Behind The Pint: Sierra Nevada's Brewmaster Steve Dresler

Sierra Nevada Brewing Company celebrated its 30th Anniversary last year, and Brewmaster Steve Dresler has been there for nearly all of them. He visited Portland recently for a couple events.

I got a chance to speak with Steve on a variety of subjects, including Sierra Nevada's upcoming wild collaboration with Russian River, how things have changed from the early days, exciting new hop varieties, and details on new seasonals like a Rye IPA and brandy barrel-aging projects.


(See our interview with Sierra Nevada's Terence Sullivan who heads up the Base Camp program)

Meanwhile, while I was out of town New School contributor and Breakside Brewery Brewmaster Ben Edmunds attended Mr. Dresler's Beer Camp at Sunshine Tavern, where Steve discussed everything from beer and food pairings to lost barrel-aged beers and special projects. Take it away Ben:

As mentioned previously on the New School, part of brewmaster Steve Dresler’s visit to Portland last week included a “beer camp” and accompanying dinner at SE Division’s Sunshine Tavern. The Sunshine opened late last spring to deservedly rave reviews. It is the second restaurant from David Welch and Jenn Louis, the duo behind North Portland’s casual-yet-elegant spot Lincoln, and the restaurant/bar offers a wide range of tasty, moderately priced food and drink that appeal to a wide range of consumers.

The dinner began with an hour-long tasting of six Sierra Nevada beers, including this year’s Celebration Ale and a hard-to-find Bourbon Barrel-Aged Tripel. Dressler discussed the raw materials, processes, and quirks of many of Sierra Nevada’s seasonal and specialty beers. Amongst the things we learned: SN’s hefeweizen yeast always get top cropped and pitched directly into a new batch; SN has a large enough barrel program that some beers (including a rum-aged stout) have been forgotten and dumped over the years; and, yes, SN argues that the freshly kilned hops used in Celebration Ale do constitute fresh hops. More importantly, all of the SN beers were tasty and inspiring—the tripel that I mentioned before had a portion that was aged in brandy barrels, which imparted a mildly fruity roundness to the beer that I hadn’t yet tasted.

The other treats of the evening were the plates of upscale pub grub that Sunshine Tavern provided to accompany the dinner. (In a unique way of managing the event, the ‘tasting’ preceded dinner for one hour. After the hour, the restaurant opened for regular dinner service, and the guests were served a pre-determined menu. I think this is a great model for brewers dinners for restaurants that have the desire—if not a separate space—to host an event similar to this one.) We paired several of the Tavern’s pizzas with Ovila Saison, Kellerweiss, and SN Porter. Later, guests opted for one of three entrees and a beer of choice from the tasting. A fried chicken sandwich with blue cheese dressing, red onion, celery, and chili mayo made for a rich and delicious accompaniment to the Ovila Saison as well as the 2011 Celebration Ale.

The folks at Sunshine have said that they plan to make these types of tasting ‘camps’ and dinners a regular event, so stay tuned for the announcement of what brewer and beers are up next. 

- Ben Edmunds