MEDFORD,Ore.– A new campaign is making waves across the country in efforts to help those afflicted by the Camp Fire in California. Surprisingly enough, it has to do with beer.
Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, headquartered in Chico, recently started a relief fund to help its ailing community as well as employees whose lives have been affected by the devastating fire. Doing what a brewery does best, Sierra Nevada sent out a call to all the breweries in the nation asking them to join in a fundraising effort by making beer.
In Oregon, dozens answered the call, including several in the Rogue Valley who were more than excited to take part.
“This is history. This has never been done before and we’re really excited about it,” said Adam Schiller, regional sales manager for Caldera Brewery.
Caldera, Walkabout Brewing Company and Opposition Brewing Company have begun the process of brewing the fundraising beer. Sierra Nevada is calling it Resilience Butte County Proud IPA.
According to the company, the recipe for the special India Pale Ale has been shared with hundreds of breweries from Washington to Texas to Florida and each is doing their part to produce anywhere from 7 barrels to 60 barrels.
The best part says Sierra Nevada – 100 percent of the proceeds from the beer made will go towards the Sierra Nevada Camp Fire Relief Fund.
“Anything, throughout history, beer has been here to do stuff for us,” said Schiller. “It’s just amazing to be able to be in a situation or position to be able to help.”
What started as a “call to brew” has quickly spread to 1,100 craft breweries now taking part across the country. According to Walkabout, it’s amazing to see so many taking the time to help especially without expecting to receive any money back.
“We had no idea what size, how many people were going to be a part of it but we thought it was just such a cool thing so we jumped in on it,” said general manager Cameron Litton.
All the breweries that have signed up were donated ingredients to make the IPA from Sierra Nevada’s distributors. Walkabout says they received almost all of the ingredients but because of the demand, they had to supplement with some of their own yeast. Sierra Nevada says that’s fine because while they want the idea of the beer to be the same, each brewery can give their own little spin on Resilience.
“When things tragic like this happen, it’s cool to be part of a community like the craft beer community that just all stand together and come up and do this,” said Litton. “Rivals are all doing it, I don’t know there’s ever been something of this scale with this many breweries.”
Even a Sierra Nevada spokesperson said they were surprised to see how many breweries signed up and weren’t aware of any other type of brewing fundraiser of this scale. With so many breweries taking part, the company estimates about two million pints will be made with the chance millions of dollars will be donated.
Caldera and Walkabout both estimate they will make about 2,300 and 1,500 pints, respectively. While only Sierra Nevada will be shipping cans of Resilience to select locations across the country, every brewery can sell and distribute to local taprooms in their area.
The beers are expected to be ready by late December after Sierra Nevada held a mass brew date on November 27, with hundreds of the breweries taking part at the beginning of the brewing process.
While Rogue Valley breweries are waiting to serve up the specialty beer, they’re really excited about seeing how far this charity will go.
“I don’t know that there’s ever been something of this scale with this many breweries come together to do a collaboration,” said Litton. “One single beer, that all the proceeds are going to one single charity. It’s really exciting.”
If you would like to see the running list of breweries participating, click here.
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