Within a day of waking up to the devastation and fear caused by the fires, several local breweries had come up with a plan to create a special brew in support of those affected. Richard Norgrove, owner and brewmaster of The Bear Republic Brewing Company got a phone call at 2 a.m. in Oregon from his head brewer Rob Kent. He knew something was wrong, but that was just the start of it.
Norgrove said he thought something was going wrong at the brewery, but in this case, Kent was asking him if he could spend the night at the brewery in Rohnert Park, as he’d just been forced to evacuate from his Fountaingrove home.
After coming back to town, managing the thread his way through Lake County, Norgrove said the scene was unbelievable.
“It was just really crazy,” he said. “I was wondering when the zombie apocalypse was going to happen.”
Despite feeling “extremely helpless,” Norgrove, a former Healdsburg firefighter got to work on finding out if his employees were OK.
Russian River Brewing Company’s Vinnie and Natalie Cilurzo checked in with Norgrove on Oct. 9, he said.
“We starting talking and Natalie said, ‘Hey listen we want to do a special beer,’ and I told her, ‘We were going to do a beer and offer the money to victims,’” Norgrove said. Within 24 hours Natalie was able to leverage her contacts and get the King Ridge foundation on board, he said. In addition to Russian River Brewing and the Bear, more than 50 other breweries will be releasing their own special release beers with funds going toward relief for fire victims, all under the label Sonoma Pride.
Russian River has released a handful of specialty beers under the Sonoma Pride label for years, but had been toying with the idea of using it for special project like this, according to those in Sonoma County brewing circles. Windsor’s St. Florian’s is another such brewery that will be releasing a Sonoma Pride brew, and their connection with firefighting is very personal. St. Florian is the patron saint of firefighters and co-owner and brewmaster Aron Levy is a captain with the Windsor Fire Protection District. Aron spent weeks on the fire lines, fighting the blazes both in town and on the ridgelines of the wildfires, according to his wife, and co-owner, Amy.
“It’s hit us and affected us all,” Amy said. “With Aron being on the firelines, this was our home, and when his job affects our home on such a great scale, that’s where my job comes in to do something about it. It’s our passion and who we are. It’s our reflex.”
As Aron was unavailable to brew in the days after the fires broke out, Norgrove and a handful of other Bear staff came to the St. Florian’s brewery in Windsor and helped put together the 20-barrel run of what will be St. Florian’s Sonoma Pride.
When he was able, Aron joined them, Norgrove said.
“We were worried about Aron because he’s a fireman in Windsor,” he said. “We put together a version of mutual aid, and bottled a beer, orchestrating all the ingredients for that batch, and all the while Aron’s coming off shift and going back on shift.”
The brewing process was an opportunity for Aron to decompress, Norgrove said.
“We took it as a relaxing day of brewing together,” he said. “Most people don’t realize how much first responders personally go through so we let Aron unload as we brewed.”
Each brewery’s version of Sonoma Pride will differ, with the St. Florian’s release being a blonde pale ale, Amy Levin said.
“It’s slightly hazy, the yeast gives it a slight haze, and it’s very juicy, fruity, quaffable and easy-drinking,” she said. “It’s a light, uplifting beer, something to pick up the mood. It’s one of those beers that you put a lot of love into and that’s what we really wanted to get across in it.”
All of the ingredients that went into St. Florian’s Sonoma Pride were donated by suppliers in the industry, both locally and throughout the country, Amy said.
The Bear Republic’s Sonoma Pride will be a hoppy blonde ale, according to Norgrove.
“Normally we do these big hoppy IPAs and this one is going to be more approachable at 5.5 percent alcohol, and light in color,” he said, adding that he could see another batch in the works. All of the breweries cranking out these special beers are doing so in record time.
“Usually it takes about two plus months to roll out a release and we’re doing it in two-and-a-half weeks, so we’re still hammering out some of the details,” Amy said.
Similarly, Norgrove said Sonoma Pride was the fastest turnaround for a new beer, including all the way up to the federal level, ensuring their Sonoma Pride can be found nationwide.
The Bear owner is already looking at brewing up another batch of Sonoma Pride, as well as other collaborations with breweries such as 101 North.
“There’s going to be a lot of iterations of Sonoma Pride,” Norgrove said. “Because it’s not about today, it’s about six months from now and a year from now.”
