Natalie and her husband Vinnie kicked things off with the Sierra Nevada #beercamptour at the Chico festival, bused down to San Diego for the second, and then Natalie flew in to the Denver Festival to pour Pliny the Elder and Supplication while Vinnie stayed home to keep the beer brewing. They’ll both be on the tour again in Philadelphia and North Carolina to close things out.

Greatest memories so far
The Hornblower cruise in San Diego was fun. And just being on the bus is wonderful — just getting to know people. There’s people hopping on and off for different legs of the journey, popping in and out of the scene. So it’s been fun for me to get to know new brewers from all over the county. It’s really the only time we’ve been in such a small place together and forced to talk.

And then the shenanigans. The Pliny can. I was not a part of that. Apparently they picked up a can seamer at Oskar Blues and some cans from Dave and decided they were going to take the last two bottles of Pliny the Elder that Vinnie and I gave them for the bus the first day, and can a 32oz Pliny the Elder. And of course that turned into a big social media thing — there’s a fake e-Bay page, and it’s all over Twitter. It’s pretty funny actually. I’m sure some people are taking it seriously. But it's all in good humor and in the spirit of camaraderie and friendship of our industry.

Why this tour is important
This is a great way to highlight the collaborative spirit of our industry. Our industry is changing so rapidly right now. We have so many people growing and so many newcomers. I think it’s really important that Sierra Nevada has taken the lead on showing how fun it is, and how important it is to maintain that spirit that our industry has had for so long.

It’s certainly something that’s going to change as the years go on and we become more competitive with each other, and more people enter our industry. It’s super important that we’re having this journey. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing and I don’t think anyone could pull it off the way Sierra Nevada is doing it. As you can tell they’re going first-class all the way with it.