Sierra Nevada Brewing hosts homage to hops festival

Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. will host its second annual Single, Fresh, Wet & Wild Harvest Festival on Saturday, Oct. 18, at its brewery in Chico, Calif. The acclaim from hop heads after the inaugural 2013 event inspired the beer festival’s return as a yearly fixture. Single, Fresh, Wet & Wild celebrates the fall U.S. hop harvest, and Sierra Nevada anticipates more than 50 breweries from across the country will together provide a beer lineup that showcases:

• Single hop beers: Features only one hop variety;
• Fresh hop beers: Uses dried hops that are picked, shipped and added to the brew kettle within weeks of hop harvest;
• Wet hop beers: Uses un-dried hops that are picked, shipped and added to the brew kettle within days of hop harvest; and
• Wild hop beers: Features hops found untamed in nature. At the inaugural Single, Fresh, Wet & Wild, Sierra Nevada poured a beer made using wild hops from nearby Whitmore.

“Our excitement for this beer festival starts right now,” said Ken Grossman, Sierra Nevada’s founder. “We’re watching our estate hops reach their peak, and we head to the Yakima Valley in a few short weeks to get our hands on the first hops of the season. We’ll run into our brewing friends there, and we’ll have fun imagining the great beers to come, some of them folks will be able to try at Single, Fresh, Wet & Wild.”

With great anticipation American craft brewers await hop harvest season, with their hauls from the fields helping them design and plan beers for the year ahead. The more than 3,000 U.S. craft breweries are an inspired bunch, using more hops in more ways than ever before — an ambition that helps steer the exciting evolution of beer ingredients. Single, Fresh, Wet & Wild is a snapshot of and a salute to the brewer ingenuity that’s shaping the tastes of drinkers nationwide.

Ticket sales for Single, Fresh, Wet & Wild can be purchased on the Sierra Nevada website, where you can also discover more details about the event.  All ticket proceeds benefit the California Craft Brewers Association, which champions the success of the more than 450 craft breweries in the state.