ambassador, over
the phone. “It was pretty obvious we
were going to run out of space in Chico
sooner rather than later.”
Along with the space for a new
brewery, and access to good water and
decent shipping channels, Manley said
the company also considered its em
ployees’ wants and needs.
“If we’re going to ask people to
move from California, it better be to a
place they want to live,” Manley says.
“A place with that same culture, that
same sense of a community we’ve al
ways had in northern California.”
After meticulously choosing hun
dreds of potential cities, the company
eventually fell in love with the Ashe
ville area.
With a brewery culture similar to
California, it was reminiscent of home.
It also had access to good water and
shipping channels, affordable housing,
a decent quality of life and live music,
Manley says.
So Asheville moved to the top of the
list.
Sierra Nevada announced the move
in January 2012 and opened the doors
in April 2014, along with 12 of their
Chico employees. ,
Tour Supervisor Scott Randall was
one who made the 2,600-mile move.
“It was a big decision for sure,” Ran
dall says. “I was kind of the lone wolf
leaving my family out on the West
Coast, but it’s definitely been worth it.”
For a few months after Sierra Ne
vada broke ground on the Mills River
Photo by Ashley Elder - News Staff Writer
Andres Arias and Mary Beth Cox
smell the sweet aroma of hops as
they tour Sierra Nevada.
property, he says he wasn’t so sure.
2013 was one of the largest rainy
seasons the Carolinas had experienced,
halting progress in construction.
Aside from that, Randall said the
progress, although slow, has been
beautiful to watch come together.
“The Chico brewery had kind of
been a culmination of a few years, you
Read more on page 15
Malt Disney: Sierra Nevada brews beer the green way
ASHLEY ELDER
News Staff Writer
aelder@unca.edu
Orlando has its theme parks.
Asheville has its breweries.
Sierra Nevada’s Asheville lo
cation might as well be called
“Malt Disney.”
Bill Manley, beer ambassa
dor, said he has been with the
company for nine years.
Dressed in a button-down
plaid shirt, jeans and Con
verse, Manley discussed how
Sierra Nevada brews so much
beer without negatively affect
ing the environment.
Inspired by hiking, owner
Ken Grossman named Sier
ra Nevada after the mountain
range.
He decided to skip his high
school graduation and start
ed the company soon after in
1980.
“Being stewards of the en
vironment has been one of the
core fundamentals from the
very beginning,” Manley said.
It was not just having re
spect for being outside, Man-
ley said, in the early days there
was no such thing as small-
scale brewing.
“Ken figured out that reus
ing and recycling was not just
a platitude that you say or a
bumper sticker, but something
you did because you had to as
part of the business model,”
Manley said. “There was no
other way.to do it.”
The Chico location in Cal
ifornia brews 900,000 barrels
a year. Asheville brews a third
of that with 300,000 barrels.
After only a year and a half,
the extra space built into the
Asheville location for the fer
mentation process is already
being utilized, Manley said.
Sierra Nevada talks about
sustainability as a whole cor
porate structure, he said.
The Chico location has
11,000 photovoltaic cells to
collect sunlight, allowing the
brewery to supply almost all
its own electricity during the
summer.
This property is one of the
two largest privately owned
solar installations in the coun
try. The other belongs to Goo
gle.
The Asheville location uses
solar panels to supply some of
its electricity as well.
“We also have hydrogen
fuel cells that put out hot gas,”
,Manley said, “which we use
to heat our kettles. So it’s a
closed loop of inputs and out
puts.”
He said the company sends
employees reminders about
recycling. All the lights are
on motion sensors at both lo
cations. Little things like that
add up to be a big deal, he
said.
“With 30 years of hindsight
they were able to design this
building from the ground up to
be more sustainable and effi
cient,” Manley said.
All the buildings are con
structed with panels made of
prefab concrete Manley said.
And all those panels work as
individual cells making them
airtight.
When looking to build an
other brewery, Manley said,
the new location had to have
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