Terroir refers to the way a food or drink can provide a sense of the place where it was made. Factors like soil and climate distinguish the same ingredients grown in different regions, yielding recognizable traits. The concept is commonly linked with wine, but hardly ever with beer — until you discover the small but special world of estate beer, made with ingredients that a brewery grows on its land.
Estate beers are rare because few breweries have the resources to take on farming. Terroir itself is rare in beer outside of these estate offerings because of the way beer has evolved. Beer styles developed throughout centuries based on what kinds of grain, hops, and water brewers had around them. But instead of those styles remaining in their home regions, they’ve globe-trotted: You can get a Czech pilsner from a Japanese brewery, or a Belgian witbier made in America.
Breweries worldwide often source ingredients from the same places, either because they’re brewing, say, a German lager and so want German hops, or because hops don’t grow well where they are, or both. Wine’s grape varietals have traveled, too — French chardonnay grapes now grow all over the world. But wherever they grow, they also take on the character of that soil, terrain, and climate, whereas beer ingredients retain only their point of origin. So it’s worth getting to know estate beers, and Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. will help with that when it releases the Estate Series Heirloom Landbier on February 28, 2025.
What exactly is an estate beer?
The idea of local beer has driven the craft beer movement — instead of grabbing a mass-produced beer off any store shelf, you can visit the taproom of an independent business in your community and drink some of the most popular beer types, brewed on-site. Many of these local offerings, though, whether crafted in Massachusetts or Michigan, may utilize malt from Germany or hops from Washington State. An estate beer, meanwhile, is as hyper-local as you can get. The brewery not only made the beer on-site but also grew the hops and grain on site, too, or at least participated in growing them within the immediate surroundings. An estate beer can be anything from a lager to a stout, but within those familiar frameworks, they invite savoring like a fine wine. You might have an estate IPA, but the hops taste spicier than the citrusy ones you’re used to — that distinguishes the hops and land of the brewery who made that IPA.
Oregon’s Rogue Artisanal Ales, New York’s Plan Bee Farm Brewery, and Jester King Brewery in Texas have crafted estate beers and farmhouse ales with home-grown or hyper-local grain, hops, fruits, and botanicals. Sierra Nevada is one of the most prominent American craft estate beer producers, having launched the Estate Series in 2008, which required ingredients to begin being grown three years prior. 2025’s Estate Series Heirloom Landbier is a concerted effort to raise awareness around how such local ingredients make a beer special.
Sierra Nevada’s new expression highlights the appeal of estate beer in general
Sierra Nevada’s 2025 release is called Estate Series Heirloom Landbier. Reflecting a time in which different towns had their own breweries working with whatever was around them, “landbier” is a German catch-all for any beer made with local ingredients. All estate beers are landbiers, but not all landbiers are estate beers. Estate beers take that locally sourced aspect one step further because the ingredients are confined to within a very limited space — typically a brewery’s property, like Sierra Nevada’s gardens and hop yards in Chico, California.
Like estate beer, landbier refers less to style and instead a connection to the land that’s especially deep even for the inherently agricultural product that beer already is. “Landbier could be any beer, but it’s beer that’s grown with locally sourced ingredients, and they don’t get more local than ingredients you grew yourself,” Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. head innovation brewer Isaiah Mangold told Tasting Table in an exclusive interview. With The Estate Landbier, Sierra Nevada is celebrating this German tradition of a beer with local ingredients and grounding it in its estate program with brewery-grown elements. This calls attention to the singular drinking experience of a beer that may be recognizable in style but is unique in the nuanced characteristics of its ingredients.
How Sierra Nevada grew its own ingredients for the Estate Landbier
Sierra Nevada’s Heirloom Landbier is an example of the already local-centric, centuries-old German brewing approach, and is the latest in the brewery’s Estate Series of beers made with what it grows — in both its Chico, California and Mills River, North Carolina locations, it also grows much of what is served on its restaurant menus.
“Ken [Grossman, Sierra Nevada founder] had the idea of growing our own ingredients and producing a 100% organic estate-grown beer in every facet from every ingredient that goes into it,” said Isaiah Mangold. “So, the idea for this Heirloom Landbier really started around the ingredients.” The brewery has fostered a relationship with the University of California-Davis, which has programs identifying heritage grains. Sierra Nevada has been growing a heritage barley for years, then discovered another heritage grain called purple Egyptian, which gives beer nutty, biscuity notes.
The team was so excited about this barley that they wanted to plan a beer that would focus on it, deciding on the landbier rustic lager. The hop presence isn’t too strong in the beer but does provide a balancing backbone to the rounded grain profile. Sierra Nevada used estate-grown cascade and triple pearl hops, imparting citrus, grapefruit, spice, pine, and peppery, floral notes– cascade hops, especially, are a Sierra Nevada stamp: the brewery used these hops in its iconic pale ale, which debuted in 1981, igniting the American taste for citrusy, piney hop bitterness. The years of work behind growing all of your needed grain and hops and then building a recipe around them is why estate beers are indeed so uncommon and, subsequently, pretty special.
How estate beers represent sustainability
Estate beers are better for sustainability than more commercially produced beer because they result in less emissions and take the mystery out of sourcing ingredients. These locally produced beers give breweries total oversight of farming practices. They eliminate the need for shipping and transporting in ingredient-sourcing, and they provide yet another use for water, which breweries like Arizona Wilderness and Oskar Blues have been finding ways to capture, clean, and repurpose. Crafting estate beers presents breweries with the opportunity to rethink every step of the growing, sourcing, and brewing processes.
According to Sierra Nevada’s chief sustainability and social impact officer, Mandi McKay, the Estate Series Heirloom lager is inherently woven into the brewery’s overall commitment to sustainability. Founder Ken Grossman has always prioritized fully understanding every ingredient that goes into a Sierra Nevada beer, from the supply chain behind it to the way it connects the brewery to the agricultural industry. The company considers it an obvious responsibility to always be thinking about how to help improve eco-friendly farming to both ensure the continuation of healthy crops and make a positive environmental impact.
“Without barley and without hops, you don’t have beer,” McKay points out. The brewery has done this with greenhouse gas accounting, solar panels, CO2 emission reduction, and by achieving Platinum Zero Waste certification. The estate landbier communicates the brewery’s dedication to sustainability and responsible agriculture. “You can’t have a beer like this if you’re not the one controlling the whole supply chain and investing in it and using your own estate ingredients,” says McKay. “We think it’s the right thing to do, to grow these ingredients organically and in the most low-impact ways possible.”
How to enjoy and pair an estate beer
When it comes to enjoying an estate beer, the possibilities are fairly endless considering that you could have an estate IPA, stout, saison, or lager. While you don’t have to be formal about the drinking experience, it’s worth stopping to zoom in on the aromas and flavors that you get, considering those will tell you the story of the brewery’s land. Take some time to get to know different types of beer glassware — options like pilsner vases and tulips will really highlight the beer’s hue and concentrate its aroma-packed foam. For food pairings, follow general beer and food partnering tips, like matching flavor intensities so that one doesn’t overpower the other.
Get familiar with estate beers with Sierra Nevada’s 4.8% ABV landbier, which will be bottled in limited quantities and sold at both brewery locations and online at $17.99 for a 500-milliliter bottle. As it’s a rustic lager, Mangold has a particular food pairing in mind, which is anything spicy. “The [estate landbier] is going to balance that out … Thai food and a lager beer is absolutely phenomenal because you’ve got this sharp spice, full of flavor, and lager … is clean, crisp, refreshing … it’s not going to be obtrusive on your palate at all, or heavy.” In terms of simply sipping this beer, Mangold’s advice works for any estate style: Enjoy it chilled to get both its thirst-quenching character and also be able to identify its unique aromas.
