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A Helping Hand

Through its charitable, environmental, and philanthropic efforts, Sierra Nevada Brewing is bettering the world.

By: Joshua M. Bernstein

Sierra Nevada Brewing Company’s Mills River, North Carolina facility is LEED Platinum certified, making it the first production brewery in the United States to earn this distinction.

Since 1980, Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. has set a high bar for great-tasting beers, introducing drinkers to the bitter, piney pleasures of hops and creating hazy IPAs for everyone. But the brewery’s accomplishments extend beyond the brew kettle.

Over the last 44 years, Sierra Nevada has made benevolence central to its business philosophy, championing ecological causes, sustainability, and philanthropy, rising to the occasion when disasters befall communities surrounding its breweries in Chico, California, and Mills River, North Carolina.

Our philanthropic and environmental efforts have been part of our operating ethos from day one,” says Sierra Grossman, Vice President and second-generation brewery owner at Sierra Nevada. “In the early days of the brewery, our approach to philanthropic and environmental efforts was created through the lens of what was right for our company, our community, and our family.” Here’s how buying and selling Sierra Nevada’s great-tasting beers is bettering the world.

Sustainability and Proactive Philanthropy Are Focal Points

Sierra Nevada’s story starts with recycling. In the late 1970s, Founder of Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. Ken Grossman Ken Grossman cobbled together some used dairy equipment to build a brewing system that created the landmark Pale Ale. In the ensuing decades, that startup became one of America’s biggest brewing success stories, balancing growth with environmental stewardship at its bicoastal breweries. Both locations offset electricity needs with solar arrays, capture and reuse carbon dioxide, and operate wastewater-treatment facilities. “When we built our North Carolina facility, we were able to showcase our ethos and approach to business on the biggest scale yet, building a platinum LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) facility,” Sierra Grossman says of the Mills River brewery that opened in 2014.

Maximizing resources and minimizing waste is paramount. She emphasizes that “offsetting our environmental footprint has been at the heart of almost all our sustainability initiatives. We do recognize that we rely heavily on water, healthy soil, and clean air to get the best ingredients for our beer. It is our duty to ensure that we are doing what we can to support our partners both upstream and downstream from us. It will take all of us recognizing that we need to continuously look at our operations and seek better, more sustainable ways of existing.”

Sierra Nevada also impacts the world beyond its brewhouse walls through proactive philanthropic efforts. The brewery supports the JMT Wilderness Conservancy, which preserves and protects wildlife, waterways, and wilderness along the 211-mile John Muir Trail that cuts through the Sierra Nevada Mountain range. In 2024, the brewery extended its partnership with Trust for Public Land, committing $150,000 annually over the next three years to support conservation efforts that encompass building trail systems, expanding local and national parks, and safeguarding forests. “We’ve chosen to focus on areas that mirror our core company tenets,” Grossman says.

How Sierra Nevada Responds to Disaster

Over the last decade, Sierra Nevada has seen catastrophes impact the communities surrounding its breweries. In 2018, the destructive Camp Fire devoured more than 150,000 acres of Northern California’s Butte County, which is home to Sierra Nevada. “We had around 40 employees that lost their homes,” says Mandi McKay, Sierra Nevada’s Chief Sustainability Officer.

After the devastating 2018 Camp Fire in Northern California, Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. stepped up to support its community, from emergency aid to long-term recovery efforts, including launching the Resilience IPA to fund relief initiatives.

Sierra Nevada looked to address its wider community’s immediate needs through reactive disaster response. “Right away we mobilized and helped get people sweatshirts and T-shirts,” Product Manager and Brewery Ambassador Terence Sullivan told Outside in 2018. “So many people had to evacuate in just their pajamas. They didn’t have anything.” The brewery served a Thanksgiving meal for Camp Fire evacuees and survivors, created a makeshift RV park, and set up the Camp Fire Relief Fund with an initial $100,000 contribution. Sierra Nevada then created the charitable Resilience Butte County Proud IPA, enlisting more than 1,400 breweries nationwide to make versions of the IPA that channeled proceeds to Camp Fire relief funds.

“We’ve been heavily involved in the long-term recovery process since the initial fire,” McKay explains. “There are people with unmet needs who are still rebuilding and recovering.”

In late September 2024, Hurricane Helene tore across the Southeast, causing catastrophic flooding in western North Carolina. Sierra Nevada’s brewery escaped major flooding, but the storm devastated the community at large and reduced some area breweries to rubble. The brewery responded by donating food to the Food Connection, which distributes food to those in need, and provided Asheville’s MANNA FoodBank with $50,000 to assist its recovery and support efforts.

Additionally, Sierra Nevada hosted a charity concert that raised more than $18,000 for Food Connection and donated $1 of every barrel brewed of Celebration IPA from the 2024 holiday season to the newly established NC Craft Brewers Foundation nonprofit. “We committed $40,000 to that effort, and then asked distributors to match that,” McKay says, adding that the brewery recognizes where and how it can help.

Sierra Nevada is not an arm of FEMA, nor is it staffed with a dedicated disaster relief team. “Rather than characterize it as us setting ourselves up to respond to disasters, it is instead about us supporting our local communities,” Grossman says. “The primary focus is to find ways to support our employees and their families, and then the community.”

Pale Ale National Parks Collection

In 2025, Sierra Nevada’s iconic Pale Ale will celebrate its pioneering spirit with limited-edition packaging honoring America’s national parks, supporting conservation and reigniting appreciation for these natural treasures.

Pale Ale debuted in 1981 with a bucolic illustrated label that featured the brewery’s namesake Sierra Nevada mountains. “Sierra Nevada was named after one of the most beautiful places in California, so of course we have always wanted to do right by her,” Grossman says.

America has 63 national parks (the Sierra Nevada range contains three), and it’s easy to take them for granted. “National parks are pretty universally loved, but they’re also often forgotten in terms of how unique and important they are for environmental impact, biodiversity protection, land conservation, and climate mitigation,” McKay says.

This April, Sierra Nevada will partner with the National Park Foundation (NPF), the official charity of the National Park Service, to elevate national parks through new Pale Ale carton packaging on 6-packs and 12-packs. Four limited-edition Pale Ale cartons will feature the Big Bend, Yellowstone, Great Smoky Mountain, and Yosemite national parks. “The campaign ties our philanthropic and social impact work to our flagship product, which we’ve never historically done,” McKay says. (Pale Ale’s recipe remains unchanged, and the packaging will be in market through July.)

The initiative will support NPF’s wildlife and habitat conservation efforts, funding efforts to safeguard threatened species and delicate ecosystems. In the market, the packaging ties a tighter knot connecting Sierra Nevada to its environmental and philanthropic core, aiming to reignite people’s excitement and appreciation for national parks and our Pale Ale, McKay says. (In Pennsylvania, expect an activation in Valley Forge National Park.) It’s easy to overlook longstanding landmarks on a landscape, be it a national park or a beer that trailblazed a pleasantly bitter path. “We’re reminding people of how our Pale Ale was a pioneer of the craft beer movement in the United States,” McKay says.

In spring 2025, Sierra Nevada also plans to announce its environmental and social-impact strategy and commitments that it will work on through 2030, both formalizing and amplifying key tenets. “It’s intended for consumers, distributors, and employees,” McKay says, adding that the brewery’s values are a draw for workers. “The whole point is to be very clear about what we stand for and what we’re working on, and then we’re going to track what we’re doing and be very transparent about it.”

Sierra Nevada’s cumulative efforts aren’t lip service to convince more customers to bring cans to lips. Doing good is enmeshed in the company’s DNA. “Of course it’s nice to have folks see how a business can contribute to a healthy community, but if you are doing it just for notoriety, you’re probably not doing it right,” Grossman says. “Our philanthropic efforts have always been about doing what we believe to be the right thing.”


Big Plans for Little Things

In late 2017, Sierra Nevada released Hazy Little Thing, a cashmere-soft hazy IPA that balances sweetness and bitterness, popping with ripe pineapple and orange zest Hazy Little Thing democratized the style, turning a line-culture beer into a grocery-store staple “Hazy Little Thing and that style have transcended categories,” says Ethan Peiffer, the Brand Manager for Sierra Nevada at Origlio Beverage, adding that Hazy Little Thing is securing steady tap placements in sports bars and restaurants “It’s extremely approachable to any consumer who likes beer” Sierra Nevada continues to build on Hazy Little Thing’s success with smart extensions that include IPAs that are brawny (Big Little Thing) and fruity (Juicy Little Thing), complemented by limited-edition releases like this winter’s Rad Little Thing, a West Coast–style hazy IPA “Expanding the family is keeping different customers engaged,” Peiffer says.


About the Author: Award-winning beer journalist Joshua M. Bernstein is the author of six books, including The Complete Beer Course.

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