Welcome back to FTW’s Beverage of the Week series. Previously, we’ve folded these in to our betting guides, whether that’s been for the NFL slate or a bizarrely successful run through the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. Here, we mostly chronicle and review beers, but happily expand that scope to any beverage that pairs well with sports. Yes, even cookie dough whiskey.
Sierra Nevada is a big deal. It seems like a smaller deal because of the continued crush of quality local independent breweries that followed it, but the California landmark was proof of concept for many beer lovers 42 years ago. That’s when Ken Grossman and Paul Camusi turned a homebrewing hobby into a craft beer movement and, for better or worse, helped steer microbrews toward the once-ignored pale ales macrobreweries had left behind.
That makes their beer easy to take for granted. In an evolving world of beer, their Pale Ale is a rickety wooden roller coaster at an amusement park that’s added a dozen steel hypercoasters over the last two decades. But wooden coasters still rule — especially you, Kennywood’s Thunderbolt — and if you’re overwhelmed in the beer aisle you generally knew you had a reliable Plan B by grabbing whatever Sierra Nevada sixer happens to be on hand.
It’s been a while since I’ve dabbled in the Chico, California brewer’s wares, so this review was a chance to try some of Sierra Nevada’s new offerings. And, because I’m all about broadening my horizons, that includes hard kombucha. Let’s see what we’ve got.