BREWED IN NEVADA COUNTY

The thirst for small batch local beer is unquenchable across the country these days. The trend is red hot in the Tahoe Sierra, with a new microbrewery opening up seemingly on a regular basis. California is best known for world-class wine, but it also has a history of thirstquenching brew dating back to the gold rush.

In 1849, tens of thousands of wealth seekers invaded San Francisco to find their fortune. Men — and comparatively fewer women — from around the world were hoping to get rich quick, anyway they could.

Most headed into the primitive mining districts opening up in the Sierra foothills, while many others plied their trades in booming San Francisco.

The bustling energy, lack of women, and the general social freedom in behavior gave young men away from their wives or families a chance to party.

Saloons were everywhere, but getting a cold beer was tough at first because any perishable steam or lager beer shipped from the East Coast spoiled before arriving on the Pacific Coast.

Gold rush Argonauts were nothing if not resourceful, and it wasn’t long before Adam Schuppert built California’s first brewery in San Francisco.

It was quickly followed by others, but the quality of these first beers was marginal at best since the process was a quick brew, made in 72 hours. Taste was sacrificed for speed and quantity to meet demand.

During the 1850s, beer crafters began to take more time to create a better product. Nearly all the hops used to make beer came from the Sacramento and Napa valleys.

The demand for locally grown barley skyrocketed and by 1854 more than 83,000 bushels were being produced in Placer County alone. The grain was hauled to mills in Sacramento by mule team. By the 1870s, there were more than 155 breweries in California using 18 million pounds of barley, producing 120,000 barrels of beer and ale.

Nevada County’s love of beer dates back to 1850s

Excerpts Courtesy of Dave Brooksher, The Union Newspaper

Between 1856 and 1880, beer production in Nevada County increased from 44,000 gallons to 500,000 gallons per year — and by the end of that span there were a total of 41 saloons serving in Grass Valley and Nevada City.

According to Thompson and West’s History of Nevada County, this area had more than a dozen breweries during the Mother Lode era.

Grass Valley and Nevada City had four each, Truckee had three, and there were additional brew houses scattered throughout the mining camps in North San Juan, Moore’s Flat, Eureka South, Boca and Washington.

It would be unfair to write that all of Gold Country’s early miners were heavy drinkers. But if they had a problem, the extent of that problem was great enough to inspire a local prohibition movement. And the Women’s Christian Temperance Union had their work cut out for them.

Early front-runners include the Boca Brewery, which reportedly brewed more beer than all the others combined, and the Nevada Brewery — located in the building now known as The Stonehouse.

The Grass Valley Brewery first opened on North Auburn Street in 1856 but shut down during Prohibition. It reopened years later as the Washington Tavern — and that name can still be seen from East Main Street, painted on the red brick wall of the Washington Brewery Building.

According to historical archaeologists R. Scott Baxter and Kimberly J. Wooten, authors of Breweries of the Gold Country, “California’s Gold Country, known historically as the Mother Lode, is located in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It was here that the famous goldfields of the Gold Rush were located. From 1849 onward, thousands of miners flooded into the area. These men brought with them a powerful thirst, which they sought to slake with their beverage of choice — beer.

Fast Forward to Present day: According to Jen Talley, award winning brewmaster and co-owner of 1849 Brewing Company, ”It wasn’t until 2014 that we hit the same number of breweries in America that were in existence prior to Prohibition, which is over 4000. It’s incredible that it’s taken this long, but we’re seeing another extraordinarily huge rise in craft beer right now.

Some think that we have a long way to go, and maybe we do. Hopefully, we do, but now you can go to the shelves and see lots of diverse styles represented, and you can see Small Breweries coming up everywhere.

A Small Brewery makes one, two, three, maybe four or five thousand barrels a year. Sometimes with a Brew Pub or Tap Room attached. Small Breweries, serving their local town, their local communities — our community is a great example — Small Breweries, that’s where growth is today in Craft Beer.

Great options to quench your thirst for liquid gold:

Grass Valley: 1849 Brewing Company, Grass Valley Brewing Company, Thirsty Barrel Tap Room & Grill, Pete’s Pizza and Tap House, The Pour House, and Wild Eye Pub.

Nevada City: Three Forks Bakery & Brewing, Jernigan’s

Elevating Their Craft: BrewBilt Manufacturing’s Evolution in the World of Craft Breweries

By Cory Fisher, The Union Newspaper

equipment was hard to come by in the late 1990s. Having worked as a welder, he realized that instead of buying expensive pots at a department store, he could build his own. Eventually, friends who were also home brewers began to ask him to make their pots and word of Lewis’ welding skills began to spread. That’s when his first big job materialized: a local brewery. From that point on, making brewery equipment became a solid side job while he continued to work full-time at a Portland welding shop.

BrewBilt Brewing grew out of BrewBilt Manufacturing Inc., an iconic company that has been handcrafting custom brewhouses, tanks, and accessories since 2014. We pride ourselves on brewing the beers that we love to drink and like our tastes, this is always evolving.

Jef Lewis developed an appreciation for craft beer at an early age. When he was 20 — still too young to get into bars — his girlfriend bought him a home brew kit, and he quickly got to work rearranging his Portland garage.

“Making beer was fun and adventurous,” he said. “The process would take a couple of weeks. There was always the anticipation of the final product. Sometimes it would turn out horrible, but we’d drink it anyway.”

Lewis quickly discovered that quality home brewing

Then, the economic crash of 2008 happened. Lewis, along with 21 of his fellow employees, were all laid off in a single day.

“My wife and I had a 1-month-old baby, a 2-year-old boy, and I had no job,” he said. “No one was hiring.”

Suddenly forced to work exclusively out of his garage, Lewis tried to scrape up more welding jobs where he could. Advertising on Craigslist, he’d take on any project, such as fixing an old lamp, as well as maintaining sporadic small local brewery jobs — as he tried to make enough to pay the mounting bills.

“But piecing together the small jobs wasn’t cutting it — then I had a vision,” he said. “What if I started a business focusing exclusively on building brewery equipment — putting all of my energy into this one thing?”

NECESSITY, THE MOTHER OF INVENTION

Despite the fact that breweries were rapidly multiplying in Portland, Lewis knew he was a relative unknown and would have to hustle. He got in his car and began knocking on brewery doors. He knew he had the expertise — he just needed a foot in the door. His efforts slowly began to pay off.

“It was just me in my shop taking in small jobs,” he said. “Then a couple of larger welding shops gave me overflow work from larger commercial breweries and that really got the ball rolling.”

Lewis and his wife, Erin, finally had a more steady income, but eventually, they grew tired of the relentless rain of the Pacific Northwest. Both native Californians, they felt as if their children were spending the bulk of their lives indoors. Having spent much of his youth in Nevada County, Lewis was eager to bring his family back home.

RELOCATION, STARTING OVER

In 2012, the couple rented a too-small home on North Bloomfield in Nevada City with one key ingredient: a 2,400-foot shop. Lewis took a temporary job with a local welding company while simultaneously getting his own new brewery business, BrewBilt Manufacturing, Inc., off the ground in an unfamiliar business territory.

“I hit the road, again started knocking on doors, cold calling, hustling and picking up small jobs — anything I could,” he said. “It was like starting all over again.”

Then, he landed first large job: Ol’ Republic Brewery in Nevada City ordered 12 BrewBilt fermenters. It was a $150,000 job. Although the brewery is now closed, one of Ol’ Republic’s craft brews went on to win the winnertake-all Best of Show competition at the California State Fair. Their brewing process attracted the attention of other brewers. BrewBilt was off and running.

Today, BrewBilt builds equipment for highend breweries all over the United States from its 8,000-square-foot Spring Hill Drive warehouse in Grass Valley. This year, the crew of 18 employees is building a system for a brewery in Finland, their first international job. Average orders fall between $350,000 and $500,000, but Lewis says orders can range from “a $1,500 part to a million-dollar invoice.”

With breweries rapidly multiplying and expanding around the country, more companies are doing what BrewBilt does. So why do high end establishments continue to seek them out? Lewis thinks it all stems from his welding skills and aesthetic (“They’re not just utilitarian parts,” he says. “They’re beautiful”). But it also extends to his obsession with designing and building the finest craft brewing equipment on the market. His equipment is made in the U.S., only with Americanmade 304 stainless steel. And the manufacturing takes place right in his hometown. They also offer a six-year warranty, the longest in the business, said Lewis, who is confident equipment will last much longer.

“We know from experience that realizing a brewer’s dream takes passion, determination, and a good partner,” said Lewis. “We can be with the customer every step of the way — from concept to opening. We’ll work with bankers on financing solutions and with architects and contractors on equipment layout — all the way through to scheduling, logistics and ongoing project management.”

The BrewBilt crew is there when the equipment is loaded onto semi-trucks and they accompany the load to its destination, where they help with installation, working with construction crews, contractors, electricians, plumbers and of course, the brewers themselves.

“We do a lot of custom work,” said Lewis. “These aren’t cookie-cutter parts. We take into consideration a customer’s needs, wants, location, temperature and the building itself. Once it’s up and running, we are also a part of ongoing maintenance.

Locally, BrewBilt’s equipment can be found at Three Forks Bakery & Brewing Co. in Nevada City, the Bullmastiff Brewery in Penn Valley, as well as the Grass Valley Brewing Co. and the 1849 Brewing Co., both in Grass Valley.

Brewing Their Own

So, if BrewBilt knows so much about beer, why aren’t they brewing their own? As it turns out, they are. “BrewBilt Brewing Company” is now up and running with almost five months of sales to the local community.

“We decided it was time to do something we’ve always wanted to do,” said Lewis.

Under the supervision of Bennett Buchanan, the company’s Director of Operations, the brewery is rapidly expanding their footprint. And if that isn’t exciting enough, plans are also in the works for the opening of their very own pub in downtown Nevada City.

Lewis’ sons are now 12 and 14 — so much has changed since the day he first learned he was laid off from that Portland welding shop and was unsure of his next paycheck.

“There’s so much to be grateful for — I’ve been doing this long enough that I feel as though I have a lot of knowledge to share,” said Lewis. “I’m extremely proud of our crew and the business culture we’ve built. I’d rather train a good person than hire an expert who’s not a good team member. I live there everyday, so we like to make it fun. We barbecue on Fridays. It feels good to be bringing in new money to our community from around the world. Working with brewers and seeing them win awards is also a high point. They tend to be very downto-earth people. Oh, and the best part? I get a lot of free beer.”