Sierra Nevada’s ‘Resilience’ Beer Raised Millions For Camp Fire Survivors — But Not Every Participating Brewery Has Paid Up Yet

A worldwide campaign orchestrated by Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. to support survivors of California's deadliest and most destructive wildfire raised more than $8 million. But organizers are waiting on potentially millions more in donations from charity beer sales from participating breweries that haven’t yet paid up.

The Chico-based brewery is near Paradise, which was ravaged by last year’s blaze, and about 50 of its employees lost homes to the flames.

Being directly touched by the tragedy, management kicked off the “Resilience” campaign: Sierra created an IPA beer recipe, and artwork, then shared it with breweries across the globe. It also teamed up with suppliers, so the nearly 1,500 other breweries could be reimbursed for ingredients if they brewed the Resilience beer and sold it over their bars. 

"The agreement was that they would then donate 100 percent of the sales of Resilience," said Sierra spokeswoman Robin Gregory. 

As of Thursday, she says about 75 percent of those breweries had contributed at least a portion of their sales, totalling approximately $8 million. 

She didn’t have an estimate for how much more revenue from the charity beer still needs to be delivered, but that it could total millions of dollars.

Breweries that participated are more than a month behind the original deadline for turning over the proceeds, and she says Sierra Nevada is anxious to retrieve the remaining donations.

"That said, we're brewers ourselves, and we completely understand all of the challenges of running a brewery, especially running a smaller brewery, and so we're just eternally grateful for all that the brewing community has done to make this happen," Gregory said. 

She added that the company is confident all participating breweries will eventually pay.

Money collected by the Resilience campaign goes to the Butte Strong Fund for Camp Fire relief efforts.