Sierra Nevada

If American craft beer has a Mount Rushmore, Sierra Nevada is standing on it holding a pint of Pale Ale.

Founded in Chico, California in 1980 by Ken Grossman and Paul Camusi, the brewery arrived at a time when American beer was largely dominated by light lager and very little else. The original brewhouse was built using salvaged dairy equipment, second-hand parts and a level of determination that now sounds slightly ridiculous in hindsight. Somehow it worked.

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale became one of the defining beers of modern American brewing. Packed with Cascade hops, citrus, pine and proper bitterness, it helped introduce an entire generation of drinkers to the idea that beer could actually taste of something. Decades later it still holds up remarkably well, which is not always true of influential beers.

The brewery expanded into IPAs, lagers, barrel-aged releases and seasonal beers like Celebration, which has achieved near-religious status among hop enthusiasts every winter. Despite the growth, Sierra Nevada largely avoided losing the sense of independence and quality control that made it important in the first place.

A huge amount of modern craft beer traces back to Sierra Nevada in one way or another. Not through marketing slogans or trend-chasing, but because they helped build the foundations everyone else ended up standing on.