NoCal Brew Tour: Day 2, Chico

We made it to Chico! The beer tasting would begin. Our first stop was the Butte Creek Brewery. Butte Creek is currently doing a Co-Op with Bison Brewery, so we essentially got a 2 for 1 deal. Unfortunately, they didn't have any tours or a tasting room. We went into the office hoping that we could buy some 22's. The woman working the office was very nice and although they didn't have anything to taste, she went back to the brewery and brought us a freshly bottled Bison Brewery Chocolate Stout. Our first beer of the trip!

Bison Chocolate Stout: A very rich, bittersweet chocolate flavor. Not very sweet and it could have been served cold, but good nonetheless.

We had a hard time picking out what exactly we wanted, so we purchased 4 cases of 22's.

• Bison Farmhouse Saison
  
• Mateveza
  
• Butte Creek Hang Ten IPA
  
• Butte Creek Fresh Hop Ale

After the quick stop at Butte Creek, we headed over to Sierra Nevada. They have an awesome brewery. It is a model of energy efficiency. From a chemical engineering standpoint, the place is awesome. Props to them. Couple of cool facts about the brewery: they use whole leaf hops in all of their beers, bottle condition all of their beers, and they generate about 60% of their electricity from fuel cells and like 20% from PV solar cells. Here's a few pictures we took from inside the brewery.

Kenji, Tony, and Dave just outside the gift shop.

Kenji making a lewd gesture

Here we are eating our dunch out on their patio.

Now then, on to the beers.