brewery
A brewery or brewing company is a business that makes and sells beer. The place at which beer is commercially made is either called a brewery or a beerhouse, where distinct sets of brewing equipment are called plant. The commercial brewing of be ...
headquartered in
Sparks, Nevada
Sparks is a city in Washoe County, Nevada, United States. It was founded in 1904, incorporated on March 15, 1905, and is located just east of Reno. The 2020 U.S. Census counted 108,445 residents in the city. It is the fifth most populous city in ...
. It is
Nevada
Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...
's largest and oldest currently operating brewery—though not the state's longest operated. Great Basin
beers Beers may refer to:
* plural of beer, an alcoholic beverage
* Beers (surname)
* Beers, Friesland, a Dutch place in the Friesland municipality of Littenseradiel
* Beers, North Brabant, a Dutch place in the North Brabant municipality of Cuijk
* De Be ...
draught beer
Draught beer, also spelt draft, is beer served from a cask or keg rather than from a bottle or can. Draught beer served from a pressurised keg is also known as
Name
Until Joseph Bramah patented the beer engine in 1785, beer was served dire ...
at over 400 locations in Northern Nevada and the surrounding regions, including Aces Ballpark. It also serves beer at special events, such as the
Best in the West Nugget Rib Cook-off
The Best in the West Nugget Rib Cook-off is an annual Ribs (food), rib cook-off in Sparks, Nevada, Sparks, Nevada. The competition involves St. Louis-style barbecue#Pork ribs, St. Louis-style pork Spare ribs, ribs. The event is held at Victorian Sq ...
and
The Great Reno Balloon Race
The Great Reno Balloon Race (GRBR) is a hot-air balloon race held annually in September at Reno, Nevada. The event is held at the Rancho San Rafael Park, west of the University of Nevada, Reno. The event is free to the public and completed its 35 ...
. Growlers and kegs may be purchased or filled at any of the company's tap rooms.
History
The company was established in 1993 after Nevada brewers, including company founders Tom Young and Eric McClary, successfully lobbied the
Nevada Legislature
The Nevada Legislature is a bicameral body, consisting of the lower house, the Assembly, with 42 members, and the upper house, the Senate, with 21. With a total of 63 seats, the Legislature is the third-smallest bicameral state legislature in ...
to allow for brewpubs in the state. The original brewery and restaurant is on Victorian Square in Sparks. Its beers were winning national awards as soon as the next year. The
Reno
Reno ( ) is a city in the northwest section of the U.S. state of Nevada, along the Nevada-California border, about north from Lake Tahoe, known as "The Biggest Little City in the World". Known for its casino and tourism industry, Reno is the c ...
location was opened in 2010 with the expectation that its added capacity would satisfy demand for the next five years. Great Basin began regular bottling operations in 2011 (holiday releases had previously been available for several years, but on the scale of a few hundred bottles a year) and currently bottles three of their flagship brews. As demand increased further, a third facility was established when Great Basin moved into the warehouse formerly occupied by the defunct ''Buckbean Brewery''. Along with the facility, it also acquired ''Buckbeans equipment, which was modified to meet Great Basin's needs. ''Taps & Tanks'' opened to the public at this location in 2012, and a high speed bottling line was installed there the next year - providing capacity to bottle seasonal beers. In 2014, just one year later, Great Basin bottled its millionth beer. Great Basin saw increases in business every year during its first 20 years in operation. Taps & Tanks no longer serves the public due to new regulations on bars, but beer is still brewed and bottled there.
Beers
Great Basin brews several different beer styles and maintains ten to fourteen beers on tap. Many of its brews are seasonal or available for a limited time.
Cask conditioned
Real ale is the name coined by the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) for beer that is "brewed from traditional ingredients, matured by secondary fermentation in the container from which it is dispensed, and served without the use of extraneous car ...
nitrogen
Nitrogen is the chemical element with the symbol N and atomic number 7. Nitrogen is a nonmetal and the lightest member of group 15 of the periodic table, often called the pnictogens. It is a common element in the universe, estimated at se ...
ated beers are available by the glass on location.
Flagships
These beers are available year-round.
* Cerveza Chilebeso- Kölsch-style ale crafted using fresh jalapeños.
*Ichthyosaur IPA – or simply Icky, an American-style India Pale Ale made with Cascade, Centennial, Simcoe, and Citra Hops the company's first 'Brewer's Special' upon opening, named after the state fossil with 6.4% abv.
* Leave No Trace Lager- Munich-style Helles Lager with 5.0% abv.
* Outlaw Milk StoutOutlaw Oatmeal Stout and Outlaw Milk Stout are the same product – Crafted roast and caramel malt with 5.0% abv.
*Tectonic Event DIPA- IPA with 8.7% abv.
* Wheeler Peak Wheat – American style wheat beer with 5.4% abv.
* Wild Horse Ale – altbier-style amber ale brewed with five malts with 5.2% abv.
Limited brews
* 404 Scytale – imperial stout aged in
whiskey
Whisky or whiskey is a type of distilled alcoholic beverage made from fermented grain mash. Various grains (which may be malted) are used for different varieties, including barley, corn, rye, and wheat. Whisky is typically aged in wooden cask ...
barrels for 404 days
* Balloon Brew – brewed to benefit the Great Reno Balloon Race.
* Belgian Lavender – a Belgian-style ale flavored with locally-grown Royal Velvet lavender.
* Bitchin' Berry – Made with raspberries and blackberries. 5.2% abv
* Bitter Recession – an English-style
bitter
Bitter may refer to:
Common uses
* Resentment, negative emotion or attitude, similar to being jaded, cynical or otherwise negatively affected by experience
* Bitter (taste), one of the five basic tastes
Books
* '' Bitter (novel)'', a 2022 nove ...
.
* Black Eye PA – an American black-ale.
* Buster No. 4 – IPA brewed to benefit the
ALS Therapy Development Institute
The ALS Therapy Development Institute (ALS TDI) is a non-profit biotechnology research organization focused on finding treatments for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). With a staff including more than 30 scientists, it operates a research and de ...
.
* Cowboy Coffee Stout – a
coffee
Coffee is a drink prepared from roasted coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulant, stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It is the most popular hot drink in the world.
S ...
-flavored stout.
* Dawn Patrol – crystal pale brewed to benefit the Great Reno Balloon Race.
*Deathwish APA- Made in collaboration with Moment Ski Company. 6.66% abv.
*Distant Lands Slim Hazy IPA- Brewed with Zappa, Mosaic, Simcoe, and Amarillo hops. 4.6% abv.
* Fat Monk Belgian Style Dubbel – a Trappist-styledubbel.
*Firelit Haze - Hazy IPA - IPA with 7.0% abv.
* Gone to Helles – a helles, or German-style
pale lager
Pale lager is a very pale-to-golden-colored lager beer with a well- attenuated body and a varying degree of noble hop bitterness.
The brewing process for this beer developed in the mid-19th century, when Gabriel Sedlmayr took pale ale brewing ...
sage
Sage or SAGE may refer to:
Plants
* ''Salvia officinalis'', common sage, a small evergreen subshrub used as a culinary herb
** Lamiaceae, a family of flowering plants commonly known as the mint or deadnettle or sage family
** ''Salvia'', a large ...
.
* Hopasaur – the same recipe as ''Icky'', but uses fresh instead of dried hops.
* Hop Head Ale – a heavily hopped strong ale measured at 100
IBUs
When drinking beer, there are many factors to be considered. Principal among them are bitterness, the variety of flavours present in the beverage and their intensity, alcohol content, and colour. Standards for those characteristics allow a more o ...
.
* Jackpot Porter – formerly a flagship, Porter in the English style.
* Katie's Cream Ale – a
cream ale
Cream ale is a style of American beer which is light in color and well attenuated, meaning drier and with a somewhat higher alcohol content than regular beer. First crafted in the mid-1800s at various breweries in the United States, cream ale r ...
.
* Kristall Weizen – a filtered version of ''Wheeler Peak Wheat.''
* Mayan Maybe – brewed with
vanilla
Vanilla is a spice derived from orchids of the genus ''Vanilla (genus), Vanilla'', primarily obtained from pods of the Mexican species, flat-leaved vanilla (''Vanilla planifolia, V. planifolia'').
Pollination is required to make the p ...
,
honey
Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several bees, the best-known of which are honey bees. Honey is made and stored to nourish bee colonies. Bees produce honey by gathering and then refining the sugary secretions of plants (primar ...
,
chocolate
Chocolate is a food made from roasted and ground cacao seed kernels that is available as a liquid, solid, or paste, either on its own or as a flavoring agent in other foods. Cacao has been consumed in some form since at least the Olmec civ ...
,
corn
Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...
, and chile peppers, released in 2012 to celebrate the Mayan doomsday prophecy, rereleased subsequent years as ''Mayan Maybe Not''.
* Mollie's Irish Stout – Irish-styledry stout.
* Moment Deathwish – a collaboration with Moment Skis, an American Pale Ale.
* Munich Kellerbier – an unfiltered lager, thus the designation
kellerbier
Kellerbier is a type of German beer, a lager, which is typically neither clarified nor pasteurised. The term Kellerbier literally translates as "cellar beer", referring to its cool lagering temperatures. Its recipe probably dates to the Middle ...
barley
Barley (''Hordeum vulgare''), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains, particularly in Eurasia as early as 10,000 years ago. Globally 70% of barley pr ...
and
wheat
Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...
malts, and noble Saaz hops.
* Nevada Museum Of Art 80th Anniversary Egyptian Ale – brewed to commemorate the Egyptian Exhibit at the Nevada Museum of Art, this was a recreation of a
New Kingdom
New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created.
New or NEW may refer to:
Music
* New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz
Albums and EPs
* ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013
* ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...
-style beer made with emmer and no hops.
* Oktoberfest – usually brewed around October for the celebration of the same name, made with German barley and
noble hops
Hops are the flowers (also called seed cones or strobiles) of the hop plant ''Humulus lupulus'', a member of the Cannabaceae family of flowering plants. They are used primarily as a bittering, flavouring, and stability agent in beer, to whi ...
.
* Pogonip Pilsner – pilsner brewed with noble hops.
* Preservation Ale –
organic
Organic may refer to:
* Organic, of or relating to an organism, a living entity
* Organic, of or relating to an anatomical organ
Chemistry
* Organic matter, matter that has come from a once-living organism, is capable of decay or is the product ...
ale
Ale is a Type of beer, type of beer brewed using a Warm fermentation, warm fermentation method, resulting in a sweet, full-bodied and fruity taste. Historically, the term referred to a drink brewed without hops.
As with most beers, ale typicall ...
brewed to benefit the Nevada Land Conservancy.
* Rare Bear Cream Style Ale – a
cream ale
Cream ale is a style of American beer which is light in color and well attenuated, meaning drier and with a somewhat higher alcohol content than regular beer. First crafted in the mid-1800s at various breweries in the United States, cream ale r ...
red ale Red ale can refer to two styles of beer which are some shade of red or light brown in hue:
* Irish red ale
* Flanders red ale
Flanders red ale or Flemish red-brown, is a style of sour ale brewed in West Flanders, Belgium.
Flanders red ale is f ...
.
* Red Nose Holiday Wassail – not a true
wassail
Wassail (, , most likely from Old Norse ''"ves heill"'') is a beverage made from hot mulled cider, ale, or wine and spices, drunk traditionally as an integral part of wassailing, an ancient English Yuletide drinking ritual and salutation ei ...
, but a
Christmas beer Christmas beer is a seasonal beer brewed for consumption at Christmas. They are usually strong and spiced with a variety of ingredients including cinnamon, orange peel, cloves and vanilla.
Examples
* Belgian Christmas beers
* British Winter Warm ...
brewed with
cinnamon
Cinnamon is a spice obtained from the inner bark of several tree species from the genus ''Cinnamomum''. Cinnamon is used mainly as an aromatic condiment and flavouring additive in a wide variety of cuisines, sweet and savoury dishes, breakfa ...
clove
Cloves are the aromatic flower buds of a tree in the family Myrtaceae, ''Syzygium aromaticum'' (). They are native to the Maluku Islands (or Moluccas) in Indonesia, and are commonly used as a spice, flavoring or fragrance in consumer products, ...
s, vanilla and Nevada honey (bottled near
Christmas
Christmas is an annual festival commemorating Nativity of Jesus, the birth of Jesus, Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people Observance of Christmas by country, around t ...
as a stocking stuffer).
* Risky Biscuit Barley Wine – a barley wine, sold in smaller glasses and unavailable for growler fills.
* Road Cone Delirium – brewed to celebrate the opening of the Reno location, the surrounding area was experiencing heavy
road maintenance
A road is a linear way for the conveyance of traffic that mostly has an improved surface for use by vehicles (motorized and non-motorized) and pedestrians. Unlike streets, the main function of roads is transportation.
There are many types of ...
at this time.
* Rock Mai Bock – maibock, or a helles brewed to bock strength.
* Russian Imperial Stout – a heavy
Imperial stout
Stout is a dark, top-fermented beer with a number of variations, including dry stout, oatmeal stout, milk stout, and imperial stout.
The first known use of the word ''stout'' for beer, in a document dated 1677 found in the Egerton Manuscript ...
with seven malts at 9% abv.
* Smoke Jumper – a brown ale with smoked malts.
*Struwwelpeter - German Chocolate Cake Stout - A German chocolate cake pastry stout made with fresh cacao nibs, toasted coconut, and toasted pecans. Brewed with extra lactose. 8.5% abv (available in 16 oz. cans - Seasonal).
* Truckee River Red –Named in honor of the river that feeds the brewery with water. 6.0% abv.
* White Eye PA – a Belgian-style India pale ale.
* Wicked Icky – a stronger version of Icky.
Great Basin also brews its own non-alcoholic root beer, which is available only on premises.
Use in food
Great Basin also integrates its beers into its food menu. It reuses spent barley left over from
mashing
In brewing and distilling, mashing is the process of combining a mix of ground grains – typically malted barley with supplementary grains such as corn, sorghum, rye, or wheat – known as the "grain bill" with water and then heating the mixtu ...
along with
brewer's yeast
Yeasts are eukaryotic, single-celled microorganisms classified as members of the fungus kingdom. The first yeast originated hundreds of millions of years ago, and at least 1,500 species are currently recognized. They are estimated to constitu ...
in artisan
bread
Bread is a staple food prepared from a dough of flour (usually wheat) and water, usually by baking. Throughout recorded history and around the world, it has been an important part of many cultures' diet. It is one of the oldest human-made f ...
. As a result of these and similar initiatives, 95% of Great Basin's waste output is reduced.
Awards and recognitions
Great Basin's brews have garnered several awards at many national and international beer competitions.
Barrel-aged beer
A barrel-aged beer is a beer that has been aged for a period of time in a wooden barrel. Typically, these barrels once housed bourbon, whisky, wine, or, to a lesser extent, brandy, sherry, or port.List of defunct breweries in the United States