Ken Grossman

Ken Grossman is a legend in the microbrewing world. And on Tuesday, I got to see him speak on campus. He and Charlie are good friends and Ken comes three times a year to speak to Charlie's undergrad class and luckily we were invited.

Ken started Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. in 1980 and has built it up to be the largest privately held microbrewery in America. Not only that, but he drives the community to be as sustainable as possible. They have extensive water recycling systems, their own waste-water treatment plant, solar panels, fuel cells, and anaerobic digesters which supply much of the energy required for their brewery. Ken also believes in the whole hop and uses nothing else in his beer. Sierra Nevada is by far the largest brewery in the US to use exclusively whole hops. Ken also bottle conditions most of his beers, and does not use preservatives or pasteurization.

There are lots of reasons why I respect Ken Grossman and lots of ways in which I aspire to be like him. He build a brewing empire while minimizing his impact on the environment and refusing to compromise the quality of his product. I won't get into some of the more nerdy aspects of this, but suffice to say I have a bro-mance going on with him that is strictly one sided because he has no idea who I am.

Sierra Nevada just built a brand new brewery in Mills River, NC. It cost over $100 million and is capable of producing up to 1 million bbl of beer per year if fully stocked with fermenters. The new brewery will allow them to save on shipping costs across country and relieve some of the pressure from the Chico brewery which has been working around the clock the past few years to try to keep up with demand. Ken talked a lot about the new project in his presentation and boy is it awesome looking. It might be worth a trip down to NC especially considering it is spitting distance from Ashville which is rapidly becoming a microbrewing hub.