Life

Sierra Nevada's 'Rain Check' salutes wet summer

Rain Check, the first specialty beer brewed at Sierra Nevada's Mills River plant, will be sold locally and surrounding states in 4-packs.

By Bill Moss, Published: June 9, 2014

Sierra Nevada is celebrating the official start of brewing at its new Mills River plant with the release of Rain Check Spiced Stout, a specialty beer named in fun for the climate challenges that were anything but fun during brewery construction last year.

Brewed for the Western North Carolina area and several surrounding states, Rain Check was inspired by the tropical flavors often found in other favorite foul-weather drinks—fresh ginger, brown sugar, molasses and tangy lime, Sierra Nevada said in a news release.
"It's exciting to have some fun with the new brewery and to make a beer for our neighbors," Brian Grossman, co-manager of the Mills River brewery and son of Sierra Nevada founder Ken Grossman, said in a statement. "Getting this place up and online has been a long and challenging project, but now we can focus our energy on making great beer and delivering it to our East Coast drinkers fresher, faster, and with less of an impact on the environment."
Rain Check Spiced Stout is the brewery's nod to the record-setting wet weather that plagued the project and slowed construction of the new site since breaking ground in April 2012. Last year, Henderson County experienced the wettest year on record, enduring rainfall totals 2½ feet above normal that broke the all-time record by almost a foot.
Rain Check is the first specialty beer brewed at the new facility and marks the first of many original beers Sierra Nevada will create with the tastes of the local western North Carolina community in mind. Rain Check will be available in packs of four 12-ounce bottles and on draught in North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia starting in mid-June.
In February, Sierra Nevada began producing limited amounts of test run beer, focusing on "flavor matching" its legendary Torpedo Extra IPA and flagship Pale Ale, ensuring batches brewed in North Carolina exactly match batches brewed in California. In conjunction with the limited release of Rain Check, Sierra Nevada is ramping up production of Torpedo and Pale Ale to fulfill growing eastern demand.
Sierra Nevada will host a grand opening celebration at the Mills River brewery on Sunday, Aug. 3, which is the final stop in its seven-city Beer Camp Across America traveling beer festival. Sierra Nevada invited roughly 300 local and regional brewers to pour their beers at the Mills River festival. For the brewer lineup and to get tickets visit www.SierraNevada.com/BeerCamp.