If you've never visited the Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., the upcoming Blue Highway performance is a perfect opportunity to check out this fascinating venue. Arrive early and take the 2:30 brewery tour, or take a self-guided tour any time betwen 10am and 6pm (a quick online tour is available here).
You'll find many beautiful elements throughout the brewery, from the traditional copper kettles right down to the door handles. The Restaurant and Taproom are closed on Mondays, but a limited menu dinner is available in the Big Room during the hour before performance time.
The Big Room, a 350-seat all-ages performance space, was designed with great care to present acoustic music in the best possible environment.
On your way to the brewery, you'll pass by a field of organic hops, contributing estate hops to the many varieties of fresh-harvest, whole-cone hops that the brewery imports from around the world and adds to the brew kettles at various points during the brewing and maturation cycle. Hops are a big deal here: a recent specialty beer in the Taproom, Southern Hemisphere Harvest, used fresh hops flown in from New Zealand.
But the parking lot will be your first hint of something really special about Sierra Nevada: its high level of commitment to environmental stewardship. The solar canopy that covers the parking lot (a .5 megawatt solar array complex) and additional rooftop panels provide over 1.4 megawatts of AC power.
Add to the mix four 250-kilowatt co-generation fuel cell power units, one of the largest fuel cell installations in the United States, and a sophisticated heat recovery system, and the result is a company that produces most of its electrical needs and sells surplus electrical energy back into the power grid. Imagine that: a brewery that makes great beer, AND makes the electric meter spin in reverse!
CO2 recovery, water conservation and treatment, and an aggressive recycling program (with a 97.8% landfill diversion rate) are other components of the brewery's deep commitment to the environment. Impressive! |
