Beer Camp!

I love beer like a fat kid loves candy, so when I received the Golden Ticket in the mail last month, I felt like Augustus Gloop on the banks of the chocolate river...

Rewind. Earlier this summer, numerous friends sent me a link to a contest offering folks a chance to attend Sierra Nevada Beer Camp. The prize consisted of extensive touring and tasting at the brewery during the days, VIP treatment out on the town at night, and the opportunity to conceptualize, brew and name a batch of beer.  I had recently written a song about my love for Sierra Nevada, and it seemed that it had found its calling! The contest called for a short video, so I recorded the song along with my good friends Tim and Nicki Bluhm at Mission Bells, Tim's studio in San Francisco's Mission District. (You can watch the video here.) 

On the 1st of September,  I found myself driving northbound on Highway 99 towards Chico. The late day wind blowing past my windows was warm and dry, the kind that really stirs up a thirst, and I was giddy with excitement for happy hour at the brewery. There in the pub, I met the other winners who'd arrived from Arizona, Connecticut, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, New York and Virginia, as well as our Beer Camp counselor, Terence, who must have one of the coolest jobs in the world.

It was obvious right away that we were in for some incredibly special treatment. All we had to do was utter the words "Beer Camp" and magic seemed to happen. Bartenders gave us beers, waitresses brought us wings, and all of them seemed almost as excited for us to be there as we were! After getting to know the other campers as well some of Sierra Nevada's longest tenured employees and Ken Grossman, the brewery's founder, we all headed to The Bear for burgers and beers. I went with a peanut butter bacon cheeseburger and Pale Ale combo, and I was not disappointed. After watching some local friends play music downtown, I ended the night with a late dip in the creek and a nice, cool bike ride back to the van. 

We started the next morning by meeting with pilot brewmaster Scott Jennings and brewery ambassador Steve Grossman to finalize the recipe for our beer camp creation. As a group, we had exchanged emails for several weeks in order to hone in on our collective tastes and vision for the brew. After initially voting between a Saison and an IPA, we gathered around the boardroom table and decided upon a fresh-hopped double IPA weighing in at a whopping 9.3% (9/3 being the date of our brew day). Our group consisted largely of experienced home brewers, so I sat back and soaked it all in as the others dialed in the ingredients and process needed in order to achieve the desired flavor, strength, color and balance for our beer. I was particularly excited by the group's commitment to using as many local and organic ingredients as possible, especially Sierra Nevada's very own estate-grown hops. 

Following the meeting, we headed out to the field to harvest some of the Chinook hops for our recipe. (Other hops we used included Centennial, Citra, Amarillo, Simcoe and Hop 366, one of the brewery's favorite experimental varieties.) Nobody ever talks about what heaven smells like, but I'd imagine this was pretty close to it. Sierra Nevada also grows some of its own barley as well as veggies for the restaurant and gorgeous plots of flowers, all with the help of their house compost. Talk about terroir!

After a bit of nourishment and rehydration in the pub, we set out for an afternoon of touring the brewery on one of the most practical contraptions I've ever seen... The barcycle! Terence shouted directions and steered up front, while Andrew bartended in the back.  Ten of us sat on stools along the bar and pedaled our way around the premises like we owned the place, laughing and shouting and singing and drinking, visiting various brewing facilities, bottling lines, and the warehouse. Our final stop of the day was the pub (surprise!), where I had the pleasure of singing The Sierra Nevada Song for a small but rowdy crowd including Ken Grossman himself. Check it out!

Day three was the final and most important day of Beer Camp... brew day! We showed up early for coffee and breakfast burritos before getting started on our to-do list. Tasks included gathering up an impressive variety of hops, weighing our malted barley and hops, and bringing all the ingredients up to the pilot brewery, home of Sierra Nevada's more experimental endeavors. There, Scott broke down the processes involved in brewing our beer and we watched as the beer moved through its various stages, from grinder to tun to kettle. We also tasted the wort, examined its color in the sight glass, and helped carry out several of many hop additions.

              

While Scott took care of monitoring the brewing process, we set off with Terence to enjoy our final afternoon of touring the brewery. Accompanied by Tom Dalldorf, founder and editor of Celebrator magazine, we had lunch in the pub and then moved on to the fermentation rooms for some special tasting. Highlights included the soon-to-be-released 2010 Estate Harvest Ale, a rare Oaked Bigfoot, and one of my personal favorites, Sierra Nevada ESP (Extra Special Pale). We also visited the brewery's quality control department, research and development lab, and sensory testing and tasting room, where I confirmed that Sierra Nevada does, in fact, know what they are doing.

 

Our final order of business was deciding upon a name for our creation. As easy as this step may seem, it was actually one of the biggest challenges of camp. For the sake of government registration and legal ease, the name must be original and unique. For the sake of Sierra Nevada, it should relate to our vision for the beer and fit in stylistically with the rest of Sierra Nevada's catalogue. And for practical purposes, it must be an easy and memorable bar call for those loud, busy nights. Having tested ourselves drunk, we whipped out paper and markers and started working away at a name. Seeing as we had quite a musical group of campers, and also that we'd created one of the hoppier beers ever attempted at Beer Camp, we voted for "Hopsichord." Nice!

Once Hopsichord has spent the requisite time fermenting, it will be kegged and served at select venues including the Sierra Nevada pub. As an added treat, they will also be sending a keg of it to the local pub of each camper's choice, wherever we may call home, and are planning on bottling some of it for us as well! Stay tuned, I hope to figure out an ideal locale and share a pint of Hopsichord with you soon.

To my fellow campers and to the entire Sierra Nevada family, thanks a million for making Beer Camp a  trip of a lifetime!