An award-winning Placer County brewery built on nearly 13 acres of Sierra foothills land is officially on the market, and the price tag reflects everything packed onto the property: a working brewhouse, a biergarten, a 12,000-square-foot event pavilion, a primary residence, and a guest house that doubles as an Airbnb. Hillenbrand Farmhaus Brewery in Newcastle is listed at $7.95 million, according to the listing brochure.
The listing was first reported by the Sacramento Business Journal on October 13, 2026, followed by the Sacramento Bee on October 14, which detailed the estate's mix of brewing operations, hospitality space, and residential buildings. According to the Sacramento Business Journal, the sale is co-represented by The Hefner Team at Marcus & Millichap alongside Turton Commercial Real Estate. Scott Kingston, senior vice president of Turton Commercial Real Estate, described the property as a combination of brewery, event space, residence, Airbnb guest house, and Auburn Ravine setting, per the Bee's reporting.
The property specifications bear that out. Marcus & Millichap's listing materials put the site at 5100 Virginiatown Road and describe a 3,000-square-foot brewery building housing a 5-BBL brewhouse and 12-tap taproom, along with a separate guest residence used as an Airbnb. The Sacramento Bee's reporting separately notes a 3,100-square-foot primary residence on-site, where owner Patric Hillenbrand currently lives. The Auburn Ravine stream runs behind the 12.9-acre estate, a natural feature the listing materials highlight as part of the venue's draw.
A Farm-to-Bottle Operation in the Foothills
Hillenbrand brews its beer using mineral-rich artesian water drawn on-site, along with hops, fruit, and honey harvested directly from the farm, according to Visit Sacramento. That farm-to-bottle approach has helped make it a stop on Placer County's official Placer Wine & Ale Trail, a network that spans 21 craft breweries and 23 boutique wineries across the county, as detailed by Visit Placer. The brewery is among the stops on the county's trail.
The Newcastle location sits roughly halfway between Lincoln and Auburn in the Sierra foothills, not far from the Interstate 80 corridor, according to the Sacramento Bee's reporting. Per the brochure, the estate is about 45 minutes from Sacramento, 25 minutes from Roseville, and 20 minutes from Rocklin — close enough to draw from the Greater Sacramento region while still offering the rural, ravine-side setting that defines the brand.
Why Hillenbrand Is Selling — and Why He Might Not Fully Leave
Hillenbrand opened the property in 2016, after founding and selling Hillenbrand Insurance Solutions and serving as president and regional director of the Entrepreneurs' Organization's Sacramento chapter. He built and oversaw much of the property himself, according to Kingston's account to the Bee. But the sale isn't necessarily a clean break: per Kingston, Hillenbrand is listing the property to raise funds to expand the business, not to cut ties with it.
Kingston said Hillenbrand remains flexible about what the deal ultimately looks like — selling the real estate outright, potentially selling the business itself, staying on in some capacity, or pursuing a hybrid arrangement to raise capital. Potential partners could include a corporation, a high-net-worth individual, or another brewery, Kingston said. The property combines a brewery, event space, a residence, and an Airbnb guest house.
Marcus & Millichap's brochure goes further, outlining a growth strategy for a buyer or partner to use the Newcastle site as a flagship while expanding similar farm-themed beer and wine venues across Northern California under the Hillenbrand Farmhaus aesthetic. Any sale, Kingston noted, could enable additional revenue generation for the business going forward.
A Market Squeezed by Costs and Changing Tastes
The listing lands at a complicated moment for California's craft beer industry. The state still leads the nation, with 961 craft breweries generating an estimated $8.26 billion in statewide economic impact in 2024, according to data from the California Craft Brewers Association. But as CalMatters reported this month, independent brewers across the state are contending with rising operational costs and equipment tariffs, alongside changing preferences among younger Americans, who are drinking less alcohol or preferring hard seltzers and canned cocktails. CalMatters also described some brewpubs offering food and activities and said hospitality-focused models tend to do better than distribution-focused ones.
That broader squeeze helps explain why a property like Hillenbrand's, built around weddings, live performances, and an Airbnb rather than beer sales alone, might appeal to a buyer looking for a hospitality platform rather than a straightforward brewery acquisition. Whether that buyer ends up being a corporation, an individual investor, or another brewery — and whether Hillenbrand stays involved in some form — remains an open question tied to how the sale ultimately plays out.
