Breweries across the country are uniting to help in the relief effort for last month’s deadly wildfire in northern California.
Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., based in Chico, Calif., put out an all-call to breweries nationwide, asking if they would brew “Resilience Butte County Proud IPA.”
One hundred percent of the sales will go directly to the Sierra Nevada Camp Fire Relief Fund, directly helping the victims of the Camp Fire that destroyed nearly 14,000 homes and at last check killed close to 90 people.
Suppliers are donating ingredients, some wholesalers and retailers are carrying the beer for free and more than 1,400 breweries nationwide signed up to donate their time and labor costs to brew and distribute the beer. About a dozen are in Connecticut.
“It kind of hit me a little harder than probably most so I wanted to make sure we could give back to an area that we used to hang out and go hiking,” said Bob Bartholomew, head brewer at Kinsman Brewing Co. in Milldale.
He lived in California for a few years. When he heard about the Resilience fundraiser, signing up was a no-brainer.
Stony Creek Brewery in Branford is also taking part.
“I lived in California for years, most of my life, and have seen first-hand the fires, the earthquakes, the riots, the mudslides, all the disasters that seem to happen out there,” said Andy Schwartz, the brewmaster there.
It’s special to see the brewing community come together, according to Schwartz.
“When one of us gets hurt, and there were employees from Sierra Nevada that lost their homes and lost everything, if we can reach out and help, that’s important,” he said.
Amanda Demaio tried the Resilience beer at Stony Creek and said it was great. What makes it greater is that she’s now part of the mission to help the families victimized by the wildfire.
Steady Habit Brewing Company in Haddam plans to have their brew available by the end of January.
“What we try to do is we try to stagger ours so that we weren’t releasing the same weekend as some of the other breweries in Connecticut,” Director of Operations Jim Venditti said. “We wanted to make sure everybody got a chance to visit multiple breweries that are doing the same thing.”
