Sierra Nevada, California’s largest craft brewer, jumps on new trend

It’s Dry January, and you know what that means: Nonalcoholic beer is having a moment. Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., California’s largest craft brewing company, is the latest to hop on the nonalcoholic beer trend with the launch of its new Trail Pass IPA and Trail Pass Golden.

While the Trail Pass brews have been available in California, Colorado and Washington since December, they just launched nationwide at the beginning of January. Both are made using traditional brewing methods — not alcohol removal — with a special yeast strain that keeps fermentation below 0.5% ABV. It took the Chico-based company five years to perfect the recipe, according to a blog post on Sierra Nevada’s website. 

Trail Pass IPA features “hoppy notes of citrus and pine” and tastes similar to other Sierra Nevada IPAs, while Trail Pass Golden is “a refreshing easy-drinker… with bright floral and citrus notes,” according to Sierra Nevada’s website. Forbes declared the Trail Pass brand one of four of “the best non-alcoholic beers for Dry January.” LA Times food columnist Lucas Kwan Peterson liked the Trail Pass IPA, calling it “lightly funky, sweet with some gentle fermented notes upon initial taste that yield to a slight floral taste” and adding that it “goes down quite easily.”

Trail Pass is not Sierra Nevada’s first foray into the nonalcoholic industry: In 2022, the brand launched Hop Splash, a hop-infused sparkling water with zero alcohol (for which in December 2023 it also debuted a new citrus flavor).