The Story of Ken Grossman Brewing and Sierra Nevada Stout – The Brewery’s First Beer
Ken Grossman, the founder of Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, began his brewing journey as a teenager in the late 1960s, inspired by a neighbor’s father who was an avid homebrewer. By age 14, Grossman was experimenting with homebrewing kits, mixing ingredients in a bucket and hiding his batches from his mother. His fascination with the alchemy of fermentation grew, leading him to open The Home Brew Shop in Chico, California, in 1976, where he sold brewing and winemaking supplies while refining his craft.
In 1978, Grossman, along with Paul Camusi, founded Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, driven by a passion for crafting unique, hop-forward beers at a time when American beer was dominated by mass-market lagers. With limited resources—$50,000 in loans from friends and family—Grossman scoured junkyards and dairy farms for scrap stainless steel and repurposed dairy equipment to build a makeshift brewhouse in a converted warehouse in Chico. His mechanical ingenuity, honed through years of tinkering and studying chemistry and physics at Butte College and Cal State Chico, was critical to this DIY endeavor.
On November 15, 1980, at 5 a.m., Grossman brewed Sierra Nevada’s first test batch: five barrels (150 gallons) of stout. This choice was deliberate. Grossman and Camusi opted for a stout over their already-tested pale ale recipe because they believed the dark, robust style would mask any imperfections in their fledgling brewery’s process. As Grossman explained, “We thought that making a stronger, dark beer would cover some of our sins. We knew we weren’t going to sell it and we figured we had a pretty good shot at making a drinkable stout right off the bat.” They also enjoyed drinking stouts themselves. The brewing process was a 13-hour labor of love, and after one sip, Grossman knew it was a success, giving them the confidence to move forward.
While the stout was not intended for commercial sale, it marked a pivotal moment, proving their hand-built system could produce quality beer. This test batch paved the way for Sierra Nevada’s flagship Pale Ale, brewed shortly after, which would revolutionize American craft beer with its bold use of Cascade hops. The stout, though less celebrated than the Pale Ale, remains part of Sierra Nevada’s early portfolio, with the brewery continuing to produce a classic stout alongside other styles like porter and the seasonal Celebration IPA introduced in 1981.
Grossman’s story of brewing that first stout reflects his relentless curiosity, resourcefulness, and commitment to quality, traits that have defined Sierra Nevada’s rise from a scrappy startup to one of America’s largest craft breweries, producing over 1,000,000 barrels annually .
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