(Chico, CA) – Here is the latest on the Sierra Nevada Beer Camp beers that will soon be hitting select spots across the country.

First, a bit of a refresher . . . I wrote about Sierra Nevada Beer Camp back in 2008 but didn’t give much background and just got into the beers that were being made by groups at the time. Jack Curtin provides much better details over at The Beer Yard:

“The original concept for the Beer Camps was to invite personnel from major on-premise accounts around the country to go and spend a couple of days at Sierra Nevada. The first day was spent exploring the brewery, sampling beer, and learning about the history and future of Sierra Nevada,the second meeting one with the brewers in Sierra Nevada’s research and development brewery, coming up with a recipe that the group wanted to brew and brewing the beer. […]

While details are not yet available, the concept appears to have been broadened to include beer figures other than publicans and to now be focused on a particular city or region for each session. Previously, when the camp beer was ready, kegs were shipped back to the establishments involved and released there.” And that’s how it continues to work moving forward.

It’s worth noting that these beers are brewed on a 10 bbl pilot system and that none of these ever get bottled (keg-only). I’m seeing blog entries referencing Beer Camps that are only two to three weeks apart so it sounds like the brewery hosts these groups of a dozen or so quite often.

First up is Sierra Nevada Nautilus Pilsner. I put up the label the other day without doing enough research. This beer was brewed in Chico on March 11th and the best coverage you will find on this one is the Library Alehouse‘s Facebook page (complete with photo albums). You have to navigate down to March 11th and work your way back up. Library Alehouse will be the only bar with this on tap in SoCal when they launch it on April 27th (per Food GPS); they are getting five kegs. Here are the highlights if you’re not on Facebook:

German Select, Magnum, and Perle were used in the boil. More German Select was added in the hopback.
First set of photos. Second set of photos.

Next up we have Sierra Nevada Knightro ESB. From the Three Penny Taproom blog:

“[…] later this spring we’ll be one of just five (well, six including the taproom at the factory) accounts in the world selling Sierra Nevada Knightro- a creamy, nitrogenated ESB. […] It’ll also be the first [nitrogen-charged] beer Sierra has ever done (they’re going to have to install nitro into their on-site restaurant to accommodate it!). There will be more to say about it once we get it on hand, probably in May sometime.”

TPT is located in Montpelier, Vermont. Two other locations getting this beer will be The Front Door and Reef in Boise, Idaho.

Finally, this coming week, a group of Pennsylvania publicans will be making the voyage to Chico to brew the next rendition. For a list of people/establishments attending, visit The Beer Yard.

Here’s more coverage on other recent Beer Camp beers.