There weren’t many hops available for homebrewers in the 1970s, and many were of poor quality. Grossman decided to go straight to the source. He drove from Chico to Yakima, WA, and persuaded hop brokers to sell him 100 pounds of “brewers cuts”—samples sent to breweries to try before purchasing bales. He returned with the whole cone hops and began brewing the hop-forward beers Sierra Nevada is famous for.