Brew Ha Ha Podcast: Recent Episodes
Steve Jaxon & Mark Carpenter
Jason Lindell from Shady Oak Brewing Company is our guest on Brew Ha Ha with Herlinda Heras and Harry Duke. Shady Oak has been on the show before, most recently on this episode in 2022.
Shady Oak has shifted its name to “Brewing Company, so it is now called Shady Oak Brewing Company, after being called “Barrel House” until now.
Harry Duke knows Shady Oak founder Steve Doty from having competed in trivia contests on opposing teams. When Steve started Shady Oak, they made a lot of sour beers, but as tastes have changed, they have begun making other styles, like hazy and pilsners. The company is also starting to focus on organizing events. It is in a big space that is a former carpet warehouse. It is located in downtown Santa Rosa, near the Santa Rosa Mall. They also have a nice outdoor space in the back.
The Smash Bash: Saturday, Aug. 16, 2025They have remodeled the back area for this event, increasing capacity. This Saturday they are holding their first event. It is the first annual Smash Bash, they have the four best smash burger restaurants coming in. They have four well-known local food trucks coming in: Thanks for the Invite, Bayou on the Bay, Bennie’s Smash Burgers and The Spot. All four of them will be on the scene for the contest. They will have DJs and live bands. Some illustrious judges will pick a winner.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
A smash burger has the pattie smashed all the way down to a thin patty. Sometimes people lay 2 or three thick, plus condiments at will. Bayou on the Bay comes in regularly for their bingo nights. They wanted to do a contest and boom, this was the idea.
They also do vinyl record sales and the next one is September 7th. Shady Oak is a beautiful space and they do a lot of private event. Now they would like to gain more awareness for the venue.
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Usually the buns are brioche buns, which are soft and do a better job of supporting the burger.
Shady Oak is kid friendly and dog friendly. They have free pinball and lots of games that people can play at the tables. Admission to the Smash Bash is free.
John Burton is back on Brew Ha Ha with Herlinda Heras and Harry Duke sitting in for Steve Jaxon. He has been on the show once before, on this episode of April 11, 2024 and he was also the subject of this recent article in the Press Democrat.
For long-time Sonoma County residents, John Burton is well-known, because one of his business was a bartending school that he ran for 47 years and recently closed for retirement. Herlinda was just a kid when John’s late wife Nancy was the mayor of Santa Rosa.
Visit our sponsor Pizzaleah in Windsor for the finest pizza menu and the most authentic flavors around! 🍕🍻
John tells his story, starting at restaurants and the Flamingo. He met Virginia Grace when the Sonoma County Fair was the centerpiece of the social season. She didn’t know much about her family history in brewing and they started talking about it. Soon after, he wrote a book about Grace Brothers Brewery.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
BrewerianaBreweriana encompases everything related to beer, be it foam scrapers, bottles and cans and especially advertising. On Saturday Aug. 9 at 8:00 the Bennet Valley Grange on Grange Rd. there will be free a show of about 50 tables of breweriana wares. John does it almost like an antiques road show. He describes it as a combination of local history and collecting. If you have something you might be interested in selling to a collector, these are the people to meet.
Grace Bros. was the fourth largest brewery in California during its heyday. They had other brands and produced beer in southern California too, in Los Angeles under the name of Southern. They had 140 different paper labels and 90 different can labels.
Beer memorabilia collector Ken Hartoonian joins Herlinda Heras and Harry Duke in for Steve Jaxon on Brew Ha Ha today.
At the Grange in Santa Rosa, Saturday Aug. 9, 9am-2pm, the Breweriana and Antique Advertising Show. It is a collection of brewery advertising apart from just cans but also lots of different kinds of promotional items.
Grace Brothers brewers was a famous local brewery that was in operation from before Prohibition until 1962. Some of their cans are featured in the show.
Ken has one of the most impressive collections of historic beer memorabilia and artefacts. He started when he was 12 years old, he loves sticker so he wrote to companies to ask for them. Then in 1975 the beer can collecting craze took hold. Before he knew it he had more than 100 cans. The closet grew into a storage unit and now he has a large metal barn.
Here is a 30-second radio commercial from Grace Bros., with a swing band that was popular in those years.
http://brewhaharadio.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Grace_Bros_Beer_30_sec.mp3Harry asks what is the Holy Grail of the items, or what is most significant to him? The Holy Grail would be a 7-11 beer can but the most significant was one that he traded for at about age 16. It was called Pride of Newark, or PON.
Visit our sponsor Pizzaleah in Windsor for the finest pizza menu and the most authentic flavors around! 🍕🍻
Their toast is with Happy Hops, which was one of the Grace Brothers’ brands. Russian River still uses the name and the label with a cartoon of a happy hop. Grace Brothers made it through Prohibition by making ice and near-beer, which was weak enough to be legal.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
Renée De Luca joins Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha to remember her father Jack McAuliffe, who recently passed away. Renée was on this show a year ago, talking about her father and some new activity around the brand he founded. Here is part one of that episode, and Part Two follows here.
Renée De Luca joins us on the telephone, she is the daughter of Jack McAuliffe, founder of New Albion brewing company, who passed away just recently. He passed away on July 15 at the age of eighty. He founded a whole beer revolution, is no exaggeration. His passing has been covered widely in the mainstream press such as NPR and the Washington Post, as well as many beer publications. During his life he was already the subject of some articles, due to his influence, although that came near the end of New Albion. Over the last few years Renée and brought him to some craft brewers conferences and she is confident he knew that he would be remembered.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
The First Post-Prohibition Micro-Brewery: New AlbionJack McAuliffe was in the US Navy in the 1960s where he enjoyed the local porters, ales and stouts. Back in the US, all there was to drink was crappy American commercial beer that he didn’t like. So he learned how to brew his own. His operation was the first post-Prohibition micro-brewery to be founded in the United States, in 1976.
Visit our sponsor Pizzaleah in Windsor for the finest pizza menu and the most authentic flavors around! 🍕🍻
Brewing was so new that all of the forms referred to wine and Jack had to handwrite the word beer onto them. They asked him why he used Cascade hops and he replied, that’s what the farmer had. He put a lot of equipment together himself by adapting different parts. Farmers make wine and scientists make beer, he said. Renée’s dog Porter is in the background.
Brent Koen from Surfside Drinks is our guest on Brew Ha Ha with Herlinda Heras and Daedalus Howell sitting in for Steve Jaxon.
Brent has brought a lot of Surfside drinks today. The brand started on the east coast. He brought the Green Tea pack, the Ice Tea pack and the Lemonade pack. All are lower alcohol beverages. The company started as a vodka distiller but their mission changed as they read the market. The founders geared up with makeshift equipment in the parents’ basement. It was about the time that Breaking Bad was on TV. When their father saw the brew lab, he thought it was a meth lab or he acted as if it were that, and he kicked them out. So they got investors and got serious. Stateside Urban Craft Vodka started doing well, before Covid.
When they noticed that people were pouring their vodka into different concoctions and cocktails, they thought of doing the same thing. That’s when they started making the light beverages. Surfside grew from 1.3 million cases in 2023 to to almost 5 million cases last year and projected growth to 12-15 million cases this year.
Partners with the SF GiantsSurfside Drinks are partners with the San Francisco Giants and they have branded locations inside the stadium. The beverages have only 2 grams of sugar, 100 calories and only 4.5% alcohol.
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Herlinda has seen the huge growth in the non-alcoholic category. Until now, judges at beer competitions did not want to judge that category, but not anymore.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
There are 12 different flavors, four lemonades, four green teas and four iced teas. They have three variety packs, different combinations and also large cans. They are now in all 50 states and are seeking to gain a foothold in markets like wine country.
Even if these drinks are not super cold, they still go down smoothly. They only use 2 grams of sucralose for sweetening. There is also no carbonization in any of these drinks.
The Fogbelt caboose in Healdsburg.
Eric and Pedro from the BBQ Team at Fogbelt Brewing join Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha today. Every year Stumptown Brewing puts on the Russian River Beer Revival and BBQ Cookout. This year is it on Saturday, August 16th. The Fogbelt team is competing with their ribs at the festival this summer.
The Santa Rosa taproom is 1305 Cleveland, and the Healdsburg location is in a red caboose.
They are tasting a beer called Eye of the Hawk, the second of their tribute brews to Mendocino Brewing Co. They started with a run of Red Tail Ale.
Visit our sponsor Pizzaleah in Windsor for the finest pizza menu and the most authentic flavors around! 🍕🍻
Pedro started at Anchor brewing in San Francisco. He was the curator of the tour program, so he had access to the brewery operation as well as to the library and archives. He became a tour guide there and eventually moved to another brewery before coming to Santa Rosa.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
Pedro likes the Stumptown Beer Revival and BBQ Cookout because it is a chance to meet a lot of the key players in the local craft brew industry.
Today is the first Krush Backyard Concert, so we have Mark Cohen from Moonlight Brewing, who are pouring at the concert. He joins Herlinda Heras and Harry Duke who is sitting in for Steve Jaxon on Brew Ha Ha today.
Mark has brought some Reality Czech Pils, which won a Gold Medal in the Pilsner category, out of 167 entries.
Pilsners are not an easy beer to make. They are cold fermented and takes a lot longer to make. Moonlight’s Pilsner is not filtered, but to make it clear they use an enzyme which takes out the solids and the glutens in the beer. It is not registered as gluten free but it is very low in gluten.
Visit our sponsor Pizzaleah in Windsor for the finest pizza menu and the most authentic flavors around! 🍕🍻
There was a time when Brian Hunt started making beer with spruce tips and redwood tips, when there was a threat of a hop shortage. In the early years, the brewers like Brian Hunt were just learning how to brew. He wanted to get serious, so he moved to Milwaukee to work for Schlitz. He called his brewery Moonlight Brewing because at first, it was his moonlight gig, that he did outside of his other work.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
Ron Lindenbusch tells about Best Day BrewingRon Lindenbusch joins the conversation about five minutes in. He is a retired co-founder of Lagunitas and a veteran beer guru. He started at the beginning doing distribution, when he saw that Tony Magee made the best beer. that spark became Lagunitas. They sold to Heineken in two stages, half in 2015 and the rest in 2018. Lagunitas is now the number one IPA in the world. Ron had some on tap in Belgium and France.
Moonlight is pouring three beers at the Backyard Concert, they are Death and Taxes, the black lager, Reality Czech Pils, the gold medal winner, and the Bombay by Boat IPA.
Best Day Brewing is Ron’s project to make only non-alcoholic beer. They make a full-strength beer then they remove the alcohol with a cold filtration. This way, it still tastes like beer.
Parliament Brewing Co. co-founder Adam Bosch joins Harry Duke, in for Steve Jaxon, and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha. Adam’s last time on Brew Ha Ha was this episode on December 28, 2023. Herlinda’s father Eloy and brother Anthony Heras are also in the studio today. Eloy devoted his career to the US Navy. He liked Olympia Beer and Herlinda got her first taste of beer from him.
Adam Bosch talks about Parliament Brewing Co.’s plans to expand and their calendar of events. They had a cheesesteak invitational for National Cheesesteak Day last March. Their anniversary party September 20-21 this year, celebrating their sixth anniversary. They are located at 5865 West Labath Ave. Adam likes to think of it as just west of Costco and south of the casino in Rohnert Park. They are dog friendly as long as the dogs are.
The beer they are currently tasting is Prism Hazy IPA, 6.6% ABV, which won Best Hazy at Battle of the Brews last April. It also won Best in Show. Their focus has been mainly local but they will now be looking for more distribution into the East Bay and Sacramento.
Herlinda’s brother Anthony is a rattlesnake handler on the side. He knew someone who had a snake and when they needed a new handler, he got the job.
Visit our sponsor Pizzaleah in Windsor for the finest pizza menu and the most authentic flavors around! 🍕🍻
Kaleidoscope and River RaftA group of owls is called a Parliament, where people meet to take care of their community. Parliament Brewing’s “mainstay” beer Kaleidoscope is the collective noun for a group of butterflies. There are butterflies on the can. A new beer is River Raft, a hazy pale ale at 5.9% featuring Peacherene hops, a new kind. A raft is a group of otters. River Raft is on tap only, for now. It finishes “super dry” says Herlinda. They are also tasting the Brown Chicken Brown Cow.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
Adam also brought a pilsner, called Pils that says “beer flavored beer” on the label. Pizzaleah has it on tap. It is an American brown ale. Justin, his brother, is the brewer and a UC Davis graduate. His dad does the books. Adam does everything else for Parliament. He is attracted to the business and the service side of the industry. But also, they are selling the culture, the service, comfort and experience. They have about 50 fruit trees around the building at Parliament.
Herlinda and Bex.
Bex Pezzullo, founder and cider maker of Sincere Cider, is our guest on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras.
Bex started Sincere Cider right at the time of the pandemic. The lockdown started six days after she canned her first batch of cider.
She had a 20 year career in event promotion and marketing, and she had a lot of personal contacts whom she had hope would help her at her launch. Instead of that, she ended up employing some friends who were unemployed bartenders to deliver cider. After that, since business was slow enough, she bought a 1993 camper van, named it Farley after the Chris Farley “living in a camper by the river” and hit the road. In every new city up the road, she would look for the cool bottle shops, bars and restaurants and bring cider to offer them. Before starting the cider company she had a job at an event festival company that worked with clients like Bonaroo and Outside Lands.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
Granny Smith Apples and Chablis YeastBex likes to joke that she is a recovering sommelier, having worked as an Italian wine specialist. She did a few harvest seasons in Italy. They are sipping the Dry Apple Cider, made mostly with Granny Smith apples. She also uses a Chablis yeast which brings the right crispness and tanginess. Their core line-up includes a Rosé cider, called Granada, that has California organic pomegranate and blueberry juice and a little bit of orange zest. The color is beautiful, everyone agrees.
Visit our sponsor Pizzaleah in Windsor for the finest pizza menu and the most authentic flavors around! 🍕🍻
For Pride Month, “Sincere is proudly a queer owned and operated business,” says Bex. There are some popups happening in the city. She explains how she enjoys integrating all of the ingredients into her ciders, like Granada, to make a “satisfying sip.” She is on the road a lot with her English Bulldog Shasta and spends a lot of weekends traveling to bring Sincere Cider around.
Sincere Cider also makes seasonal ciders three times per year. The one they are tasting is Pine-Apple, an apple cider infused with pineapple as well as wild-foraged spruce tips. You just get a little hint of the forest. Pine-Apple is the summer seasonal.
Harry Duke, Herlinda Heras and Trevor Zebulon.
Trevor Zebulon, founder of Goat Rock Cider, is here on Brew Ha Ha with Harry Duke sitting in for Steve Jaxon and with Herlinda Heras.
Trevor Zebulon started Goat Rock Cider with his friend Paul Hawley, before the pandemic. It was a side hustle for both of them, but the pandemic wrecked his regular business, a transportation company. Then he decided to go “full bore” ever since in Petaluma. He used to have a jazz club called Zebulon’s Jazz Lounge. He has a tasting room upstairs from where he makes the cider that has some of that old vibe. Goat Rock Cider is the only fully organic cider maker around. Some people use organic apples, but they follow organic practices throughout the process.
He is only one person, by himself, so you have to make an appointment. He is there just on Saturdays for walk-up tastings. For a reservation, call or text (707) 409-0738 or go to Goat Rock Cider dot com.
In addition to Goat Rock, which is fermented dry cider, he started a second organic cider brand called Nectar. They are named after gems, Sapphire and Emerald. It is sweetened with organic honey from Hawaii.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
He also started dabbling in the wine world. The unique thing about his wine is that they are all sourced from organic biodynamic vineyards. It is a pretty small production, very light and easy drinking. He calls it “natural wine adjacent” since he does use yeast and sulphur, but nothing else.
Big West Wine Fest discount code VINE VIBEHe will be pouring on Sunday at the June 14 and 15 in Guerneville at the Big West Wine Fest. VINE VIBE is the discount code. The venue is Solar Punk Farms in Gueneville. He will not be at the Gravenstein Apple Fair this year, as a one-man show, it’s too much to do, with the tasting room opening at the same time.
Technically, any fermented fruit is a type of wine product. No grain allowed in a winery, and winemakers can use any fruit they like. Cider is taxed as wine. If it is lower than 8.4% ABV it is cider, otherwise it has to be called apple wine. (Sake is actually more like beer and Cider is more like wine.)
Visit our sponsor Pizzaleah in Windsor for the finest pizza menu and the most authentic flavors around! 🍕🍻
There are many different types of apples, some are sweet, acidic, with and without tannins. There is a California apple called Wixen that has all those qualities in one apple. Usually you use a mix of apple juices to balance those flavors. The Sapphire cider would go perfectly with turkey, on a holiday table, says Harry. Or, barbequed brisket, says Herlinda. Cider and cheese also go well together.
The Ruby Nectar cider is dry, fermented with some raspberries and some Hawaiian honey. At 6% ABV it’s not overpowering, but it is sweet and easy to drink.
Dan Klasen of the Beverage Federation calls in to speak with Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha, about the impact of impending tarrifs and more.Dan Klasen is the founder and President of the Beverage Federation. He is calling from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he is based. The Beverage FederationHerlinda asks Dan to explain the Beverage Federation’s work, and also for his opinion on the impending tariffs. They are a group purchasing organization to provide resources to craft brewers. Their goal is to gain purchasing power by buying in bluk on behalf of their members. They are a growing organization. Companies in the craft beer industry have been focused on lowering operating costs. Other industries have similar services.Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.The Federation gets inquiries from operators across the country that have the same issues, for example, when the price of cans or other supplies increases suddenly. This has been a busy year and a lot of challenges today weren’t around a year ago. Everyone wants to avoid the potential impact to the consumer.Three Things to Remember and Three to ForgetDan told Herlinda three things to remember and three things to forget. There are a few things to do in the short term, 60-90 days. As far as what not to do, be wary of long-term contracts right now. Some breweries may want to do a bulk buy but Dan suggests thinking all the way through the consequences including warehousing. Be wary of suppliers who say they know how long these changes may last. Stay focused on what you do know, more in the 60-90 day frame.Visit our sponsor Pizzaleah in Windsor for the finest pizza menu and the most authentic flavors around! 🍕🍻As for things to do, one is have alternative suppliers. It’s prudent to have back-up, including setting up an account and getting pricing. That’s what medium and large operations do, and it’s good practice for small businesses too. It is a hedge against a sudden price spike. Another good idea is to get two or three quotes for supplies over a certain amount, to make sure that you can see all options. The last thing to do is to talk to your suppliers and manufacturers. They will want to communicate what they know is coming. It is good to be ready for that, such as, changes in terms to keep the supply coming.Membership is free, at Beverage Federation dot com. 🍻
Owner Michael Dunsford and Brewmaster Nick Bartlett from Napa Valley Brewing Co. join Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras on The Drive Brew Ha Ha. This is their first time on the program.The brewery was founded in 1987 and Michael’s family bought the brewery in 1989. It is on the grounds of the historic Calistoga Inn. Steve Jaxon used to live there in those years. Many great memories. Herlinda introduces Nick Bartlett. After Mad Fritz, this is the second Napa Valley brewery featured on Brew Ha Ha lately. Nick has been at Napa Valley Brewing a little over a year. He moved to Calistoga with his wife from Oakland for the job. It is quiet in his neighborhood, nothing like Oakland. In Oakland he was a brewer at Buck Wild Brewing, which is a gluten-free brewery.The Calistoga InnThe Calistoga Inn is a busy operation with a 150-seat patio and a 100-seat beer garden with live events. They have live music every night in the summer. So the brewery is a bit in the background on the grounds. Now they are bringing the brewery more front and center. Over 37 years Calistoga has changed. It used to be “fun and funky” but it has become “a little bit more sophisticated” with lots of new businesses and expansions. Michael was on the city council and assisted with some of that process.Visit our sponsor Pizzaleah in Windsor for the finest pizza menu and the most authentic flavors around! 🍕🍻Bottle Rock is coming up. It is not necessarily great for the restaurants since everyone is at the concerts and they have great food.The menu and the food style at Calistoga Inn is American and California wine country, for dinner everything from prime rib, lamb shanks, oysters, calamari, pastas, etc. They do breakfast, lunch and dinner daily. They get a lot of business from the locals as much as from visitors who come from all over.Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
Herlinda Heras & Dave MacLean.Dave MacLean is our guest on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras, to talk about curating the beer experience at Beer Lands. It is part of Outside Lands 2025, in Golden Gate Park, on August 8, 9 & 10th. He has been on BHH before, the last time was this episode a couple of years ago. Dave is also a co-founder of Admiral Maltings and is the former owner of Magnolia Brewing.Dave is also here to tell us about opening a new brewery called Hidden Splendor Beer. His discussion of the new brewery is on this other podcast episode. This allows each of today's subjects, Outside Lands and Hidden Splendor, to have their own audio track and search traffic. ;)This is the 12th year for Beer Lands. It will get a different look and feel this year. Dave describes this year’s Beer Lands setup from having seen the plans, but it is yet to be built in the new way. It will still be on the Polo field but closer to the main stage. They have 22 breweries including a couple of Cider houses. Each brewery will feature two beers. Dave’s job is to curate a well-rounded menu of all the different beer styles. It should show the variety of beer being produced in the San Francisco area and not be not just an IPA fest or a lager fest.Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.Outside Lands 2025 MusicThe music lineup for Outside Lands (pictured above) includes three days worth of rosters of artists, from up-and-comers to established top-line acts. There are seven stages that are located around Golden Gate Park.Visit our sponsor Pizzaleah in Windsor for the finest pizza menu and the most authentic flavors around! 🍕🍻Outside Lands has made its reputation as one of the best city festivals that feature both popular music and great food and beverages. Herlinda remembers one weekend that had Metallica, Stevie Wonder and then Neil Young and Crazy Horse, all over three days. She has seen stars like Paul McCartney and Tom Petty there.There is an event at Admiral Maltings on June 28 called It's the Malt! which they describe as "a full-on celebration of craft beer, American Single Malt whiskey, and the local grains that power both."The East Bay Home Brew Club, the Bay Area Mashers are organizing a beer fest where all the beers use malt from Admiral Maltings. They are celebrating the 35th Anniversary of the Bay Area Mashers with 6 Pro/Am collab brews. A lot of home brewers have gone pro and most of them use Admiral Maltings.Most of the brewers and cider brands that will be at Beer Lands are also past guests on Brew Ha Ha. There are 5 new brewers this year.
Outside Lands 2025 lineupDave MacLean is back on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras, to talk about Hidden Splendor Beer and Outside Lands 2025. He has been on the show before, the last time was this episode a couple of years ago.Hidden Splendor Beer is Dave's new brewery that will be opening soon. Dave likes to create good beer and then places to enjoy it in. That is what he did in his previous endeavor, Magnolia Brewing. He will be brewing a lot of traditional beers, bitter, mild, light mild, porter, stout, pilsners and lagers.Dave is also here to tell us about Beer Lands for Outside Lands 2025 on Aug. 8, 9 & 10 in San Francisco. His discussion of that is on this other podcast episode. This separation allows each of today's subjects, Outside Lands and Hidden Splendor, to have their own audio track and search traffic. ;)Hidden Splendor will have a location in San Rafael that will open in the Fall. Dave wants it to be a ‘brewer’s brewery’ including using some rare brewing techniques like cask beer. In the meantime they will be delivering beer to the festivals like Beer Lands.Visit our sponsor Pizzaleah in Windsor for the finest pizza menu and the most authentic flavors around! 🍕🍻Cask ale and Czech side pourThe side pull is a kind of valve that opens and closes in a different way in order to regulate the foam. The operator also has to have the right technique. The Czech beer style pays a lot of attention to getting the foam just perfect. It is a way to have a fine-tuned, precise way of pouring that kind of beer.Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.There are two parts to Cask Ale. Mostly the casks are stainless steel now. You put the beer in the cask, add some yeast and extra hops, and it naturally carbonates. It’s like bottle conditioning for champagne. It is a more dynamic product, “some people say it has a finer quality of bubble to it.” There is a pump that draws beer out of the cask, to serve it. It is a less invasive way to use suction to pour the beer. Herlinda says they come out really smooth.
Ned Lawson from Ethic Ciders is here with Dana Glei from the Gravenstein Apple Fair on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras. We featured Ned Lawson and Ethic Ciders on this episode back on August 1, 2024, before last year's Gravenstein Apple Fair.Herlinda calls the fair "the cutest little country fair" with old-fashioned attractions and lots of fun. The music lineup is on this page of the website. The Gravenstein Apple Fair takes place at Ragle Ranch Park in Sebastopol on August 9th & 10th.The craft cider tent started with just a few producers and this year there will be 18 different local producers there. The only rule at the fair is that the apples have to be grown locally, from within 100 miles.Ethic CidersNew Lawson started Ethic Ciders 10 years ago and opened the tasting room a year and a half ago. They are "orchard to glass" and they "do the whole thing right there." Ethic Ciders also makes a brandy (called a Pommeau in French) and a non-alcoholic product. They are also starting to produce a cider vinegar tonic. They make it not by de-alcoholizing cider. Instead, they start with apple cider vinegar and add lycee, lemon balm and hibiscus.Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.Ethic makes a cider called 1870. In the Gold Rush era, homesteaders planted a lot of apples in the area. As the Gold Rush waned, some of those orchards fell into disrepair. Then these apples were rediscovered later.Visit our sponsor Pizzaleah in Windsor for the finest pizza menu and the most authentic flavors around! 🍕🍻The Gravenstein Apple Fair is August 9th & 10th at the Ragle Ranch Park in Sebastopol. If you buy your tickets early there is a discount, so don't wait!
Dr. Ron is here with Docta-Ron beer, along with Natalie and Vinny Cilurzo on Brew Ha Ha with Herinda Heras and Steve Jaxon.Natalie and Vinny Cilurzo from Russian River Brewing Company are in the studio with guests from New Zealand. Brent McGlashen is a fifth-generation New Zealand hop grower. He and Vinny spent today brewing the test batch of a special beer they will release later this year. Also in the studio is Dr. Ron Beatson who is the most famous New Zealand hops expert, and David Biondi, who represents New Zealand hops in the US. The beer Docta-Ron is named after Dr. Ron.Their special beer will use a new variety of hops called NZ-109. It has taken ten years in development. The special brew will use this new variety of hops that they nicknamed “Juicy.” The California Lake Cluster was imported to NZ in 1897. New Zealand wanted to produce hops that were different. They only produce about 1.5% of the world hops crop, so they need to be special and different. Vinny says they love NZ hops. He compares them to NZ Sauvignon Blancs which have their own intense flavors compared to the same grapes grown anywhere else in the world. These hops are so potent that a little goes a long way.Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.Herlinda tells about how her father, who was in the Navy, says that New Zealand was the most beautiful place he ever visited. New Zealanders have been growing hops for over 200 years.Zed versus ZeeNew Zealanders follow the British usage of calling the letter Z “zed” where in the US it’s “zee.” So Dr. Ron calls it “N Zed one-oh-nine” where we would say NZ-109 with the Z as “zee.”Visit our sponsor Pizzaleah in Windsor for the finest pizza menu and the most authentic flavors around! 🍕🍻Their climate is mild, called a tempered oceanic climate. The mountains shelter the hop growing areas from rough weather. The hops area is right next to Marlbourough, at the top end of the south island. With good free draining soils and good rainfall, it’s a good climate for hops. They do have high UV light in New Zealand, which may be good for hops. Brent explains that hops are a significant export, and they export about 80% of their crop. The hop farms let the sheep roam through the hop fields and they keep the lower two or three feet of the hops clean.Brent’s family purchased their farm in 1900 and they are celebrating 125 years of growing hops this year.The beer named Docta-Ron is named after “the real Dr. Ron” who is in studio today. There are five New Zealand hops in this beer, mostly Nectaron, which is Dr. Ron’s last product, Vinny calls it his “swan song.” Docta-Ron is basically a New Zealand-style IPA. Dr. Ron describes Nectaron’s origin and tells about how California Lake Cluster hops were the “grandmother” of Nectaron.Brent tells an important story about how the craft brewing industry helped encourage changes in hop farming. At first, before the craft brew revolution, hope were just hops. Now, brewers are as interested in which hops they are using and where they come from. This puts the hop farmer in communication with the brewers and ultimately all the way to beer drinkers.Devin Biondi also gets to tell about being the US rep for New Zealand hops, which includes a lot of travel.Photos by CR Photography for Vicario Productions. Top photo L-R: Devin Biondi, Herlinda Heras, Brent McGlashen, Dr. Ron Beatson, Natalie & Vinny Cilurzo.
The floor at Admiral Maltings.Ron Silberstein, a co-founder of Admiral Maltings in Alameda, joins Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha today. He used to run The Thirsty Bear Brewing Company for 27 years in downtown San Francisco. At Admiral Maltings they also have a pub called The Rake in the same building, overlooking the malting floor. It is located on a former Naval base. (Alameda Naval Air Station was one of the biggest Navy airports anywhere.)Admiral Maltings is reintroducing an old-fashioned way of making malt that makes a high quality product. Barley is the most commonly used grain for beer and whiskey. Grains have to be broken down before the yeast can do its job. So the grain is soaked which lets it start to germinate, then they stop the process and dry it.They grow all of their grain in California. Before WWII, barley was the largest California crop. Then, the floor is actually cooled, because germination itself produced heat.Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.Russian River just won a Gold at the World Beer Cup for their STS Pilsner, and a Silver for Damnation. They use Admiral Malt. Drake’s also won a Gold in the Cream Ale category.Punching Above Their Weight in the World of MaltThey were just at the California Craft Brewers Cup. Admiral Maltings produces one tenth of one percent of the available malt, but they won 8% of the medals from the recent CCB Cup. Of course, it’s the brewers who win the medals, but they do use Admiral Maltings malt.Visit our sponsor Pizzaleah in Windsor for the finest pizza menu and the most authentic flavors around! 🍕🍻Don’t miss IT’S THE MALT, the 2nd Annual Malt Festival at Admiral June 28. It’s their celebration of malt. There will be at least six pro-am collaborations to taste. There will be beers that demonstrate malts made from all different kinds of grain, including wheat, rye, barley, oats and corn. They will also feature whiskeys, like their American Single Malt Whiskey. It has to be 100% malted barley from a single distillery to qualify.As a local provider of malt for local breweries, Admiral Maltings provides the freshest possible product, comparable to freshly roasted and ground coffee, or like freshly baked bread.
Fogbelt Brewing Company owner Paul Hawley is here along with Native American brewer Pedro Mancilla to tell about the return of Red Tail Ale.Hawley, co-founder of Fogbelt Brewing Company is here along with Native American brewer Pedro Mancilla to talk about bringing back Red Tail Ale. Fogbelt is making some of Mendocino Brewing’s classic Red Tail Ale. This was the most famous brew early in the craft brewing movement. In the 1980s it was one of the leading new beers.Fogbelt Paul tells how he and Remy Martin started the brewery in 2013 after home brewing for a time. Remy studied brewing at UC Davis. They opened their brewpub on Cleveland Ave in Santa Rosa in 2014, then outgrew that space. They moved production to an offsite warehouse. Then in 2022 they opened the Healdsburg Beer Garden in the red caboose.Pedro Mancilla introduces himself. He is the brewer at Fogbelt Brewing company. He has Native American Ancestors and shares “I am of you and you are of me” in his native language. The Red Tail Hawk in a symbol of wisdom, protection and care for the land. The Red Tail Ale project is more than a beer, it is a celebration of his connection to his heritage. Don Barkley developed the recipe back then for Mendocino Brewing and now he has given the recipe to Fogbelt.Herlinda met Pedro when they were at an event at Anchor Brewing, where Pedro used to work. He was working there and had access to Fritz Maytag’s extensive library of books about brewing. She saw him reading a book that was about brewing at that event, so she asked him about it.The owner of Chobani yogurt has purchased Anchor Brewing and its assets, so there are good propects for a return of Anchor Steam and Liberty Ale.There were several other “bird beers” that Mendocino Brewing made. Fogbelt has started with Red Tail Ale but they also plan to bring the others back. These include Eye of the Hawk, Talon, White Hawk, Black Hawk, Blue Heron and Peregrine.Right now, Red Tail Ale is available at the big local retailers, such as Oliver’s, Tip Top, Wilibees, Bottle Barn and others. Fogbelt has the distribution rights so they are in charge of that.Cascade and Cluster hops, caramel malt for the amber red hue and the taste as well. Herlinda judges it “delicious.”
Marin County Civic Center and Lagoon Park.Drew Patterson joins Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha to talk about the Marin Irish Festival. It is coming back to Lagoon Park, Marin County Fairgrounds on May 3 and 4, 2025. It's a celebration of Irish music, dance, and culture. They will have more than 40 artisan vendors and craft booths. Feast on traditional Irish food (corned beef and cabbage, fish and chips, shepherd’s pie). To drink, there will be pints of Guinness, Harp, and local hard ciders and ales.The Marin Irish Festival is a production of Red Barn Productions. They are famous for The Great Dickens Christmas Fair and the Renaissance Pleasure Faire. The festival takes its inspiration from Beltane, the ancient Celtic holiday that celebrates the arrival of summer—with Maypoles, music, dancing, and revelry.They will have live Performances on Four Stages and, new for this year, an officially sanctioned Irish dance competition. The Ceili on the Lake Championships are a sanctioned feis (pronounced FESH) in partnership with the Jackie Flynn Irish Dance Academy. For information and registration, visit marinirishfestival.com/feisIn addition to all that, there will also be Sheep Herding Demos with real Sheep Dogs, plus sheep shearing and wool spinning! The San Francisco Gaelic Athletic Association will demo hurling, Gaelic football, and Camogie, featuring fast-paced 5-on-5 blitz matches.
Original 420 flag, from the Waldo's official website.All five of the original 420 Waldos are in the studio today on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras. Waldo Dave and Waldo Steve were on Brew Ha Ha once before, on this episode of April 18, 2019. This time, all five of them are here.Steve, Dave, Jeff, Larry and Mark are here, they are the original Waldos from San Rafael High School in the early 1970s. There is ample documentation of their invention of the expression 420 on their website. It is the first time all five of them have been together for a radio interview.They used to hang out on the wall, every day between classes and after school. “We were all about comedy and having fun.” They also listened to a lot of music, including the great bands from the Bay Area at the time. Lagunitas makes a special 420 Waldos beer and they have some of it in studio today.At the time, one of them had a brother who was in the Coast Guard who knew of a secret garden. One of them got the map.Visit our sponsor Pizzaleah in Windsor for the finest pizza menu and the most authentic flavors around! 🍕🍻So their meeting spot was the Louis Pasteur statue at school, and their buzzword was “420 Louis” to meet at the statue at 4:20 PM. That became just “420” then the term became “…secret code that we accidentally created.” It was still illegal and one of their fathers was a narcotics officer so they needed cover. The term extended to their group of friends and beyond.The Grateful Dead ConnectionThere was also a connection to the Grateful Dead. Waldo Mark’s father was a real estate agent who ended up selling houses to three members of the band. He got tickets to concerts and the guys got to hang out with the band at concerts and one of them eventually got to be a roadie. He was using “420” at the time and the term started spreading through the Dead community.Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.Each of the Waldos went on to professional careers in the Bay Area and they are now retired or semi-retired. They were also always into in what they called “safaris” where they went on adventures to investigate interesting stuff. Once they visited some researchers who were doing holographic images. “They were cub scout field trips but we were stoned.” One day Waldo Steve drove his 1966 Impala on the airport runway.Another day they climbed onto the girders on the Golden Gate Bridge, when there was no security on the bridge. They jumped onto the protective nets which were “bouncy.” Another time they took a trip to LA and the police stopped them on the road when they mistook the Waldos for the SLA (who had kidnapped Patti Hearst). They wanted to see a taping of the Johnny Carson show, but the stop caused them to miss it, so they went to Disneyland. Listen to their telling of that story about 31 minutes in.Brian Donaldson from Lagunitas has brought some of Lagunitas' special 420 Waldos release, a 10.7% brew. He also brought some hop water and other brews. The Lagunitas brewers invited the Waldos to taste different hops and to choose the ones they thought tasted most like cannabis.Waldos on three! One, two, three WALDOS! Woo hoo!
James Pardieu and Richard McChinak, co-chairmen of the Battle of the Brews 2025 join Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha. Richard was in the studio last year on this episode to promote the same event.Battle of the Brews 2025 will be Saturday April 12 from 1-5 PM at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds. This year marks the 25th annual event. It is sponsored by the Active 20-30 Club of Santa Rosa, a charity organization for persons between age 20 and 39. Members age out at 40, so there are always new people on the scene.More than half of the event is about BBQ now. There is also cider, Kombucha and mead. Herlinda is judging the beer competition in the morning, for the 11th or 12th year. The first time she remembers being the only female judge, but that’s not the case anymore.Admission is $95 which includes all you can eat and all you can drink, responsibly! All the money raised goes to serve underprivileged youth in Sonoma County. Last year they raised over $72,000 and they have totaled over 1.5 million dollars over the last several years.The club uses the funds they raise for many local charities targeting youth. The have contributed to the Children’s Museum of Sonoma County. Each member also participates in shopping for school supplies, benefiting over 200 kids last time. There are constant needs. "If there’s a need, we’re here to fill it.” Each chapter has their own area that they support.Visit our sponsor Pizzaleah in Windsor for the finest pizza menu and the most authentic flavors around! 🍕🍻Leah Scurto, the owner of PizzaLeah, is going to Parma for the world pizza championship, April 8-10.The Battle of the Brews is not only about beer because now they include coffee and teas and tisanes. There will be at least 50 breweries, a few coffee and tea shops and so far 18 confirmed restaurants and probably more by show time. HenHouse and Old Caz are among the breweries.Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.The 20-30 club has different chapters all around the country and also some outside the US. There will be visitors from Panama this year. The club has some members who attended some events as children, then grew up and joined the society.DJ Rob Cervantes will be there, and the band Voodoo Vultures will play their only event of the year.In December they hold an event for children who would not otherwise be able to enjoy a full holiday celebration, with a Christmas dinner, presents, Santa Claus, arts and crafts and lots of love.
The Cuvers.Hendrik Cuver and his wife Amber Cuver, from CuVer Brewery in Windsor, join Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha today. They are here to talk about their Windsor, California brewery where they specialize in Belgian beer. Hendrik was on this episode of Brew Ha Ha back on September 16, 2021, when they were just opening the brewery. He was also on this episode on May 5, 2022, a year and a half later.Also today, Harry Duke will be calling in live from Russian River Brewing Co. in Windsor. The Pliny the Younger public event is in full swing there. His portion of this live radio show will be on this separate podcast episode page, to allow each guest to have their own audio and podcast indexing.Cuver's OriginHendrick and his father were used to drinking Belgian beers when they immigrated to California in 2012. A year later they started home brewing in order to have the beer that they wanted. They continued doing that while Hendrick was back in Belgium getting his Master's degrees in Biochemistry. Then when St. Florian's brewery came up for sale, they made the purchase. The history of Cuver Brewery and the two families that founded it are closely intertwined. Hendrick invited his fiancée Amber and her family to meet his family at Thanksgiving. Amber's father Reed Cushing became a partner in the brewery. When Hendrick and Amber got married, they changed their surnames to Cuver, derived from combining Cushing and Verspecht. Read the whole story on the Cuver website, on this page.Visit our sponsor Pizzaleah in Windsor for the finest pizza menu and the most authentic flavors around! 🍕🍻Belgian ales can have combinations of different flavors, from malt, hops and specially chosen yeasts. The Belgian beers range from a 4.4% abv whit to a quad that is 10.3%.The first beer that they are tasting is a white IPS, which is a hybrid style between a Belgian wheat beer and an IPA. It is called "By Her Bootstraps."Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.Closures and SalesHerlinda mentions some news in the beer industry. Moylen's in Marin is closing, the owner is retiring. Marin Brewing Company closed last year. Also, Anderson Valley Brewing has sold to a winery owner and Fal Allen has moved to Kauai where he is still a brewer. There are lots of changes in the brew business.Cuver is located on Bell Road in Windsor, around the corner from Russian River, in the Windsor Beverage District. The tap room offers 11 different beers. They have Food Truck Fridays from 4 to 7.Herlinda has brought a rare Vienna lager from Vienna, Austria. She recently visited Martin Voigt there, he has been on BHH when he was traveling in California.
Harry Duke and Natalie CilurzoHarry Duke is live at Russian River Brewing Co. in Windsor on this special edition of Brew Ha Ha to talk about Pliny the Younger 2025 from the floor of the Russian River Windsor pub.Also today on Brew Ha Ha, Hendrik Verspecht from CuVer Brewing is visiting Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras in the studio. That portion of today's show is on this other podcast page, to allow each guest to have their own audio and podcast indexing.Natalie Cilurzo is with Harry to talk about how it's all going. Pliny the Younger is a triple IPA which gets a recipe tweak most years. This year, the addition of Tangier hops brings some orange, grapefruit, tangerine and mango, in addition to other hints of pine resin. It's a little more bitter than last year, which counteracts the fruitiness and elevates the flavor profile. It is remarkably smooth, for 10.4% abv.Pliny the Younger 2025 Release DatesThe annual release of Pliny the Younger 2025 this year runs from March 21 to April 3. It will be on tap and in bottles to go until April 3. The wait times today are about 2 hours downtown, and more than 3 hours in Windsor. Natalie and Vinny like to greet the visitors waiting in line and they make a lot of friends.Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.There are visitors from all over the country and some international visitors too. Pliny the Younger's economic impact on Sonoma County is consistently strong. The Chamber of Commerce reports that it brings in several million dollars of extra business every year.Visit our sponsor Pizzaleah in Windsor for the finest pizza menu and the most authentic flavors around! 🍕🍻Next week, April 3 is also the 2oth anniversary of the RRBC pub on 4th St. in downtown Santa Rosa.
Wade Johnson and Justin Bowman from Oliver's Markets and Erin Latham from Moonlight Brewing Co. join Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha. Wade Johnson is the head of the gourmet cheese department at Oliver's Market. Justin Bowman is the beer and spirits manager at Oliver's Market in Cotati.Erin Latham is here from Moonlight Brewing Co. She has brought their We Love LA beer to taste and to describe the fund raising campaign. Erin was also on BHH last year on August 15, along with Brian Hunt, to promote the 32nd Anniversary party. Last week we talked to Andy Link of Common Space Brewery in Los Angeles. They are leading the We Love LA effort.Moonlight's We Love LA BeerMoonlight’s We Love LA beer is an American style lager that will be released this Saturday at their taproom. They have a roster of bands and other performers plus food trucks. 3350 Coffee Lane. A portion of the proceeds from the beer sales goes to the United Way Los Angeles. They are also accepting direct donations.Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.Wade Johnson takes care of cheeses at all the Oliver’s stores. He has brought three cheeses to taste today. They are a California-made Gouda, an Irish cheddar and Point Reyes Farmstead Bay Blue. He started at Oliver’s in 2010 and “grew up behind the cheese counter.”Visit our sponsor Pizzaleah in Windsor for the finest pizza menu and the most authentic flavors around! 🍕🍻Justin brought beers to pair with these. One is Color Me Murphy Irish Red Ale and an Irish Stout called Top o’ the Morning. They also have a Guinness stout with the little widget that simulates a fresh draft pour. Herlinda tasted a Guinness non-alcoholic beer that tasted as good as the full alcohol version.
Natalie and Vinny Cilurzo discuss the We Love LA wildfire relief collab beer, with Leah Scurto from PizzaLeah who is sitting in for Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon today. Andy Link will also join us on the phone from Common Space Brewery in Los Angeles.Herlinda Calling from EnglandFirst, Herlinda Heras calls in from England where it is 1:00 in the morning. Herlinda was on this episode last year about the 2024 edition. She is there for her eleventh year judging the British Pie Awards in Melton Mowbray, about a four-hour train ride north of London. There are 26 categories of pies and all but one are savory pies like fish pie, steak and kidney pie, cold pork pie and many more. This year there 879 pies and 167 judges. Herlinda was the only American judge and she even got an interview on the BBC. They judge in an 800-year-old former church. The English tradition of savory pies extends even to football, rugby and cricket clubs, which have their own team pies. As we would get a hot dog and a beer at a baseball game, they will get a hand pie and a beer for their day at the stadium or grounds.Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.Herlinda judged the steak and ale category which alone had 67 pies. There is even a gluten-free pie and a vegan pie. Shepherd’s pie is different, that has mashed potatoes on it. These pies have to have a full crust on top and bottom. Appearance is important so the pies are decorated on top. The first thing they look for is a soggy bottom, which is a quick DQ.Visit our sponsor Pizzaleah in Windsor for the finest pizza menu and the most authentic flavors around! 🍕🍻The LA fire relief beer “We Love LA”The folks at Common Space Brewery in LA have spearheaded this, the same way that Russian River Brewing Co. helped organize the Sonoma Pride fund-raising campaign after the 2017 fires. There are about 200 breweries that have so far collected pledges for almost $300,000. There is no beer style requirement, so the breweries can make whatever style is convenient for them. So RRBC is making a West Coast Pils, a style that Highland Park Brewery in Los Angeles developed. Vinny describes the West Coast Pils as having a light body like a Pilsner but it is more heavily hopped like the IPAs. They used Adena hops, “on the hot side” then later it is dry hopped with Tangier and Nectaron, that gives it the big aroma. All the proceeds will go to the United Way of Los Angeles.Andy Link from Common Space Brewery in Los Angeles joins the show on the phone to describe the collaboration in the LA area and around California.
Joevon Hatter from Rewind Beer Arcade and Bryan Donaldson from Lagunitas are here on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras. This is the first time on Brew Ha Ha for each of them. Joevon is the Manager of Beverage and Events for Rewind Beer Arcade in Sebastopol, which features a great beer selection and many ’80s an ’90s arcade games. Bryan is the Brewing Innovation Manager at Lagunitas. He gets to make experimental beers for the brewery.Bryan Donaldson studied at UC Davis with Charlie Bamforth (who was on this show on this Feb. 28, 2018 episode) and then built a resumé with the biggest brands in the business including Sierra Nevada, Anheuser Busch and Heineken. He is also an open-water scuba instructor and a former university chemistry instructor at Santa Clara and UC Davis.Rewind Arcade features the arcade games but also 20 taps of all kinds of craft beers. They are measured and charged by the ounce, so it is easy to taste a lot of different brews in one visit. Joevan makes sure that the selection is always fresh and up-to-date, including the best flavors from the best local breweries.Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.Lagunitas Brewing Company does not do a lot of brewing collaborations but Old Caz is special. CAZUNITAS is a portmanteau of Old Caz and Lagunitas.Visit our sponsor Pizzaleah in Windsor for the finest pizza menu and the most authentic flavors around! 🍕🍻
Adam Ray, founder of the Santa Rosa Beer City Festival, and Colin McDonald from HenHouse join Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha. Also in the studio is Ryan Silva, winner of the golden growler. Colin was on Brew Ha Ha last June 13, 2024, when HenHouse was getting ready for the Freshtival.Adam Ray is the founder of Beer City Festival, Colin McDonald is here from HenHouse for the annual Big Chicken release, and Ryan Silva won the Golden Growler trophy, which he has broght.Beer City was born in Santa Rosa, THEE Beer City. There is a running event in the morning then a party in the afternoon. HenHouse is participating in Beer City and also in the Santa Rosa Beer Passport. They can’t have Big Chicken on Saturday, it will only be at the brewery that day. Big Chicken is HenHouse's once-a-year special IPA. After Saturday it will be available in all their retail locations.Racing and Drinking Beer, or Just Drinking BeerThere is a series of four of races at all the four different Beer City locations. There are races for 5K, 10K and half marathon. Runners can gain points by running more races for longer distance at better times. They announce the overall men’s and women’s winners at the end of the last day of races. Ryan won the giant growler as the overall men’s winner last year.New this year is Race the Rex, a person in a dinosaur costume. You run a lap and take a drink. If the T Rex catches you, you’re out. If you lose your cookies, you’re out. It sounds very complicated, but they will have ushers and judges.Colin explains the mission of Big Chicken. Every year the recipe changes. Steve says it’s delicious. Colin says they try to bring to every Big Chicken all that they learned about making hoppy beer during the last year. They are using special hops which are cryogenically extracted so that the beer is “oily” with hop flavor.Big ChickenThe Big Chicken they are tasting was tapped off the main tank about 15 minutes ago. They are celebrating 13 years at HenHouse. Colin realizes that places him in the generation of distinguished elder craft brewers. 95% of their beer is sold in the bay area. Mark Carpenter, “a living legend” former BHH co-host and Anchor brewer, loves HenHouse.Take the Smart Train, it’s sponsored and is there to help you get around while you enjoy Beer City Festival and while you fill out your Beer Passport. Visit Santa Rosa is a sponsor. Every Beer City attracts 60% visitors from out of county.
Herlinda with Dan and Celeste Hanes.Dan and Celeste Hanes from Cooperage Brewing Co., join Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha today. The last time Cooperage was featured on BHH was when Nicholas aka The Fridge was our guest on this episode of May 25, 2023.Cooperage's new location is at 575 Ross St. in downtown Santa Rosa. This place is much larger than their other original one at 981 Airway Court also in Santa Rosa. They have pool, darts, pinball and other kid and dog friendly attractions and there is trivia on Mondays. There are also rotating food trucks outside as well as great beer.First, Herlinda reminds us of the February 22 Beer City Fest. You can sign up to run in the half marathon, or just come to celebrate and drink beer later. Also, the Santa Rosa Beer Passport promotion is going on. Cooperage is a big part of both Beer City and the Santa Rosa Beer Passport promotions.Their new location means they have enough space to throw a big party in the parking lot. So on March 22, they will be throwing a block party in the empty parking lot next door. They will have BBQ, burgers, several bands and local vendors, all at the new downtown location. Their name for it is the Coop Rage party, at least for now. They have a great following and the local community has supported them, so they are glad to be able to do this in their new downtown location. “We want to be part of the re-creation of downtown.”Tyler, Cooperage's brewer, started by working the taps at Whole Foods while people knew he was already brewing great beer by himself. Joe Tucker of RateBeer fame loved Cooperage and said it would be the next great American brewery.They brought three beers today. One is a pale dry ale, called the Crispy Crusher. It is an “affordable, approachable beer.” They keep the price low, $4 or $5 a pint, depending on what time of day.Every Saturday the free beer shuttle is a popular attraction in Santa Rosa. Their hours at the new downtown location are Monday – Thursday from 3:00 to 10:00 PM, Fridays and Saturdays Noon to Midnight, Sundays Noon to 7:00 PM.Their IG will tell you what food trucks are coming and when.Stella says the highlight of her day is to meet all the dogs that come to their dog-friendly locations. The Mexican wrestling is a great show. Next time is Saturday, May 3. The wrestling is a tournament with judges and a champion. Once, Dan’s little son panicked because he saw his dad get body slammed and he “lost his marbles” as Mom tells the story. How do you say, “KAYFABE” in Spanish?
Marty NachelBrew Ha Ha with Herlinda Heras and Steve Jaxon welcomes Marty Nachel, founder and President of the American Craft Beer Hall of Fame. Herlinda has judged beers with him in Mexico.First, Herlinda reminds us of the February 22 Beer City Fest. You can sign up to run in the half marathon, or just come to celebrate and drink beer later. Also, the Santa Rosa Beer Passport promotion is going on.“The American Craft Beer Hall of Fame has been established to honor, celebrate, and commit to history those people who are responsible for initiating, sustaining, and promoting the American craft beer industry. This Hall is to ensure that the memories of their contributions and achievements will not fade with time." – from the American Craft Beer HOF websiteRussian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.Nominees and InducteesHerlinda Heras and Tara Nurin are on their advisory board. In that role, they each got to nominate ten people for induction. The first nominees have been published and the winners were announced on February 15. Some of them are familiar to us, including Fritz Maytag from Anchor and new Albion founders.Visit our sponsor Pizzaleah in Windsor for the finest pizza menu and the most authentic flavors around! 🍕🍻Marty describes how he thought of this idea over a year ago. He had not heard of anything like this. Then after multiple google searches, he discovered that there was no such award yet. He first thought of bringing the idea to some other people, but then he decided just to start it himself. The list of nominees and winners is on the website.Some of the people nominated have had an important impact but are not well known. Marty mentions Charlie Bamforth of UC Davis, as an example. Known as The Pope of Foam, he is a chemistry professor from England who has taught fermentation science to students at UC Davis for a long time. He has been on BHH before, on this episode.
Natalie with Pliny the Younger 2025.Natalie Cilurzo is back with the first taste of the 2025 Pliny the Younger, on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras.This will be the 21st release of Pliny the Younger. They used to release in February but during covid they moved it to last march early April. That turned out to be better for a lot of reasons. So this year the dates are March 21 through April 3.They continue to do wholesale distribution to bars and restaurants in February. This helps them get an attraction during the slower winter months. Also, San Francisco Beer Week is coming. Today they are finishing the brewing and bottling and kegging, but the first people to taste it are on this show today.Dan Berger is here as a special guest, and so is Mackenzie Miller, who is the host of Mid-days on the Krush, KRSH. Brew Ha Ha will do a remote broadcast March 27, to be confirmed. The last time we did a remote was when Windsor opened in 2018.Russian River Brewing Co. Hop WaterSince many people participate in Dry January, Russian River Brewing Co. produces a Hop Water, which is sparkling water flavored with Citra and Eldorado hops. It’s very refreshing.Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.Every year at Valentine’s Day they make a beer called Rejection, a dark beer made with Belgian yeast. It is toasty and has coffee flavors. It is 6.1% ABV. Dan Berger describes it as rich without being sweet, perfect for dry January because it finishes dry. It is available on tap only at the two pubs, or to-go in growlers.Then they taste another beer called Docta-Ron, named after a New Zealand hop breeder. It is available in cans and on tap.This is the 21st year of Pliny the Younger. Vinny Cilurzo tweaks the recipe every year and this year the long list of hops used includes a new one. It has an orange-y flavor and makes the 2025 Pliny the Younger, according to Dan Berger, the tastiest one ever.Russian River Brewing Co. is also making a wildfire relief beer called We "heart" LA. A brewery in LA called Common Space started a fund raising beer. Here is their website. The beer is set to be released all at once by all the collaborators on March 7.Now finally it is time to taste the Pliny the Younger 2025. Dan Berger declares it the most amazing beer ever produced. It is over 10% ABV and it is very dry and clear.Amarillo, Citra, Mosaic, Nectaron, Simcoe, Warrior and Tangier. Tangier is a new hop from Washington and they like it for its orange flavors. Dan says the beer has more floral qualities than last year. The Pine flavors definiteliy come from the Simcoe. Dan says this beer is like a great wine, full of complexities and unexpected flavors.They are kegging it tomorrow and it will start going out for distribution on Monday, Feb. 2. Look around at your usual bars and restaurants, look for your usual suspects... Happy hunting!Visit our sponsor Pizzaleah in Windsor for the finest pizza menu and the most authentic flavors around! 🍕🍻
Mike Schnebeck from Fort Point Beer Co. in San Francisco is our guest in the studio today on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras. Mike was on Brew Ha Ha once before in 2023, on this episode. Herlinda happily reports that Fort Point Beer Co. is actually growing and doing very well. They also are producing cider. And also, today is the eleventh anniversary of the first episode of Brew Ha Ha, back when Herlinda did the show with Joe Tucker. It was four years after that, on Feb. 8, 2018, that this podcast started. Cheers! 🍻Mike and his two partners founded Fort Point Beer Co. ten years ago. Before that they ran another smaller brewery. The name Fort Point comes from the fort that is at the base of the Golden Gate bridge, on the city side. It is a famous landmark for locals in the know, and even if it is in the shadow of the Golden Gate bridge, the fort is not as widely known.The first beer tasted is their KSA which is their take on a German Kolsch. This is their first non-alcoholic beer. They have a whole line of non-alcoholic beers. Many have a regular and a non alcoholic version.Visit Russian River Brewing Co. on 4th St. and at their Windsor location. Click the logo to visit their website for hours, menus and beers on tap.They spent about three years researching non-alcoholic brewing. They found that a specialized yeast strain gave them the best flavor. The beer had to taste good, and also taste as close as possible to real beer. People love the types of beer already, so they wanted to make the same varieties of beer in a nearly-zero alcohol version. With the special yeast, they are able to make great tasting beer but less than one percent alcohol. The brewing process is very similar, with some adjustments. Even Steve Jaxon found it hard to tell which of the tastings were the non-alcoholic ones.SF Beer Week is coming in February. The Feb-Brew-ary promotion is also coming, in Santa Rosa.You can order Fort Point beer at Fort Point Beer Co dot com They have a beer club subscription. They have a Fort Point Korean style lager with San Hu Wan in the Mission district, with the chef Cory Lee. They developed the recipe together. It uses Jasmine rice, Herlinda notices. It also uses Contessa hops which have a green tea floral flavor.Visit our sponsor Pizzaleah in Windsor for the finest pizza menu and the most authentic flavors around! 🍕🍻Watch the Fort Point social media for up-to-the-minute news about events around San Francisco.Pizzaleah is a new sponsor of Brew Ha Ha. Leah Scurto has been on the show a few times before, the last time was this episode on August 29, 2024.
Steve, Mark and HerlindaOur former co-host Mark Carpenter is back with us for a visit today on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras. His last visit was this episode in July of 2021. For a long time Mark Carpenter was the co-host of this show. He was the brew master at Anchor until he retired.Mark has news about the present status of Anchor Brewing. Sapporo decided to close it but an investor has bought the company and is slowly working on restoring the location and the company. Here is an article from AP news about that.The new owner, Hamdi Ulukaya, has plans to revitalize Anchor Brewing, which everyone agrees is good news. He is the very successful founder of Chobani Yogurt so he is certainly ready and qualified for the job.Mark says he is taking his time about it and has a good approach similar to that of Fritz Maytag, the previous owner who also bought Anchor and revitalized it in the early 1970s when Mark Carpenter started there. Both Fritz Maytag and Hamdi Ulukaya are openly enthusiastic about the meaning and importance of a business like Anchor as a valuable cultural asset.A Brief History of Anchor BrewingMark briefly tells the story of how he found Anchor. He had been working for the telephone company. He took a tour of Anchor and liked the place enough to ask for a job. It was a small place and had three employees. Mark considers himself lucky to have been hired and to have found Fritz to be such an enlightened owner who gave Mark a book about brewing and sent him to take brewing courses in Michigan.Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.Mark has brought a bottle of Truman Royal Ale for Herlinda as a birthday present. It was brewed in England in 1982 to celebrate the birth of Prince William. Anchor Brewing's Liberty Ale was the first modern IPA brewed in the United States. They didn't call it IPA, but it had all of the characteristics. Herlinda's video interview with Mark Carpenter, Tony Magee and Don Barkley is also still on display at the Museum of Sonoma County.It's Herlinda's birthday! Happy Birthday Herlinda!
Herlinda and Stuart.Sake sommelier Stuart Morris is our guest today on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras, with Hachidori Sake.Stuart Morris is a sake sommelier trained in Japan and is a former partner with Kenichi Tominaga of Hana in a sake distribution company. He was a chef “in a previous life” and discovered sake while working in restaurants. He made lots of effort to get to Japan and he learned sake making there.They begin tasting some sake and noticing the flavors. One is light and clean with lemon, cucumber and melon rind flavors. He makes three types of sake, with different rices and yeasts. He became one of the first six non-Japanese people to get the Japanese sake certification. His own label is called Hachidori which means hummingbird in Japanese.Sake brewing is similar to brewing beer.Sake is brewed in a process that is close to beer brewing. It is made from rice, water and koji, a mould. He grows it in an 80-degree humid room, so the temperature needs to be just right. There is a sake museum, the only one in the US, in Berkeley, that shows the history of sake production. The milling of the rice has an effect on the flavor, the more milled, the more delicate the flavor. You have to taste it to understand it. The highest ABV sake is 20%. His mentor in Japan is a 10th generation sake maker.Visit Russian River Brewing Co. on 4th St. and at their Windsor location. Click the logo to visit their website for hours, menus and beers on tap.Stuart worked at Hana where he became friends with the Tominaga family. He later became a partner with Ken in a sake distribution company, before he took the job he has now.These bottles of Hachidori sake are the very first ones that Stuart has produced for sale. They will be rolling out into some retail and restaurants. They will range in price from about $30/35, then one at about $45, then one at about $100. Sake does not age like wine and usually fresher is better. Stuart stores it in a fridge or at a white wine temperature.Sake rice is very high in starch. The more glucose, the more starch, the more elegant style of sake you will get.When Stuart is helping restaurant customers choose sake, he starts by asking them what they like. Some people’s wine preferences are a way to predict what sake one would also like. The key is to drink some sake to taste it and find out what you like.
hiveworks mead co.Sean Duckworth, COO and Alexander Mendoza, CEO of Hiveworks Mead Co. are back on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras. The last time they were on the show was this episode back on February 22, 2024.Steve Jaxon starts by asking Sean and Alex simply to tell about mead. It is an alcoholic fermented beverage made from honey. Mead is probably the oldest fermented beverage in human history, is gluten free and has tons of flavor, so what’s not to love? It takes about six weeks from beginning the brewing process to when it is delivered. Mead is like honey in that it is not perishable. It might lose some of its flavor but it does not go “off.”Herlinda remembers finding great mead in Finland when she was there to judge a beer and Sahti competition. Braggot is a style of mead that can have stronger flavor and higher alcohol, but which also uses grain in its production. The term Honeymoon refers to drinking mead for a month after getting married.Silver Medal Winners in their First CompetitionThey are based in Rohnert Park. One of their products just won a Silver medal in its category in the first competition they have been able to enter.Mead is actually the fastest growing sector of the alcoholic beverage industry today. The TV series Game of Thrones had a lot to do with raising awareness of mead and making it more popular. Since their style of mead is relatively light, that makes it easy for people to try it and get to know it.Their overall style is a Dry mead, with no residual sugar. Some other meads are sweeter and thicker. Another mead is hopped. Their hopped mead is not a braggot because there is no use of grain.Herlinda wants to mention President Carter who signed California Senator Alan Cranston’s bill to allow home brewing in the US. That was the one legal change that let the home brewing movement begin.Alex and Sean have known each other since the second grade. They were home brewing in their early twenties. It didn’t hurt that they also played a little D&D. So at one point they realized that there was no commercial product similar to their idea.They are expanding their distribution throughout the Bay Area into restaurants and shops. They will double their production capacity in the next year. Watch out for Hiveworks Mead Co.!
Phaedra Achor
Flora Luna Apothecary founder Phaedra Achor is back on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras today. Phaedra was also on Brew Ha Ha almost exactly two years ago on this episode on Dec. 22, 2022.
There is big news in the beer world. Herlinda reports that RateBeer dot com is closing. Our friend and former co-host Joe Tucker sold it to a big brewing company several years ago. Buying a big beer ratings company, only to shut it down, looks like a corporate power play. There may be buyers who wish to purchase its assets. A lot of site users have postings there that date back many years. There are a lot of stakeholders who have questions. Herlinda will try to get Joe Tucker to come on the show soon to tell us more about it.
Flora Luna Apothecary is Phaedra’s company that produces botanical bitters, syrups and infusions, for creating uniquely flavorful cocktails and other beverages.
Phaedra has a lot to say about holiday cocktails. The first one she is making in the studio today, named Festival of Lights, is a celebration of Hanukkah. It is a gin fizz made with olive oil which gives it a unique flavor and texture.
Visit Russian River Brewing Co. on 4th St. and at their Windsor location. Click the logo to visit their website for hours, menus and beers on tap.
What Bitters AreBitters are botanical extracts, made from three components, a bark, a root and an aromatic botanical. Then, when you macerate them in an alcohol base, you extract the bitter compounds. Traditionally they were a medicinal, used to soothe the gut. Angostura bitters are the most famous example. Syrups are similar to bitters but they are more an infusion, with the ingredient cooked in the syrup.
Phaedra formulates all the recipes and makes everything herself. Her website has all of her products. Her quarterly subscription box contains seasonal concoctions four times a year. The recipes that come with it can be made with or without alcohol.
Flora Luna began in 2015 when Phaedra threw a cocktail party and made five different kinds of bitters for the occasion. They were a hit and some guests were really impressed. This encouraged Phaedra, then she realized that there was interest in cocktails and a lack of great bitters on the market. For the rest of the show they continue tasting and discussing some beautiful craft cocktails.
Herlinda Heras and Kevin McGee
Kevin McGee from Anderson Valley Brewing Company joins Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha today. AVBC is the official brewery of the 2024 Great Dickens Christmas Fair at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. Kevin McGee has been on this show a few times, most recently this episode on May 2, 2024.
Anderson Valley Brewing Company has been in business for 37 years. Their entire property is now licensed as a beer tasting room. There is a disc golf course on the site now. They like to offer an experience a little more memorable than just drinking a beer. His family bought the company in 2019 and they also relaunched the Healdsburg Beer Company.
Visit Russian River Brewing Co. on 4th St. and at their Windsor location. Click the logo to visit their website for hours, menus and beers on tap.
Kevin tried making wine at home but without success. His wife suggested he try beer, so he changed his business plan in 2007. At the time it was hard to sell the beer, but Guy Fieri’s restaurant was one of the first customers. AVBC was the first brewery to use only solar energy. They also have a completely self-contained water system that draws water from wells on the property and returns all their used water to the ground on site.
The Great Dickens Christmas FairThis year AVBC is the official brewery of the Great Dickens Christmas Fair at the Cow Palace in San Francisco, from November 23 through December 22, from 10am-6pm.
Jeffery House and Herlinda Heras
Jeffery House is back on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras, with news about the company he founded and is back managing now. Jeffery has been on Brew Ha Ha before. His most recent visit was this episode last May, after his book was released.
He sold Ace Cider to Vintage Wine Estates which burned through money and declared bankruptcy. He and his sons attempted to buy the brand back. They went to an auction in New York for the assets. They “got pipped at the post” as a third-generation Budweiser distributor had the winning bid. But Jeffery approached them offering his services and they accepted it. Jeffery is confident that in a year or two they should be back to where they were. Jeffery mentions that they had been debt free for five years and their distribution was getting really strong. The consumers have been very loyal. Awareness of the brand is strong and they are happy with the compliments they are receiving now.
The Cider KingJeffery House’s book The Cider King came out in May. It is his autobiography, tracing his life from England, in the advertising business, coming to America, starting to import British beer into America. He encountered cider while in the beer business. The book goes through all the events from his discovery of the Sebastopol apple orchards to the founding and growth of Ace Cider.
Visit Russian River Brewing Co. on 4th St. and at their Windsor location. Click the logo to visit their website for hours, menus and beers on tap.
Their ciders range from 5% to 8% ABV but the alcohol is not as prominent in the flavor profile, compared to beer. They discovered a strong demand in the Hispanic market, for example there are about 500 taps of Ace Cider in El Paso, TX.
Herlinda mentions that cider is a great choice for holiday meals and also for toasts. Jeffery says you could pour his Joker cider and it will pass for California sparkling wine.
Jeffery’s wife was in the cantina scene of Star Wars, she was an intergalactic spy smoking a hookah pipe in the bar.
In the western part of Britain, cider is a more popular drink than beer. Bretagne, in northwest France, is also the home of cider in France. That is also the land of crepes and their classic combination is any kind of crepes with a glass of cider.
Cider is gluten free, low calorie and refreshing. It is also versatile, so you can drink it alone or with anything. Cider is actually made more like wine than beer and is taxed as wine too. You make it in a couple of weeks. You can vintage age it but it doesn’t have to undergo all that. It is growing in popularity as people gain awareness of it. That is a different than the trajectory of some of those seltzer drinks. They shot up in popularity then down again (kind of like shaking a can, opening it, getting a big splash, then just a wet mess).
Author Tara Nurin is back on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras, after judging at Bahia Beer in Brazil with Herlinda last week.
Tara Nurin and Herlinda Heras were in Bahia, Brazil last week, to be judges at the Bahia Beer Festival of the Brazilian International Beer Awards. They discovered Brazilian drinks and steakhouse style, and did a city tour of Salvador, the capital, too. Bahia is the part of Brazil closest to Africa and since colonial times has had the largest African population. Bahia is not on the main tourist path so the Bahia promoters were very happy to meet the international beer crowd. It also seemed that the locals were actively participating and happy that they were all there. Tara is the author of “A Woman’s Place Is In the Brewhouse.” She got a standing ovation at the end of a presentation she gave about diversity and wellness in the industry.
Herlinda found Brazilian beer flavored with Acerola cherries and a lot of dark beers. There is a type of Brazilian beer called Catarina Sour, from Santa Catarina. Tara found that the overall quality of the Brazilian beers was exceptionally high.
Visit Russian River Brewing Co. on 4th St. and at their Windsor location. Click the logo to visit their website for hours, menus and beers on tap.
Here is the results page at the Bahia Beer Festival website. (Use the handy Google translate button to read the Portuguese page in English.)
They also discovered the Brazilian steakhouse style called churrascaria, which serves all kinds of roasted meats on skewers. There is a large Japanese population there too and they found one churrascaria restaurant that also had a sushi bar. Herlinda reports that a top class resort with unlimited drinks cost only $70 per day.
Cashaça is a distilled spirit similar to rum, used to make a cocktail called a Caipirinha. Herlinda brought some back and will make one for Steve soon, but not today. We also hear from Tara Nurin about her plans to offer consulting services focussed on wellness in the beverage industry.
After the competition, Herlinda and Tara received this message from the organizers:
“Fellow Judges, I would like to thank the panel of judges, who played an essential role last week in the 1st BBA – Brazilian International Beer Awards, held in the state of Bahia in Brazil, that already born as the largest international beer competition in Latin America in its first edition. The numbers reflect the success of the event: 1,060 samples were entered, sent by 188 breweries from 34 countries. In total, 101 breweries were awarded, 86 Brazilian and 15 international. The 274 medals awarded highlight the excellence of the participating beers: • 99 gold medals • 88 silver medals • 87 bronze medals Of the total, Brazilian breweries won 229 medals, while international breweries took home 45.See you in March 2025 at CBC BRASIL – Concurso Brasileiro de Cervejas em BALNEÁRIO CAMBORIÚ-SC”
Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras today features a call from Herlinda in Bahia, Brazil, where she is a judge at Bahia Beer, part of the Brazilian International Beer Awards. Mark Carpenter is also joining Steve Jaxon in the studio today. He was head brewer at the now-closed Anchor Brewing for more than four decades. He was also this show’s co-host for many years.
Herlinda is in Bahia, which is in the north of Brazil. It is a city and region with a mixed history. Since it is the port closest to Africa it was a center of the early slave trade into Brazil. It remains one of the most ethnically diverse regions in the country.
There are over 1000 beers up for tasting and judging and about 25 judges. The resort on the beach is delightful and cost only $70 per night. They are judging beers from 8am to 6pm for two consecutive days.
Visit Russian River Brewing Co. on 4th St. and at their Windsor location. Click the logo to visit their website for hours, menus and beers on tap.
Mark in RomaniaMark will have to come back to hear more about Brazil when Herlinda returns. He describes his time in Romania, where everything is less expensive on the exchange. For example, his friend spends $7 per month for TV and cell service. Mark recommends Romania to everyone. The food is great and the people are very friendly. Up in the north the picturesque homes and villages seem stuck in past time.
Michael Young, Kat Prescott and Mike Griffo, Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras enjoying the Thursday Drive Brew Ha Ha.
Mike Griffo and Kat Prescott are in from Griffo Distillery in Petaluma on this edition of Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras.
Jenny Griffo was on the schedule but is not available. Jenny has been on the show before, on this episode of April 18, 2023. Kat is the Griffo Distillery events coordinator. Every weekend they do put on music performances which are kid friendly and dog friendly. They had a sound engineer come in to help them design the room and the acoustics are great. The bands and audiences always appreciate it.
Griffo Distillery Gin won “White Spirit of the Year” at the ASCoT Awards. They serve cocktails that use their spirits and a year-round rotation of seasonal ingredients. You can also purchase a cocktail kit to bring home. Plus, there are cocktails in cans. Their version of a Tom Collins uses a little blood orange juice and cardamom clove syrup from Phaedra Achor’s Flora Luna Apothecary.
Visit Russian River Brewing Co. on 4th St. and at their Windsor location. Click the logo to visit their website for hours, menus and beers on tap.
“We are driven to lift and defy expectations of flavor through ingenuity and precision and to enliven moments of togetherness.” – The Griffo Distillery website
Espresso CorrettoMike has a doctorate in physics and he explains that doing experiments in quantum mechanics is less interesting than operating a high-tech custom-designed distillery. Griffo Distillery also makes cocktails with cold brew coffee, such as the espresso martini in a bottle that Steve is going to taste. Their Espresso Corretto is aged in grappa barrels and uses cold brew because it is less acidic.
“Corretto” literally means “corrected” in Italian, and “caffé corretto” is a shot of anything into some coffee, usually grappa, whiskey or an Amaro like Ramazzotti, Amaro Lucano or Averna. The common Italian term is “caffé corretto” because in Italian we don’t say “espresso” most of the time, we just say “caffé” and assume that all of it is espresso of one kind or another (stovetop or pressure machine). I’ll have a shot of Amaro in mine, grazie. -cd
“I told them we shake cocktails in studio.” – Herlinda Heras
Espresso Martinis may be the most popular cocktail in America right now, says Herlinda. The Old Fashioneds, Espresso Martinis and the Gin Gimlets are their three most popular cocktails. They are located close to Lagunitas, five doors down. Kat has worked with the Mystic Theater. She has a lot of experience with live music show production which she applies to organizing concerts and community events. They have local partners like COTS which assists the homeless in Sonoma County who use the concerts to get attention to their work assisting people in need.
Cody Hildreth from The Block, Petaluma and Lorraine Barber both join Herlinds Heras and Steve Jaxon on Brew Ha Ha today. also organizes cool events in Petaluma. Lorraine was on this show recently talking about Barber Lee Spirits and Barber Cellars. She is also organizing a Petaluma Craft Cocktail Week and The Block is one of the featured bars.
Cody has brought two cocktails that The Block will be featuring during Petaluma Craft Cocktail Week. The first is a barrel-aged blood orange Negroni. A Negroni is usually made with gin, Campari and red vermouth, but The Block’s version is unique.
The Block has been open for about seven years. They have live music, pizza, tacos and food trucks outside. Mombo’s Pizza is making pizzas there, too. It is an indoor/outdoor space, with dog-friendly space on the outdoor side. There are picnic tables and booths, so it’s good for everything from a family night out to a date. The Block is located right next to the ten-story grain mill that dominates the horizon in downtown Petaluma.
Lorraine is present in Petaluma as a partner in Barber Lee Spirits and Barber Cellars and she also organizes community fairs that focus on local producers and provide a marketplace to connect local producers with customers.
@Petaluma_Cocktail_SocietyThis first week, Petaluma Craft Cocktail Week is focussing on a Whiskey Sour. All the participating locations will make one. You can get a card at any destination and you can take your card to the other bars to try the whiskey sour there and get the card stamped. Find it with the hashtag ” @Petaluma_Cocktail_Society ” Lorraine explains how Whiskey Sour is a recipe that lends itself to “riffing on it.” They also use Bitter Girl Bitters exclusively.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
The Block also has Trivia Night and Bingo Night. “It gets rowdy on Wednesday nights.” They have a roster of bands that come through playing lots of music, from rock to country to what not, anything from two-person band to a big band with horns.
Holiday Food Fair, Tues. Nov. 26Also, don’t miss the 8th annual Holiday Food Fair on Tuesday, November 26, at the Petaluma Hotel. This got started in 2017 when businesses needed extra support, as a way to connect local producers to customers. They will have a Santa and snow, and admission is only $5. Then, on Dec. 3rd, is the annual Petaluma Holiday Makers Fair. This is another opportunity to connect local craft makers to customers.
Natalie Cilurzo
Natalie Cilurzo is back on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras. Russian River Brewing Co. is celebrating 20 years in Santa Rosa and 6 years at the Windsor location. The special beer called Pliny for President 2024 is back. Pliny has been running for president every time around since they opened the brewpub. They have quarterly releases of Pliny for President, so this is the last batch until 2028.
The beer is very hop forward, featuring Simcoe, Amarillo, Citra, Zumo and Nectaron hops. Pliny is the candidate of the Keg Party.
Vinny is known as the Hopfather, and also for his Belgian-inspired sour, barrel aged beers. He grew up in a winery in Temecula where his parents planted the first wine grapes in 1968. He grew up in the vineyard and in the cellar and on the bottling line.
IntinctionThis beer called Intinction, which is dipping bread into wine. It is almost like a Lambrusco, red and bubbly. The grapes are Petite Syrah, which is a dark grape and gives a dark color. The ABV is high because it went through 2 fermentations, it is 10.26%. It won a bronze medal at the Great American Beer Festival.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
They are installing some new equipment for CO2 recovery from their closed top cylindrical fermentation tanks which will reduce their need to purchase CO2. They also have a wastewater treatment plant. The purple pipes carry this water which is treated water and is used for landscaping. They built their Windsor facility with dual plumbing, so they are ready to make the switch to the purple pipes when the regulations catch up to the new law.
Shadow of a Doubt beer is named after the Alfred Hitchcock film which was shot in 1943 in Santa Rosa. The beer is a dark imperial porter. A local graphic designer designed the label. Tonight at dusk they are showing the movie in the beer garden in Windsor.
Mike Barber, Lorraine Barber and Aaron Lee.
Lorraine Barber, co-founder of Barber Lee Spirits, is our guest on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras. This is her first time on the show, but Lorraine’s husband Mike Barber was on Brew Ha Ha on this episode recorded on Nov. 4, 2019. Lorraine and Mike Barber also operate Barber Cellars which produces estate grown, hand-crafted Sonoma County wines.
Lorraine describes their operation as “grain to glass” which means, “from the raw ingredient to the finished product, everything is fermented, distilled, aged, and bottled under their own roof.” They opened in the beginning of 2019, just in time for the pandemic. The name Barber Lee Spirits comes from the three partners, Lorraine Barber, her husband Mike Barber and their partner Aaron Lee. Read their whole story on this page of their site.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
Barber Lee Spirits’ address is 120 Washington St., Petaluma, CA 94952, which is located next to the Petaluma hotel in downtown Petaluma, on a lively street near many other restaurants and bars including Volpi’s Ristorante and Bar. They are open Wednesday through Sunday. See their ‘visit the distillery‘ page for hours and phone. Wednesdays are Happy Hour All Day with half-priced cocktails. They serve tasting flights of their spirits and also have an extensive cocktail menu.
Deviled Egg CompetitionThis year they held their 3rd annual deviled egg competition which is a lot of fun and is a benefit for Petaluma People’s Services. They also organize the Holiday Food Fair the Thursday before Thanksgiving, at the Petaluma Hotel. The annual Holiday Food Fair got started in 2017 when many local businesses were depressed. They set up an indoor farmers market featuring only local producers, to connect them with customers.
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Among the spirits they make in Lambanog, a Philippine specialty made from coconut juice. Their partner Aaron Lee tried it on a visit there and he was able to source dehydrated palm nectar for their production. It is 100 proof so at that strength it makes an excellent mixer. It’s not sweet but has a toasted coconut flavor. It is a white spirit so they don’t age it.
Lorraine describes their pursuit of spirits that are interesting and unusual, like absinthe and rum made with piloncillo sugar from Mexico. There is also a locally sourced Gravenstein Apple Brandy. She’s Canadian so she also thought of doing the most Canadian thing she could, which is a maple finished rye. The maple syrup aged in the whiskey barrels is delicious.
Barber Cellars has been making wine for about 18 years. The wine tasting room and distillery tasting room are next to each other in Petaluma. They are busy right now “doing punchdowns” after harvest.
They also have a cheese shop and she has brought some cheeses, like a Brabander from the Netherlands and a Mimolette from France and many others. They offer a rotating selection of exotic cheeses.
Photos from https://www.barberleespirits.com/our-story/ .
Click the logo to visit Pouring for Neighbors at the NC Craft Brewers Guild site.
Lisa Parker, executive director of the North Carolina Craft Brewers’ Guild, talks about Hurricane Helene relief in North Carolina on Brew Ha Ha with Herlinda Heras and Steve Jaxon. She is calling from Ashville, North Carolina, which Hurricane Helene hit hard. She will talk about Pouring for Neighbors, their fund raising initiative.
The map at the top of this episode page, from NOAA, reports rainfall from Helene, as of Sept. 27. You can see that Ashville is in the area that got the most rain. In fact, Lisa describes the conditions in the majority of western North Carolina as a war zone.
The area is a hotbed of craft brewing. They have 120 breweries in the counties designated for FEMA relief. The devastation is heartbreaking but the collaboration among the breweries and the neighbors is vigorous and inspiring.
Most of the area was not a flood zone so a lot of residents did not carry flood insurance. There are linemen out in the field restoring power. Many bridges and roadbeds have been washed out and there are many landslides.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
Pouring for NeighborsMost of us remember the fires that hit Sonoma County in 2017 and 2019. At that time of need, many brewers around the world united to produce special beers whose proceeds went to local relief, supporting services for the people affected. This kind of campaign has become an occasional event after other disasters and Hurricane Helene is an example of that.
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Being in western North Carolina, Ashville was in the middle of Helene’s path of destruction at the end of its run up the south-eastern United States. Pouring for Neighbors began “right off the bat” to raise money. It is a tap designation program. Any brewery or taproom or restaurant can designate a tap and donate at least a dollar from each sale to Pouring for Neighbors. There are three options at the website. The web page has all the information you need to participate, and there is also a long list participating breweries.
There is a coalition of breweries assisting in delivering supplies. The National Guard and FEMA are all on the ground helping out. Any reports to the contrary are false. 🙂
Golden State Cider UnfilteredBreanne Heuss, Marketing Director for Sonoma Craft, is our guest on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras. Sonoma Craft is the umbrella organization that holds Golden State Cider, Sun & Shine Cocktails and Seismic Brewing. Visit Sun & Shine on Instagram, here.This is Breanne’s first time on Brew Ha Ha but co-owner Christopher Jackson was on this episode of the show on May 19, 2022, to talk about Golden State Cider. He was also on this episode in July 2019 to talk about starting Seismic Brewing.Breanne is responsible for marketing the three brands that share their company values of making high quality products using sustainable practices.Seismic Brewing has refocused as a craft lager brand, with distribution at the tap room and in selected locations in the Bay Area, but on draft only. They still make their different lagers, including Tremor and the Red lager. Breanne has been with Sonoma Craft for three years, and she worked for Golden State Cider before that. Herlinda mentions that spirits have overtaken beer in terms of annual sales in the US.UnfilteredAfter they taste their Unfiltered cider, they will taste a cocktail too. Golden State Cider has different tiers of cider. The base tier, called the core tier, includes the Mighty Dry, Brut and Jamaica. They have added one that is unfiltered, which is very dry and has big rich apple flavor. They also have a non-alcoholic cider, called “Dry and Mighty.”Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.The Sun & Shine Cocktail is the Valencia Mimosa. It is made with fresh Valencia orange juice, and a bit of apple eau-de-vie. Each can holds two mimosas. The ABV is 10%.See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.All the Sonoma Craft companies are dedicated to sustainable practices and to supporting local and statewide charities. They are also involved in hurricane relief in western North Carolina, with the local Craft Brewer’s Guild. And they support local farmers by using fruit and other ingredients as much as possible from growers that are local, California-based or on the west coast. Golden State Cider has the Core series, the Harvest series and the Radical series. You can find all of them here on the Ciders page of their website. They are open Monday through Sunday from noon to nine.
The Rio Nido Roadhouse Oktoberfest crew.
Raena Jones-Metzger from Rio Nido Roadhouse joins Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha today. Brew Ha Ha is a double show and podcast today. Claire Elaine from Wooden Petal Bake Shop is also with us today. Since we have two guests on one radio show, we make two podcasts from the one live show, so that each guest can have their own podcast audio and a sharable (and indexable) web page. So over here is Claire Elaine and Wooden Petal Bake Shop’s podcast episode page. Gioia Merrill, the sous-chef and Tricia Bagley, one of their bartenders, also join Raena in the conversation, after the break (at about the 9:30 mark).
Raena was on the radio with Herlinda five years ago, just before her daughter was born. Reyna has brought some Oktoberfest beers to taste. They will offer flights and pints of these beers.
The Rio Nido Roadhouse fifteenth annual Oktoberfest will be Sunday, September 29, from 1pm to 4pm. There is no entry fee. They will be serving a Warsteiner German pilsner, Headlands Brewery Festbeer and another from Cooperage. There is also a German dark beer only on draft.
See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.
They have a bratwurst, knackwurst and a weisswurst combination, chef-made spaezle, caramel apples, braised cabbage and a whole German menu. They also have games, live music and kids activities. Costumes are encouraged. Keith Church and David Albini, accordionists, will play the music to make it sound like Bavaria. The weather forecast is good, too!
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
For more information, visit their website Rio Nido Roadhouse dot com.
Photos from the Rio Nido Roadhouse website.
Nile Zacherle of Mad Fritz Beer and Melissa Luci of Alexander Valley Hop Farm join Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha. It’s hop season!
Mad Fritz Beer is known as a cult brewery, since it is small and has a dedicated following. Mad Fritz is based in Napa. Nile has brought some beer made with fresh wet hops.
The hops come from Alexander Valley Hop Farm. Melissa Luci has been on BHH before, on this episode almost exactly a year ago, on Sept. 15, 2023.
See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.
Alexander Valley Hop Farm is located on a lot that has an unusual shape, it is very long and narrow, but the hops don’t mind that. The AV website is small but their Instagram page is great. The plants are trained to crawl up 18 feet of a string made of coconut fiber, that are 15 feet apart. Their goal is to have it reach the top by summer Solstice, so that the branches that produce the cones will mature at the right time.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
Brewers can only make wet hopped beers at this time of year at hop harvest time. They have to get the hops from the farm to the brewery as fast as possible. Starting at sunrise, they deliver to the brewer the same day. Nothing is left from this year’s harvest!
Nile and his wife are partners in the brewery. Their two children Madeleine and Fritz gave Mad Fritz the name. The Ost House IPA is always available at their tap room and brewery. It uses Triumph hops, 100%, grown at AV Hops. They age the beer in neutral French oak, to allow the beer to settle to a clear beer, slowly.
Leah Scurto and Herlinda Heras.
Leah Scurto from Pizzaleah joins Herlinda Heras and Harry Duke who is sitting in for Steve Jaxon on Brew Ha Ha today. Herlinda Heras is back from another trip to Liverpool, this time to see Pete Best and his band.
Leah Scurto is Herlinda’s neighbor and friend. This is her first time on Brew Ha Ha but she was a guest on our other podcast, California Wine Country, on this CWC episode of April 27, 2022. In that show we hear about how Leah was getting ready to serve pizzas at the 2022 Healdsburg Wine and Food Experience.
Herlinda brought Leah into beer judging. Leah will be cooking at the Great American Beer Festival in Denver, CO, in October later this year. “They get the best of the best of the chefs, paired up with breweries.” It’s Leah’s fourth year doing it.
Leah’s partner this year is a brewery from Iowa called Big Grove, which is the official craft brewer of the Iowa Hawkeyes, check out their website^. Big Grove making a double IPA and an Oktoberfest for the Great American Beer Fest. Leah is cooking for Thursday and Friday nights. To pair with the double IPA she will make pickles with that brew, then make a pickle dip. She will make a mushroom pizza to go with the Oktoberfest.
Pizzaleah in Windsor, near Oliver’sPizzaleah is located in Windsor near Oliver’s, at 9240 Old Redwood Hwy, #116. Their beer list includes a tap where she rotates local brewers in and out. Right now there is a beer from Ghost Town in Oakland.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
Leah has brought some pizzas including the Old Graybeard which is the people’s favorite. It’s a sweet, spicy and salty with a little orange zest. They make their own sausage for the pizzas. Everything is in-house including the peperoni which is a recipe that Leah worked on for years. They pair that pizza with the Old Caz Free Craig’s.
Leah participates in international pizza competitions This summer she was at the Caputo Cup in Naples. Caputo is a brand of flour from Naples and they put on the pizza festival and the competition. Leah placed third!
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When Leah needed a job in Santa Cruz in college, she got hired at a pizza shop where she eventually stayed for more then 2 decades. She opened 20 restaurants for them so she sure knows the business. She opened her restaurant about four years ago and survived the pandemic as the first order of business. It happened to be just as the pandemic was closing everyone down. She weathered the storm by being available for delivery at a time when that was the only way to get food to the people.
The beer selection at Pizzaleah is important to Leah. She wants to support local brewers by featuring their products and also whenever possible she tries to support small local suppliers and organic production.
The Lola pizza, with pesto, potato and caramelized onion, is paired with the Crispy Crusher from Cooperage.
The Moonlight Sonata is indeed in three movements.
Brian Hunt and Erin Latham-Ponneck are on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras, for the Moonlight Brewing 32nd Anniversary. Brian has been on Brew Ha Ha many times, the most recent was this episode in October of 2023.
On Saturday, August 24, from noon to 10 pm, Moonlight Brewing Co. will celebrate its 32nd anniversary, with music from The Sam Chase and the Untraditional, and others. There will be food trucks, attractions and activities for everyone including children, in addition to lots of delicious beer. In addition to all that, they will have a kids zone with a jumpy house and a magician.
32 Years of Moonlight BrewingMoonlight Brewing is now the oldest brewery in the county. Brian tells about getting “the beer guy”, Dr. Michael Lewis as an advisor when he changed majors to fermentation science at UC Davis. Then he went to work for Schlitz in Milwaukee. At that time, they were not invested in making great beer there. So Brian got away from that scene, with the lesson that people won’t be attracted to crappy beer. He came back from Milwaukee in 1981 and worked for a series of breweries before starting his own brewery 32 years ago in 1992. Brian is Erin’s stepdad. At first, he “poached” her away from her job to hire her for the bookkeeping. That led to more, as we will hear.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
In the meantime, they taste the beer called Sulla Luna, a Czech-inspired amber lager that Brian originally made with Birrificio Italiano. He met them in Milano at a beer convention and when they visited here, they brewed this collaboration.
Several months into the job she learned that there were actual offices above the brewery. So she moved into a proper room with a desk. Erin’s official title is Chaos Management Specialist and Adult In Charge.
See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.
Brian has some interesting opinions about hops, especially that beer can be flavored with plants other than hops. Listen to him tell the history of hop use in beer in Europe.
Today Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras is an Old Caz update directly from co-owner Brian Rengel. He has been on this show many times, the last time was this episode on May 23, 2024, along with cidermaker Jeffery House.
Old Caz is now open in its new location. It has “…the same vibe and the same feel as the old spot,” says Brian Rengel co-owner of Old Caz. They have used the same flooring and bar tops from the old place, which was built completely with free stuff. But it’s bigger and it has parking and real bathrooms.
They will be making beer in their new facility and you will be able to drink fresh beer straight from the tank on the anniversary party. They have a brand new lunch service with wraps, sandwiches, salads and sides and they get homemade pretzels from a nearby shop. Of course there are deserts. The menu includes all the Old Caz beers, as well as hard kombucha, wine and sparkling mead. Every evening there are food trucks for dinner.
Tuesday Night TriviaThe Tuesday trivia night is packed. People start coming at 3 and you might not be able to get a table after 4. Their taproom manager Rob is in charge and they had 45 teams competing.
See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.
Old Caz is open Monday through Thursday 11-9pm, Friday and Saturday 11-10pm and Sunday 11-8pm.
This year’s Old Caz anniversary party will take place Saturday and Sunday August 24-25 at the new location in SoMo Village.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
The Chismosa is a Mexican Amber Lager which is similar to a Modelo. It happened to win Gold at the World Beer Cup!
“I’ve been saying this to everyone, all of our friends and our customers and our regulars. I’m excited for everyone to see where we are right now, because we’ve come this far in a very short period of time. If you give me another five years, we’re going to be putting beer on the moon. So, pay attention!”
Another Old Caz beer is the Bukovany Pivo, a Czech style. Co-founder Tom’s family had a small brewery and pub in the Czech town of Bukovany, and Pivo means Beer in Czech. Breakfast Skaggs beer is an oatmeal-based stout, with additional flavor of maple syrup and vanilla bean. Brian mentions a couple of ideas, such as a Mexican Imperial, which would be an original, and a quad IPA. Trust Tom to make it great.
Catastrophe is a Rye Beer in an orange caution-cone colored can. Not everyone likes rye IPA but this one has die-hard fans.
Instead of having to manage a kitchen with a large menu, they have a rotation of food trucks. To make it easy for them, Old Caz is installing a reinforced concrete pad where the trucks can park, with power hookups.
Golden Rule Cider from Ethic Cider.
Ethic Ciders founder New Lawton is back on this crunchy episode of Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras, to promote this year’s Gravenstein Apple Fair. Ned Lawton appeared on Brew Ha Ha on this August 25, 2018 episode, promoting Cider Week that year.
Herlinda is going to Italy next week to visit some friends who have bought a house near Lake Como, which they will be converting into a bed and breakfast.
The Gravenstein apple is to cider makers what Pinot Noir is to local winemakers. It is the go-to fruit for their art. It is tart and sweet and ripens early. Ethic Ciders got started with their acquisition of an old apple orchard which was in need of renovation. Once that was done they were able to produce a crop and make the cider from that.
Gravitude: Grateful for GravensteinsThey are tasting a cider called Gravitude. Its name means “grateful for Gravensteins. It is sparkling and very food friendly. The tartness is what makes it combine with foods in the same way that a wine with strong acidity does.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
They will be pouring ciders at the Gravenstein Apple Fair on Aug. 10. There they will also be launching a new product, Gravitude in cans. Some of their ciders are traditional and others are their creative recipes that combine flavors. You will also be able to meet the cider makers. There are also styles that come from different countries. It is popular in France, from Brittany. There will be cider producers and also cheese and gelato “It is a really classic country fair,” says Herlinda.
See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.
There is also a press where you can press apples. Some producers will have special ciders to pour. The arts and crafts are true local artisans and you can find stuff you won’t see anywhere else.
There is no new Brew Ha Ha show today, due to travel schedules, so for this week’s podcast edition here is an encore show of a visit with Ron Lindenbush from last March. Brew Ha Ha will be back with a new episode next week, Thursday Aug. 1. Cheers!
Ron Lindenbusch, Hopland Tap founder and owner, is back again on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras. He has been on Brew Ha Ha several times, including this episode on July 5, 2018, again on May 28, 2020 along with Natalie Cilurzo, and again on May 6, 2021. These episodes chronicle Ron’s career with Lagunitas up to and including the Heineken purchase.
Today’s live radio show is a triple-header. We have two other guests in the studio along with Ron today. The episode with Cynthia from Homerun Pizza is here. Ryan Frank, brewmaster at Headlands Brewing, also has his own podcast episode on this page.
Since he left Lagunitas at the end of a very successful run, Ron Lindenbusch found the perfect location in Hopland to set up the tavern that he always dreamed of. Steve remembers when it was the Hopland Brewery, they had bands including some pretty famous ones. Hopland Tap also does live music. This Saturday the band is Left-Hand Monkey Wrench.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
On Tap at Museum of Sonoma CountyHerlinda Heras is helping the Museum of Sonoma County develop its upcoming exhibition ON TAP about the history of brewing in Sonoma County. Ron Lindenbush was with her at the museum today to record some video that will be used in the exhibition. He personally holds a lot of the stories of the history that is the subject of the exhibit.
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They are tasting a non-alcoholic beer that Ron makes. It actually tastes like beer. One is called Electro Lime. Ron explains that it is made just like beer, then the alcohol is removed. What remains is a beverage that actually tastes like beer. The non-alcoholic beer scene is completely different than it was ten years ago.
Renée and Don.
The New Albion story continues here in part two of Renée DeLuca and Don Barkley’s visit to Brew Ha ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras. Part one of today’s show, with Renée DeLuca as the featured guest, is on this other podcast episode. Herlinda Heras’ father is also in the studio with us today.
Don Barkley was on Brew Ha Ha three weeks ago on this episode of June 27. Today he is back to meet Renée and to bring some of Jack McAuliffe’s New Albion Ale that he has brewed for the Beer Garden event this Saturday.
Don was studying fermentation science at UC Davis when he asked his professor, Dr. Michael Lewis, how he could get a job in the brewing industry. Professor Lewis told him he would have to cut his hair. Don didn’t like that idea so the professor suggested he contact Jack McAuliffe, who wouldn’t care about long hair. Jack was known for coming to the library and going over all the books about brewing, although he was not enrolled. Don tells the story of going to Sonoma to meet Jack, who initially refused Don. But when Don came back he talked to Susie Dennison and made a deal to work for a case of beer a week. Don still has the recipes.
Russian River Brewing Co. will have three race cars on display at their Windsor pub, on Wednesday, July 24. Two top fuel dragsters and one funny car and drivers, will be there to greet visitors. It’s a promotion for the NHRA Sonoma Nationals that are taking place at Sonoma Raceway on July 26-28.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
New Albion Pale AleKevin Lovett is the brewer at Wolfhouse Brewing Co. He is also the son of Michael Lovett, Don’s dearest friend. Michael and Don both started at the New Albion brewery together. Now they are brewing the old recipe at Kevin’s brewery. Kevin Lovett was a guest on Brew Ha Ha on June 9, 2022, here is the episode page. In that interview we hear about how Kevin literally grew up at Mendocino Brewing Company.
Jack McAuliffe has a name for today’s beers flavored with ingredients like cinnamon or cardamom. He calls them hula hoop beers, which is hilarious.
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Albion is the name of Britain in ancient Greek and t is also a poetic name for Britain. Sir Francis Drake sailed on his ship The Golden Hind and was the first European to sail into San Francisco Bay. The Golden Hind is the ship on the New Albion Pale Ale label.
The best place to get a taste of the New Albion Pale Ale is at the Museum of Sonoma County Summer Beer Garden. It’s open from 4-8pm, $15 general admission, ample shady parking available across the street.
Renée DeLuca and Don Barkley
Renée DeLuca, Jack McAuliffe’s daughter, is our special guest today on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras. This is Renée’s first time on Brew Ha Ha. Her father is one of the most famous figures in craft brewing history. She is visiting Santa Rosa to attend the celebration at the Museum of Sonoma County this coming Saturday, July 20 from 4pm-8pm. It will be in the sculpture garden which is becoming a beer garden for the event. Don Barkley is also in the studio today. He was our in-studio guest on this episode just three weeks ago. This is part one of the podcast of their live radio show, featuring Renée DeLuca with Herlinda Heras and Steve Jaxon. In part two of the podcast, Don Barkley joins them in the studio. That episode will appear shortly. 🍻
Brewer’s Daughter Beer CompanyRenée DeLuca now runs the Brewer’s Daughter Beer Company which is producing the New Albion brand. She was able to revive the brand in 2011. By then, Jack had retired from beer and wasn’t interested or aware of the craft brew scene. She took him to visit the Great American Beer Festival in Denver and everyone wanted to meet him. Listen to how Renée tells about how she bonded with her father over the beer. Jack had never been to a beer fest. At one point, there was an awards ceremony for a home brewer who won the Sam Adams contest. At that time, Jim Cook, the founder of Sam Adams, revealed that he had retained the business rights to New Albion so that nobody else could do something unworthy with it.
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Today, the recognition has been coming from all corners. In 2019 they were in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. Part of the exhibit FOOD: Transforming the American Table is dedicated to beer and New Albion is a big part of that story.
New Albion Beer RebornWhen Jim Cook invited them to come to Boston to make the beer again, she invited Don Barkley, who had the recipes. Renée tells the story of how Jim Cook returned the IP rights and the LLC to Jack. The New Albion beer will be served at the Museum of Sonoma County Beer Garden event from 4-8pm on Saturday, July 20. Brewers who will be pouring include Russian River Brewing, Moonlight Brewing, Lagunitas and Pond Farm.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
Jack was in the Navy in the 1960s, where he worked as welder stationed in Scotland. There he learned to like the Porters, Ales and Stouts he found in Scotland. Discharged from the Navy in California, he decided he had to make those beers himself.
Beer Historian John Burton and Eric Stanley, curator of the Museum of Sonoma County join Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha. John Burton also operates the Santa Rosa Bartending School.
The exhibit ON TAP has been open at the Museum of Sonoma County since April. Check it out before it closes on September 1.
This Saturday, July 20 there is a reception from 4:00 to 8:00 PM, where they will serve a very special beer. They will convert their sculpture garden into a beer garden. They will serve an original recipe from Jack McAuliffe, one of the co-founders of New Albion Brewery. Herlinda has brought some of the beer to taste today. It is a pale ale with Cascade hops. It’s not very hoppy by today’s standards but it was considered hoppy in 1977. Albion is the name of Britain in the Greek language. The Cascade Hop was the first type created in a university laboratory, in the early seventies.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
John lent the museum a lot of pieces from his collection, for the On Tap exhibit. Some bottles are as old as the 1800s. He also has a lot of pieces from the Grace Bros. brand, which was the great local brand from 1897-1966. John Burton knew Virginia and Cathy Grace.
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The exhibition traces the brewing business from the arrival of German immigrants in the 1840s. This inspired the idea to transform the Museum of Sonoma County sculpture garden into a German-style beer garden for the event on July 20.
Tony Magee tells his story.
There is no new Brew Ha Ha show today, Thursday July 4, since our home station 95.5 Wine Country Radio is taking the Independence Day holiday. So here is a chance to listen again to our interview with Tony Magee, the now-retired founder of Lagunitas. He may be elusive and seem to have gained mythical status, but Herlinda Heras has just finished interviewing him for the Sonoma County Museum’s ON TAP exhibit, along with Don Barkley and Mark Carpenter, and today he tells his story for us. This interview was recorded live on the radio on April 18, 2024.
Tony Magee, the now-retired founder of Lagunitas, is back on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras. The last time Tony Magee was on Brew Ha Ha was this episode in 2014. Today he and his wife have a ranch where they host retired horses and also some cattle.
Herlinda Heras has been working with the Museum of Sonoma County to organize On Tap, the exhibit about craft beer history that is opening this weekend. Tony sat for a video interview for the exhibition and he is pleased to be part of it. He started Lagunitas in 1993 and grew it into one of the largest breweries in the country. In 2017 Heineken acquired the company. Tony tells the interesting back story to the acquisition. Lagunitas was beginning to sell beer outside the US, which is not easy to do. He also had grown Lagunitas to a point where the US market was starting to feel saturated with new beer brands as the popularity of craft beer grew. He started to think about a longer term plan for the company, rather than endure infinite domestic competition. Heineken was (and is) the last family-owned global brewer.
Click to visit the Museum of Sonoma County website.
Finding the Right PartnerAll the other big companies are multinationals. Tony says Lagunitas never really discussed the acquisition with other companies because none of them had Heineken’s character. Hearing him tell the story, he sounds really pleased with how it all happened. He says he thought of the brewery as an art project, with an artist will eventually sell and once that happens, that’s it. He gives credit to Heineken for updating the structure of the business operation but for not changing the beer or the recipes and the brew master is still there.
This is the best time in the last thousand years to be a beer lover. -Tony Magee
Herlinda asks what the inspiration was for the brewery. For Tony, he was doing a completely different job. He was in commercial printing sales and he was a home brewer. His brother got him a home brew kit for Christmas of 1992, in January of ’93 he brewed it, and by December of 1993 the brewery was open. He recognized things in brewing that reminded him of music. As musician that helped him understand brewing.
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A lot of Lagunitas beer is IPA style and hop focused. His friend Grant Johnston who was a brewer at Marin Brewing would also homebrew. He was experimenting by adding his hops late in the boil, which boosted the flavors and didn’t let bitterness develop by boiling too long. This was how they created a hop-forward style that became the central thesis of the brewery.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
22:50, they mention Cappuccino Stout, which Tony says may be one of the earliest coffee beers in the US. (In a Kurt Vonnegut story written long before the craft beer era, there is a mention of an award-winning beer in a fictional Indiana state fair, and coffee was the secret ingredient.)
They also mention the 420 Waldos and the Lagunitas beer that celebrates the story. The Waldos were guests on Brew Ha Ha on this episode back in 2019. They remember the Beer Circus, which sounds like you had to have seen it. Listen to the end to hear the story about the time Lagunitas got shut down for 20 days and how that became the stuff of legend.
Legendary brewer Don Barkley is again our guest on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras today. His last appearance on BHH was this episode of March 28, 2019.
Don founded the Mendocino Brewing Company in 1983 as the Hopland Brewery. It was the very first brew pub in the United States. They had a big hit with Red Tail Ale and their brew pub was the model for all subsequent ones.
They are brewing a revival of one of Jack McAuliffe’s original New Albion Brewing Company recipe. New Albion was the first craft brewery. Jack made all of their equipment himself. Michael Lovett and Don Barkley worked for New Albion and left to start Mendocino Brewing after New Albion closed. Don kept all of Jack’s notes and instructions, that is how they have the exact recipe for New Albion Pale Ale to make today.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
At a time when everyone else was producing lager beer, Red Tail Ale was a unique new flavor. They tried to expand the business with some outside investors, but in Don’s opinion they were never able to figure out how to make a craft brewery work. Wolfhouse Brewing in Cloverdale is making the beer although they can’t call it that.
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It is hard to make it just right. Herlinda remembers a brewer that tried to make it and it wasn’t quite right. They also made Blue Heron which was an IPA.
The Admirals, on the sea of malt.
Dave McLean from Admiral Maltings in Alameda is our guest on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras. Admiral Dave has been on Brew Ha Ha before, including this interview recorded on June 28, 2018. Dave is also the Beer Lands coordinator for the Outside Lands music festival. On Saturday June 29 they are putting on It’s The Malt, which they hope will become an annual event.
Admiral Maltings’ three partners all have backgrounds perfect for their roles in the company, in beer and agriculture. They wanted to have locally grown organic malt to use as brewers and now the company supplies many other brewers too.
Dave explains the role of malt starting with the fact that beer is made mostly from barley but as it grows in the field it is not ready to use in brewing. The malting process involves steeping the grain in water, germinating it and then stopping that process. Then the brewer takes it and does all the other steps in the brewing process. Admiral Maltings is the first floor malting facility in California since Prohibition.
They do different types of malt, to follow specifications that their customers, the brewers.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
Admiral Maltings also operates The Rake pub, on the same site as the malting facility in Alameda. They only serve beers and distilled spirits that use their malts. The Rake has windows that overlook the malting floor, which is a unique feature.
“Watching malt germinate has never been this much fun!” – Admiral Maltings
Herlinda is just back from judging at the Aro Rojo 2024 competition in Monterrey, Mexico and she has brought some beers back from there, for tasting.
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The festival on June 29 will feature some beers brewed with the special malt made for the event. The Rake pub menu will offer their BBQ-centric menu. The Rake is a full service restaurant so kids and dogs are ok.
Freshtival 2024 is this weekend and Colin McDonnell from HenHouse Brewing is here to tell us all about it. It takes place on Saturday, June 15, 2024 at SOMO Village. There is no beer older than seven days.
Colin explains that beer is a lot more perishable than a lot of people realize. Especially when craft beer is made with carefully chosen flavors, it need to be enjoyed while fresh. So they wanted to create a festival to celebrate freshness and to show people how tasty fresh beer can be.
The festival is also a chance to taste new flavors, and to taste familiar beers but fresher than ever. Early access tickets open at 12:30 and general admission is at 1:30. There are bands performing until 5:00. There are also several food vendors there. This is their fourth edition. Humboldt Cider will also be there, with seven different ciders. Cider is different than beer so it’s not subject to the seven-day rule. Hoppy beer doesn’t have a long shelf life.
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No Beer Older Than Seven DaysThey are tasting an IPA that is only 10 days old. Even if it’s past the Freshtival limit, it’s still very fresh. There is no bar in the world where you can taste over 150 fresh beers from 63 breweries. The people who make the beer are really into it. “The Freshtival is the largest gathering of fresh beer in the known universe.” They will even be printing fresh shirts there.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
Colin says, “Give me something insane to do and I’ll be inspired.” 7-day beer a very unusual task and it inspires great beer.
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Herlinda Heras
Herlinda Heras calls into the studio from the Aro Rojo 2024 in Mexico, to speak to Steve Jaxon on Brew Ha Ha today fro Monterrey, the capital of the state of Nuevo León. She is a judge in a competition called the Aro Rojo 2024. Aro Rojo means “Red Ring” and their logo is a dragon in the shape of a ring. There are both professional and home brew competitions with a total of 715 beers in the competition. There are judges from all over the world, including Charlie Papazian, the godfather of home brew in the United States. Pete Schlossberg from Pete’s Wicked Ales is also there as a judge. About a quarter of the judges are women, this year.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
Getting Through Customs with BeerHerlinda brought a lot of beers to show at the presentation, two suitcases worth. She always brings beer wherever she travels and she has never had issues at customs. This time the passport folks waved her through but the Mexican National Guard stopped her. They were looking for beer, and she was not supposed to have more than three liters. But they didn’t open the other suitcase and they eventually let her through.
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She explained that the beer she had may have been over three liters. When she said they were commercial samples and not for sale, they let her pass. Monterrey is also the home of the largest beer factory in the world.
Visit Homerun Pizza, home of the Knuckleball! Fresh pizza dough made from scratch daily, la pizza è deliziosa!
Gary Saperstein, organizer of BEER FEST – The Good One, joins Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras today on Brew Ha Ha. Gary holds the title of Development Director for Face to Face, the organizers of Beer Fest – The Good One. It takes place Saturday, June 8, 2024 at the Luther Burbank Center. Visit Eventbrite for tickets. Face to Face has for 40 years been working to end HIV in Sonoma County, 1983-2023.
This year is the 31st annual edition of Beer Fest, which makes it the oldest beer festival in Sonoma County. The event is held outdoors and there will be tents and shade as well lots of beer, food and music.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
Face to FaceIn 1983 Face to Face started, right at the beginning of the Aids crisis. A group of angels saw a need for help and set up the organization to help terminal patients. Over the years, the agency has evolved and does much more work than before, but their mission is rooted in the history of HIV.
Visit Homerun Pizza, home of the Knuckleball! Fresh pizza dough made from scratch daily, la pizza è deliziosa!
There will be many local breweries attending and pouring beer at Beer Fest, including Lagunitas, Hen House, Lost Coast, Farmers, Moonlight, Russian River and many smaller labels you don’t see every day. Herlinda had her first taste of Lost Coast Tangerine Wheat Ale at the Beer Fest.
My favorite beer is the one in front of me. -Mark Carpenter, founding father of Brew Ha Ha
Today, Herlinda has brought two beers fresh from the Hen House, brewery which is about to hold its annual Freshtival on June 15, 2024. One is a refreshing IPA called Frozen Envelope. The other is Virtuoso, a West Coast IPA.
See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.
Herlinda’s Next CompetitionHerlinda is leaving soon for Mexico City where she will be a judge at the big Mexican beer competition. She will also give a talk there about the history of beer in California. That’s a hot topic for them to hear about there, because of the international importance of our local craft brewing industry. They saw that Herlinda had a lot to do with setting up On Tap, the exhibit at the Museum of Sonoma County about the history of hops and brewing in Sonoma County.
Oliver’s Market is the biggest sponsor of all of Beer Fest: The Good One. They will be serving Korean street tacos for the event. Trader Joe’s is a sponsor. Visit Santa Rosa is a sponsor, always interested in promoting Santa Rosa and its title Beer City. Gary describes how Face to Face has evolved, and managed to keep its services free. They also provide mental health services. They do needle exchange and supply Narcan. This has saved over 3500 lives, according to Gary.
Jessica Christensen, Mixologist and Beverage Manager, and Robb Stites, head of Communications and Community at Graton Resort and Casino join Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha today.
Jessica is a Sonoma County native. She is responsible for all of the drinks at nine different bars at the Graton Resort and Casino. She started as a bartender at Negri’s in Occidental when she was 21. After a few years she worked at Calistoga Inn and Brewery. After that, she was recruited to the Graton casino and soon got into management there.
The first drink served today, after the soothing and inspiring sound of the cocktail shaker, is an Apricot Pisco cocktail. Pisco is a distilled spirit from Peru with a flavor that is close to rum.
Robb Stites had a background in public relations before coming to the casino about two years ago. He describes the philanthropy and in-kind donations that they do as an expression of their commitment to the community.
Jessica describes the Apricot Pisco cocktail that is in Steve’s glass. It is made with Pisco, Luxardo apricot liqueur, fresh lemon, some acqua fava for the foam and some simple syrup. Acqua fava is technically garbano bean juice, which can produce a foamy texture. (Sometimes bartenders use egg whites for foam, but many people prefer this vegan alternative.)
There are several bars in the resort; G-Bar is a sports bar and Sky Bar in the lobby has won several polls from Casino Player magazine. Sky Bar is a lounge bar at the center of the venue, Lobby Bar is a little more for craft cocktails, away from the gaming floor. There are also frequent concerts and comedy shows.
The swimming pool is open not only to hotel guests now. You can buy day passes now for a cabaña, a lounger or a day bed, those are available seven days a week. Guests can bring food in from another restaurant or order from the poolside menu. The pool bar is right nearby.
Visit Homerun Pizza, home of the Knuckleball! Fresh pizza dough made from scratch daily, la pizza è deliziosa!
The next cocktail they taste is a new take on a traditional recipe, called a Jalapeño Margarita. It will soon be on the Lobby Bar menu. It has Jalapeño-infused tequila, plus Cointreau, lime juice and agave. Floating on top, there is an Aperol and lime citrus foam.
See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.
Jessica describes the pool menu, which is the same as last year and is designed to be quick, fresh and delicious. Kiwi, blueberry, watermelon, mango and spiked lemonade. They also have a cocktail competition called Full Tilt. The first year the competitors were mostly from north bay but this year they will open it to bartenders from all over the Bay Area. One portion of the competition will be Iron Chef style, where the competitors get a set of ingredients they have to work with. This year it will focus on agave-based drinks. The Campari group is the sponsor.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
Herlinda Heras, Bryan Rengel and Jeffery House.
Jeffery House, founder of Ace Cider is here, so is Bryan Rengel from Old Caz Beer, on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras. Bryan’s last time on Brew Ha Ha was this episode back in January 2024. Jeffery’s last BHH appearance was this episode in August of 2022.
Jeffery House, founder of Ace Cider, has a new book. The Cider King is a story of how he came from England and ended up on the west coast. He got handcuffed for not having a green card but the judge gave him voluntary departure instead of deportation. A friend of his was importing cognacs and Armagnacs and various spirits, so he started working with him. He noticed an opportunity to import British and Belgian beer. Then, on his friend’s suggestion became the first to import Sonoma wine to the UK, beginning in 1981.
Bryan Rengel tells the story of how he built Old Caz with his partners, using materials that were entirely DIY, found and acquired for free. Now they are building the new location bringing in the same materials. He and his partner love cycling in the mountains and named the brewery after a very challenging road that they love to ride, which is Old Cazadero Road.
See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.
Old Caz new location Opens June 1They are definitely opening on June 1, having passed the health department inspection last Tuesday and the City of Rhonert Park gave their official approval today. There is some work to do still. Noon on June 1, they will have a grand opening ribbon cutting. The Old Caz Cavalcade will be a 3.5 mile march from the old location to the new one. Join the cool kids for that.
The Cider King is the name of Jeffery House’s new book. It’s on Amazon and Kindle as of a couple of weeks ago. The Kindle version for 90 days is free. He will do an audio book version of it in his own voice.
He started Ace Cider with seed money from a settlement from the end of a distribution agreement he had in England.
Visit Homerun Pizza, home of the Knuckleball! Fresh pizza dough made from scratch daily, la pizza è deliziosa!
Somebody told me they were growing apples in west (Sonoma) county. I drove up here one day to Sebastopol. It was like England with sunshine. The cows were happy, the fields were green…” In 1993 they made their first cider.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
Bryan modestly announces that Old Caz Beer won Gold for Chismoso Mexican Lager at the World Cup of Beer. They had forgotten even sending in the beer. He also just found out about another gold from Rolling Stone Magazine.
The Pink Boot Society national conference
Taylor Lane is our guest on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras. She is local chapter president of the Pink Boots Society. She is also a Lab Supervisor for Gallo Sonoma, and used to do the same job for Russian River Brewing. Also in the studio today is Simone Yingst from the Santa Rosa Central Library.
We also have a special guest, Simone Yingst from the Sonoma County Library. She is an adult services librarian at the downtown Santa Rosa library. There is a talk series called The Future is Fermented, happening at the library on May 22.
The Pink Boots SocietyThe Pink Boots Society is a national organization founded in 2007 by a woman brewer who realized that she was often the only woman in the room at beer events. They work on education, offer scholarships and support networking among its members. They have expanded their membership from beer people to people who work with any fermented beverages, and from women to also include non-binary persons. The Pink Boots Society National Conference will be in Philadelphia, June 24-26, 2024.
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Taylor Lane has a Bachelor’s and a Master’s Degree in Microbiology. She thought that would lead her into the veterinary or pharma field, but she discovered fermentation when she took a class in fermentation while in grad school. That made her realize that she knew all about the processes of making beer and other fermented foods and beverages. A job at Russian River would soon follow, as the lab supervisor. Taylor continues to thrive in the same role at Gallo Sonoma.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
A delivery has just arrived from Old Possum and Flagship BBQ who are putting on a birthday event soon. As we know, Flagship is now operating the kitchen at Old Possum. They were here on BHH in January to announce it.
Visit Homerun Pizza, home of the Knuckleball! Fresh pizza dough made from scratch daily, la pizza è deliziosa!
The subject of the talk on May 22 is Burnout in a Passion-based Business. The Future is Fermented, happening at the library on May 22.
Herlinda Heras with Raven Brewery guests.
The brewer and co-founder of Pivovar Raven, or Raven Brewery in Pilzen, Czech Republic are our guests today on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras. They are Ladislav Vrtiš, co-founder, and Jiri, which translates to George in English.
They are friends of Lana Svitankova, Herlinda’s fellow international beer judge and a recent guest on BHH. The crew from Raven Brewing in Pilzen is on a beer tour of California. First they spent 5 days in San Diego, now it’s Sonoma County and environs, including Beer City, Santa Rosa. Sierra Nevada and Russian River Brewing Co. are on the itinerary too. They just came back from a driving tour through Yosemite National Park.
Czech Pilsner and German Pilsner are different. For the Czech, they have softer water, especially in the town of Pilzen. Second, the brewing process, they use decoction to brew the beer. The Germans and US use infusion.
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Pivovar Raven, or Raven BreweryThe Raven brewery was founded in Pilzen in 2015. A law was proposed to require bars that serve beer to also offer a non-alcoholic beverage at a price that is lower than the cheapest beer. But the law did not pass.
Visit Homerun Pizza, home of the Knuckleball! Fresh pizza dough made from scratch daily, la pizza è deliziosa!
Pilsner Urquell is still a very popular brand in Czechia. It might cost $3 in Prague. In smaller cities, you can get a good local pilsner for a buck. The local bars are also the meeting place for social life and also to find service people.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
The California IPAs are a bit strong, around 7 or 8 ABV. The Czech beers are lighter.
Anderson Valley Brewing Co. CEO Kevin McGee joins Brew Ha Ha with Harry Duke sitting in for Steve Jaxon, and Herlinda Heras. The last time Kevin was on Brew Ha Ha was this episode from last November. Also, brewmaster Fal Allen has been on Brew Ha Ha many times. His last appearance was this episode in September 2o23. Tara Nurin is also in the studio today, and her part of the conversation is on this podcast episode.
Wellness and mental health is an important topic in the industry, especially after the uncertainty and stress of the last few years. Under the new owners of AVBC, the company expanded its suite of mental health benefits for employees. They also have opened pathways for people to have access to therapy.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
Their first tasting is the Black Light, 95 calories, and it is black like a stout even if it is a light. It won the European Beer Star Award, another silver medal two years ago and it won the Brussels Beer Challenge last year. They love this beer. It’s great to have a new beer that is so successful. There weren’t a lot of good light craft beers. They started with the intention of making a good tasting beer and it happened to be light, at 3.8% ABV. It gets its black color from black rice, not from blackened malt as usual with dark beers. This was Fal Allen’s invention.
He also wanted to make a Pilsner, which is The Pilsner under ABVC’s label. Summer Solstice is another periodic beer that has some devoted fans.
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Anderson Valley Brewing Co has been practicing sustainable brewing for long before Kevin became CEO. They use only water drawn from wells on their property and they return all their used water to the ground. It is a zero-effluent operation.
Visit Homerun Pizza, home of the Knuckleball! Fresh pizza dough made from scratch daily, la pizza è deliziosa!
They expect about 3000 people at the Booneville Beer Fest on Sat. May 4, May the fourth be with you, Star Wars fans. It is a benefit for local charities all within about 10 miles of the brewery. It is their 26th edition.
Tara Nurin
Beverage industry mental health is the subject with Tara Nurin today on Brew Ha Ha with Harry Duke sitting in for Steve Jaxon, and Herlinda Heras. Tara has been on Brew Ha Ha many times, the last time was this episode just last week.
The day before yesterday, Lana Svitankova, Herlinda and Tara were at UC Davis speaking about the brewing industry. Tara was there to discuss her book and to read a part of it. The students at UC Davis in the brewing program come from all over the world. Lana and Herlinda talked about international judging and they took questions from the students. The members of the panel at UC Davis were an all-star lineup of the craft brewing world.
Visit Homerun Pizza, home of the Knuckleball! Fresh pizza dough made from scratch daily, la pizza è deliziosa!
A Beautiful MindLast night they attended Lo and Behold’s event called A Beautiful Mind, a fund raiser for NAMI, the National Association for Mental Illness. They held a cocktail competition and a raffle and it was sold out. May is National Mental Health Awareness month. You can order the Beautiful Mind cocktail at a roster of local restaurants and the proceeds go to NAMI.
See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.
People in the beverage and hospitality industry can suffer physical and mental ailments due to work stress. She has been developing ways to teach resilience to managers, owners on how to create holistically healthy workspaces. In addition, Tara teaches workers to understand their own needs and to be able to maintain a stable state of mental health for the long term.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
Tara practices Transcendental Meditation and she also applies it to her efforts to reduce stress in the hospitality workspace.
Smith Street Taps 10th Anniversary commemorative glass.
Meng and Kim Chow, owners of Smith Street Taps in Singapore, join Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras today. It is their first time on Brew Ha Ha. Lana Svitankova is also in the studio today. Her full conversation with Herlinda can be heard over here on its own podcast episode.
Meng and Kim have brought a Smith Street Taps glass like the one pictured here, as a gift for Steve. They have just celebrated their tenth anniversary. They also have another stall now, called by a similar name, Smith Street Taproom.
Herlinda met Meng and Kim in Singapore when she was judging in the Asia Beer Cup. The city is obviously very clean and well organized, and Herlinda remembers feeling safe in the city, even when she got lost at night.
Singapore’s Hawker StallsSmith Street Taps is located among the hawker stalls in Singapore. These are large food courts with many restaurants serving a wide variety of styles of food. It is Singapore’s way of organizing what would otherwise be street food.
Kim explains that Smith Street Taps is the first and only hawker stall dedicated to craft beer, among the Singapore hawker stalls. They have craft beer on tap from all over the world.
Hawker culture in Singapore is heritage, so it is protected, promoted and highly appreciated.” -Kim Chow
Rumble in the Jungle (photo by Lana Svitankova).
Meng has opened a beer called Rumble in the Jungle, a Stout which he produced in a collaboration with Brewlander, a local brewery, and Jungle Beer, formerly of Singapore and now based in India. It is a stout flavored with chickory from India, with an 8% ABV. “Works for me!” says Steve Jaxon.
Herlinda remembers a 16 hour flight from California to Singapore, which Meng and Kim also just did. Thinking out loud, next time, she might fly 9 hours to Japan first, then fly the next leg from Japan to Singapore, another 9 hours.
The Singapore Sling is actually a local drink. It is a gin-based cocktail believed to have been created by a bartender at Raffles Hotel in Singapore. They still serve them there so go get one if you’re visiting Singapre, it can’t be missed. Spoiler Alert! –> In a shaker with ice, gin, cherry liqueur, Cointreau, Benedictine, pineapple juice, lime juice, Grenadine syrup and a dash of Angostura bitters. Serve strained into a hurricane glass.
Meng had the first craft beer bottle shop in Singapore, before Smith Street Taps. He is on his way to Boston for his son’s graduation from Northeastern University. Meng’s great wish is to find out how he can I get to drive a hop picking machine like the one at the museum.
Tara Nurin, historian of brewing, at UC Davis
Tara Nurin, historian of women’s role in brewing history, is our guest again on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras. She was on the show on this episode on February 23, 2023, with her book A Woman’s Place Is In the Brewhouse.
Lana Svitankova is also here, she is a beer judge from Ukraine and a judging colleagie of Herlinda. She is visiting for some events associated with the opening of the Museum of Sonoma County exhibit ON TAP on Saturday April 27 at 4pm.
On Tuesday, April 30, at 1 pm, Tara Nurin, Lana Svitankova and Herlinda Heras will be appearing at a conference at UC Davis as part of the Professional Brewing Program.
On Saturday, April 27, Tara will be reading the chapter about Sonoma County, at the exhibit. That is the story that starts with the opening of New Albion, the first new brewery post-Prohibition, which opened in 1976. Tara tells the story of the man and two women who founded New Albion. Tara’s book tells about the women have been involved in brewing throughout history.
Lana has translated some books about brewing into the Ukrainian language. She is also a promoter of the Ukrainian style of beer, a golden ale. She describes it as a cousin of British and Belgian golden ale, the difference is that the Belgian is stronger and the British is lower in ABV and not that sweet. Ukrainians like it sweet and not very bitter.
Ukrainian Golden AleUntil recently, a Ukrainian golden ale has been available in markets in Los Angeles. It has a name that is hard to pronounce. Lana used to work for a Ukrainian brewery called Barbar, who made golden ale and stout, mostly. Herlinda met Lana when they were judging in Finland and Poland.
The Museum of Sonoma County exhibit ON TAP is about the history of hops and beer in Sonoma County. Don Barkley did a video interview with Herlinda, that will be playing in the exhibit. It opened with a big crowd on April 20. It will be open until September 1.
Tony Magee returns to BHH with Herlinda Heras.
Tony Magee, the now-retired founder of Lagunitas, is back on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras. His last time on the show was this episode in 2018. He and his wife have a ranch where they host retired horses and also some cattle.
Herlinda Heras has been working with the Museum of Sonoma County to organize On Tap, the exhibit about craft beer history that is opening this weekend. Tony sat for a video interview for the exhibition and he is pleased to be part of it. He started Lagunitas in 1993 and grew it into one of the largest breweries in the country. In 2017 Heineken acquired the company. Tony tells the interesting back story to the acquisition. Lagunitas was beginning to sell beer outside the US, which is not easy to do. He also had grown Lagunitas to a point where the US market was starting to feel saturated with new beer brands as the popularity of craft beer grew. He started to think about a longer term plan for the company, rather than endure infinite domestic competition. Heineken was (and is) the last family-owned global brewer.
Finding the Right PartnerAll the other big companies are multinationals. Tony says Lagunitas never really discussed the acquisition with other companies because none of them had Heineken’s character. Hearing him tell the story, he sounds really pleased with how it all happened. He says he thought of the brewery as an art project, with an artist will eventually sell and once that happens, that’s it. He gives credit to Heineken for updating the structure of the business operation but for not changing the beer or the recipes and the brew master is still there.
This is the best time in the last thousand years to be a beer lover. -Tony Magee
Herlinda asks what the inspiration was for the brewery. For Tony, he was doing a completely different job. He was in commercial printing sales and he was a home brewer. His brother got him a home brew kit for Christmas of 1992, in January of ’93 he brewed it, and by December of 1993 the brewery was open. He recognized things in brewing that reminded him of music. As musician that helped him understand brewing.
See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.
A lot of Lagunitas beer is IPA style and hop focused. His friend Grant Johnston who was a brewer at Marin Brewing would also homebrew. He was experimenting by adding his hops late in the boil, which boosted the flavors and didn’t let bitterness develop by boiling too long. This was how they created a hop-forward style that became the central thesis of the brewery.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
22:50, they mention Cappuccino Stout, which Tony says may be one of the earliest coffee beers in the US. (In a Kurt Vonnegut story written long before the craft beer era, there is a mention of an award-winning beer in a fictional Indiana state fair, and coffee was the secret ingredient.)
Visit Homerun Pizza, home of the Knuckleball! Fresh pizza dough made from scratch daily, la pizza è deliziosa!
They also mention the 420 Waldos and the Lagunitas beer that celebrates the story. The Waldos were guests on Brew Ha Ha on this episode back in 2019. They remember the Beer Circus, which sounds like you had to have seen it.
John Burton, beer memorabilia collector, is our guest on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras today. He is working with Herlinda Heras who is assisting the Museum of Sonoma County with its upcoming exhibition ON TAP, about Sonoma County hops and the history or craft brewing.
John Burton made a great collection of beer memorabilia while he worked as a bartender in Santa Rosa for a long time. He also operates a well-known bartending school called Santa Rosa Bartending.
Herlinda has organized interviews with some of the biggest names in local beer history, like Tony McGee and Mark Carpenter, for the museum. She connected them to John Burton and he will be providing some choice items for the exhibit.
Grace Bros. was a local brand that started in 1897 in Santa Rosa and the brand continued until the late 1960s. John’s collection of bottles and cans starts in their first year. John has a lot of Grace Bros. pieces.
A 1960s Grace Bros. Beer CommercialIn the show, we hear a 30-second commercial for Grace Bros. beer, from John’s collection. It was recorded probably in the 1960s in Hollywood, California. In the 1940s, Grace Bros. was the fourth-largest brewery in California. Here is the commercial:
http://brewhaharadio.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Grace_Bros_Beer_30_sec.mp3Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
John Burton is a member of a beer memorabilia organization that organizes exhibits. Herlinda’s friend Ken Hartoonian also has a collection. He was a guest on Brew Ha Ha recently. John shares memories of the Grace family and how they decided to stay in Santa Rosa instead of Southern California.
See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.
John is also the writer and publisher of some books about his collection. He has also written an instructional book about bartending, called Bartending Basics.
Herlinda is organizing a reception for all of the ‘legends’ of the local brewing industry. She will invite the founding fathers and mothers of the business. She is looking forward to the On Tap exhibition being full of really interesting, beautiful and memorable material.
Visit Homerun Pizza, home of the Knuckleball! Fresh pizza dough made from scratch daily, la pizza è deliziosa!
Russian River Brewing is a sponsor of the exhibit, so is Lagunitas and Oliver’s Market. The sculpture garden is beautiful and they will turn it into a beer garden for one evening. The grand opening is April 27.
Richard McChinak and Ben Kerstetter from Battle of the Brews are in-studio guests on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras. Richard McChinak, is the Battle of the Brews co-chair, and Ben Kerstetter is the newly elected incoming President of the 20/30 Club, Santa Rosa chapter n. 50.
The 20/30 Club started doing this event 27 years ago. They only had about 20 breweries back then but now there are many more. Saturday April 6 from 1-5 pm at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds. There are 20/30 chapters all over the country. They do a lot of fundraising events for under-privileged youth in Sonoma County.
As musical attractions, Battle of the Brews has Painted Waves and Voodoo Vultures playing plus a local DJ Rob Cervantes, who is a Drive Hall of Famer.
Herlinda Heras has been going to Battle of the Brews since its beginning. This is Herlinda’s eleventh time judging at this event. It’s a chance to meet all her friends in the business. The weather is supposed to be good. One year the band was Digital Underground but they had to scale it back after that year.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
There is a big Raffle Station in the middle of the show. All of the money raised goes to causes related to helping kids. The $95 admission ticket gets you all the food and drinks you can manage to enjoy, plus all the music and the whole scene. They also have cider, hard kombucha as well as non-alcoholic options.
A Great Day for BarbequeThis year the Barbeque section is different, they doubled the number of BBQs and brought in many other food vendors. There is an entire parking lot full of food vendors.
See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.
The judging is a BJCP-sanctioned event. There is also a People’s Choice award. Some brewers will bring exclusive beers brewed just for the event. There are even awards for Best Chicken and also a People’s Choice award for barbeque.
Visit Homerun Pizza, home of the Knuckleball! Fresh pizza dough made from scratch daily, la pizza è deliziosa!
There are so many beers and it is so much fun that it is easy to drink more than you thought you would. So plan you transportation with all the options available, except driving.
Today’s Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras is a Triple Header! We have three great guests. Cynthia Caughie from Homerun Pizza is our guest on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras and she brought some Knuckleballs, their specialty. Cynthia was also on Brew Ha Ha in November, on this episode. Ryan Frank, head brewer at Headlands Brewing is here. Ron Lindenbusch is also in today. He is a founding father of Lagunitas and a self-titled beer weasel, however emeritus.
Ron Lindenbusch’s complete interview is on his own dedicated podcast episode, right here. This episode is all about Homerun Pizza. Ryan Frank’s talk about Headlands Brewing is also on its own podcast episode. This way, each guest gets to have a unique online destination for their own search traffic. Also, it keeps the individual podcast episodes to a nicer, shorter length.
Cynthia got to spend some time in Arizona for Spring Training, and the players loved the knuckleballs. Watch the Homerun Pizza website for evidence of how much the players like them.
Homerun Pizza is open daily.Homerun Pizza is open Sunday Monday and Tuesday from 3:00 to 8:00; Wednesday & Thursday 11:30 to 8:00 pm and Friday & Saturday 11:30 to 9:00. Happy Hour is every night from 3-6 pm. Every Wednesday, 2 Knuckleballs for $5. It’s their signature dish, their pizza dough stuffed with mozzarella cheese and with bacon or peperoni. They are doing a special Knuckleball, with sausage, and also a vegetarian version with tomato and basil.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
Right now this year they are doing one specialty Knuckleball per month. For Valentine’s Day they did Nutella and pretzel, with salted caramel. For March, it’s the Sausage Knuckleball.
See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.
They have a dish called Homerun Fries, made with French Fries, bacon, jack and cheddar cheese and their Homerun Sauce, a spicy Ranch. Herlinda calls it Sonoma County Poutine which is hilarious!
Visit Homerun Pizza, home of the Knuckleball! Fresh pizza dough made from scratch daily, la pizza è deliziosa!
Ron Lindenbusch, Hopland Tap founder and owner, is back again on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras. He has been on Brew Ha Ha several times, including this episode on July 5, 2018, again on May 28, 2020 along with Natalie Cilurzo, and again on May 6, 2021. These episodes chronicle Ron’s career with Lagunitas up to and including the Heineken purchase.
Today’s live radio show is a triple-header. We have two other guests in the studio along with Ron today. The episode with Cynthia from Homerun Pizza is here. Ryan Frank, brewmaster at Headlands Brewing, also has his own podcast episode on this page.
Since he left Lagunitas at the end of a very successful run, Ron found the perfect location in Hopland to set up the tavern that he always dreamed of. Steve remembers when it was the Hopland Brewery, they had bands including some pretty famous ones. Hopland Tap also does live music. This Saturday the band is Left-Hand Monkey Wrench.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
Herlinda Heras is helping the Museum of Sonoma County develop its upcoming exhibition ON TAP about the history of brewing in Sonoma County. Ron Lindenbush was with her at the museum today to record some video that will be used in the exhibition. He personally holds a lot of the stories of the history that is the subject of the exhibit.
See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.
They are tasting a non-alcoholic beer that Ron makes. It actually tastes like beer. One is called Electro Lime. Ron explains that it is made just like beer, then the alcohol is removed. What remains is a beverage that actually tastes like beer. The non-alcoholic beer scene is completely different than it was ten years ago.
Visit Homerun Pizza, home of the Knuckleball! Fresh pizza dough made from scratch daily, la pizza è deliziosa!
A Headlands Brewing 4-pack with its paper collar.
Ryan Frank, Headlands Brewing head brewer, joins Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras, in studio today, with Cynthia Caughie and Ron Lindenbush. Each of the other guests have their own podcast page from today, Cynthia from Homerun Pizza is here and Ron Lindenbush is here. In this episode, we hear mostly from Ryan Frank.
Headlands Brewing started in Marin County but has recently put roots down in the East Bay. They have a taproom in Lafayette and they produce their beer in Pittsburg. They are dedicated to philanthropy and they pledge 1% for the Planet. Ryan describes Earth to Beer, a collaboration among 40 different breweries. “A better world is brewing,” is the slogan.
They are tasting a Kolsch which is a beer from Koln, a light crisp soft and floral beer, an ancient German specialty. They source all of their own materials locally, including Admiral Malting in Oakland. He chose Pacific Northwest hops, to make it a California interpretation of a German Kolsch.
See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.
Headlands Brewing is located at 3420 Mt. Diablo Blvd. in Lafayette. It’s kid friendly, dog friendly and has great food. Their beer is available at Homerun Pizza, Earth to Beer Kolsch is on draft. They are also at Barley and Bine, and Beer Baron. Bottle Barn has some cans and they are on promotion at northern California Whole Foods stores.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
Bingo at Homerun PizzaCynthia tells about Bingo at Homerun Pizza on the last Tuesday of the month. It’s free, kid friendly and a lot of fun. Ryan Frank gets to taste a sausage Knuckleball with the Earth to Beer Kolsch, just like they serve it at Homerun Pizza.
Visit Homerun Pizza, home of the Knuckleball! Fresh pizza dough made from scratch daily, la pizza è deliziosa!
Headlands Brewing uses paper collars on their 4-packs. This fact starts Ryan into a description of all the choices they make in packaging to reduce their footprint, use less plastic and promote recycling. You can see the paper collars in the picture above.
April 27 ON TAP opens at the Museum of Sonoma County. Herlinda describes a lot of her efforts looking for content. Make sure you don’t miss this exhibition which will be a big hit.
The 2024 Pliny the Younger 3-pack.
Natalie and Vinny Cilurzo of Russian River Brewing Co. join Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha for the 2024 Pliny the Younger release. This is an annual event on Brew Ha Ha, for example, here is last year’s release show.
Natalie has been getting ready for this year’s release. This morning they had their kickoff meetings for staff at Santa Rosa and Windsor. Everything is ready to begin this weekend. The Pliny the Younger will be available until April 4.
The recipe is mostly his year Vinny says he has added more of a New Zealand hop called Nectaron. The 2024 Pliny the Younger is 10.25% alcohol, so the idea is to hide the alcohol with lots of other flavors.
“It’s still hard to believe.” – Vinny Cilurzo
It was back in early 2005 when the brewery was less than a year old, that they wanted to do a promotion during the otherwise slow season. Vinny decided to take the Pliny the Elder recipe and add more of everything, more hops, more malt and more alcohol. They released it without fanfare, for a few years. But in 2010, everything changed. Pliny the Younger had been rated the best beer in the world on some influential beer websites. That is when people started forming lines before opening hours. It’s great to hear Vinny tell the story again. This has become a favorite annual event for beer lovers from around the world.
Pliny the Younger has some new artwork this year, which is on the header of this web page, showing Vesuvius erupting with beer and hops.
When and WhereBoth brewpubs will be open daily from 11AM to 10PM, from March 22nd through April 4th, 2024.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
Russian River Brewing Co. will be a sponsor of the big beer history exhibition that is opening at the Museum of Sonoma County, called ON TAP: Sonoma County Hops and the Beer Revolution. We just had Eric Stanley from the museum on Brew Ha Ha.
Visit Homerun Pizza, home of the Knuckleball! Fresh pizza dough made from scratch daily, la pizza è deliziosa!
This year Russian River Brewing Co. has raised purchase limit from two bottles to three. A three bottle purchase comes in the convenient carrying case pictured above.
See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.
RRBC has different menus at the Santa Rosa and Windsor locations. Vinny would have a Mamma Mia pizza (with halapeños) at the Santa Rosa 4th Street pub, to pair with a glass of Pliny the Younger. He remembers the time the first people met him four hours before opening time, in 2010.
Eric Stanley from the Museum of Sonoma County is our guest, here to discuss ON TAP Sonoma County Hops and the Craft Beer Revolution, an exhibition that will open on April 20, 2024. He joins Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras, live in the Wine Country Radio studio.
Herlinda Heras has been in England and Ireland, which we heard about about over the last few episodes. Now she will be staying in town to assist with the exhibition. There are two paths to this exhibition, as Eric describes it. One is about the history of hops as part of Sonoma County agriculture and the other is about the more recent craft beer revolution. Brew Ha Ha will be a sponsor of this exhibition.
Herlinda is personally acquainted with many of the people who have made history in local brewing. She has been busy bringing several of them in to participate. For example, New Albion was the first licensed brewery after the repeal of Prohibition and it opened in the town of Sonoma. Tara Nurin will be appearing and reading from her book, since she interviewed a lot of the women who were part of the revolution, for the book. Natalie and Vinny Cilurzo will be participating as well as Ken Hartoonian, who was on this show recently and who has a big collection of brewing memorabilia. Famous brewers like Mark Carpenter, Ron Lindenbush and Don Barkley will be a part of it as well.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
About the Museum of Sonoma CountyThe Museum of Sonoma County has a permanent Sonoma County history exhibition. called Sonoma County Stories. Gaye LeBaron had a lot to do with it, she is a local historian and friend of Steve. The museum is located in the old Sonoma County Post Office building, which was built in 1910. It is a beautiful building, which had to be moved from its original location, in order to save it.
See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.
They are looking for sponsors for this exhibition, so if you are or work for a candidate for exhibition sponsorship, please contact Herlinda Heras.
Visit Homerun Pizza, home of the Knuckleball! Fresh pizza dough made from scratch daily, la pizza è deliziosa!
Hops Have Made a Comeback LocallyHop growing used to be a huge local business and recently hops have been making a comeback, as a local crop. There are several reasons for that. Starting in the 1850s this area was a leading hop region in the country, up to Prohibition. But after Prohibition it wasn’t until the 1980s that breweries came back. The exhibition will tell the story of what happened to the local hops industry, from the last crop in the early 1960s, up the re-emergence of hops in Sonoma County.
3.1415926535897932, or about 22/7.
Herlinda Heras is judging at the 2024 British Pie Awards and calls in to Brew Ha Ha today, and with Harry Duke sitting in for Steve Jaxon. Here is an episode of Brew Ha Ha from March 22, 2018, when Herlinda had just returned from that year’s competition. The winners are listed at the 2024 British Pie Awards website.
Today we hear all about her itinerary on her current trip to the England and Ireland. She began in London, judging the National Fish and Chips competition. Then, she visited Dublin, Ireland, where she saw Teeling Whiskey, the Guiness attraction “Beer Disneyland” and a museum exhibit. Her last stop was the British Pie Awards, an annual event in the town of Melton Mobray. This is Herlinda’s 10 year as a judge in this competition.
The pies at the 2024 British Pie Awards are very traditional and the judging takes into consideration all of the characteristic virtues of combining meat and crust. The categories of pies have evolved, so that today there is a category for Vegan pies, as well as vegetarian recipes and many others.
Herlinda explains how there is a hole at the top of the pie, as in the picture here. This is part of the recipe, specifically the baking process. They place a bit of jelly into the hole which bakes into the pie.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
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See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.
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Visit Homerun Pizza, home of the Knuckleball! Fresh pizza dough made from scratch daily, la pizza è deliziosa!
We get a phone call from Herlinda Heras in London, she is there to judge this year’s UK National Fish & Chip Awards. The National Federation of Fish Fryers of the UK sponsor the annual event.
There are contestants from all over the UK as well as other countries, including the US, which was represented by a British couple from Georgia who have a fish and chips shop. There is the usual panorama of awards, in many categories, even the potatoes. On the Tuesday night before the event, they had a reception in the Houses of Parliament. They were actually in session and voting while she was there.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
Part of the awards was a recognition of extraordinary customer service, and Herlinda heard stories about how during Covid confinement, fish and chip deliveries were almost the only contact that some people had with others.
Visit Homerun Pizza, home of the Knuckleball! Fresh pizza dough made from scratch daily, la pizza è deliziosa!
There is also an award for best sit-down restaurant, and many other categories. See the National Fish & Chip Awards website for all the categories and winners.
See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.
The biggest award is to the “take away” which is British for “to go” service. That award went to a shop called Ship Deck, located in Caerphilly, Wales.
The team from Hiveworks Mead is in the studio for Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras to talk about their way of making mead. Alexander Mendoza, CEO and Head Mazer, Sean Duckworth, COO and Julian Frank, CFO, are taking turns on the two guest microphones in our small converted train car.They will be at Beer City this Saturday, Feb. 24, in Courthouse Square.The Hiveworks Mead team all grew up in Sebastopol together and now they are partners in the company.See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.SkyborneFirst they taste Skyborne, a simple recipe of honey, water and yeast, plus carbonation. They just wanted to make a beverage that they could enjoy with any food. The more honey you add, the higher the ABV. A lot of traditional mead could be 2-3 pounds of honey per gallon of mead. Their mead is lower in alcohol so they can use less honey.Visit Homerun Pizza, home of the Knuckleball! Fresh pizza dough made from scratch daily, la pizza è deliziosa!Kind of like wine, kind of like beerThe partners started Hiveworks Mead in Sebastopol in a shed with one fermenter, and experimented until their product was a hit at some parties. That was when it was time to go pro. Even though it is classified and taxed as a wine, mead is actually made on equipment that is much more like that of a brewery. The aluminum cans use a lot less carbon dioxide, than glass bottles.Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.Alexander carries the title Head Mazer. Some meadmakers fancy the term. A mazer is a type of traditional medieval wooden cup, low and wide, with a rise in the middle. There happens to be a well-known annual mead competition called the Mazer Cup, based in Colorado, whose logo is shaped like a mazer. This may have suggested the idea for that term. ** ‘Mazer’ as a meadmaker has no root word history in English nor in any of its contributing languages. Given that mead can be drunk from a mazer, calling a meadmaker a ‘mazer’ could be compared to calling a vintner a ‘glass’ or a brewer a “mug” or a Kombuchist a “tightly capped bottle.” But if people like the term, they will use it, and if enough people adopt it for enough time, it will become documented.
Chris Keeton from CCBS 2024 calls in to Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras to talk about the California Craft Beer Summit. There will be a convention, the California Craft Beer Summit, March 12-14, in Sacramento. There is the website, ^ with all the info you need. The rest of today's Brew Ha Ha episode is a conversation with the folks from Hiveworks Mead, which is on its own page.Chris KeetonChris Keeton is the President of the Sacramento Area Brewers Guild and is also the head brewer for the Alaro Craft Brewery, which is located very close to the convention center. Morgan Territory Brewing won at ccbs last year, as they win a lot of competitions.Beer City, Sat. Feb. 24 in Santa RosaThe general public can purchase tickets to the event. The awards ceremony is March 13 during the CCBA Summit. The Competition will be held in the Crest Theater. They will have 197 breweries and 1300 beer entries, which makes it the third largest one of these in the country.Judy Ashworth, the famous publican, was with Herlinda at the competition last year. Judy is a very famous figure in the craft brewing industry and she was on Brew Ha Ha on this episode back on December 19, 2019, along with former co-host Mark Carpenter.Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.The CCBS 2024 winners will be announced on a website after the convention. There will also be a live stream on The Brewing Network YouTube channel. The results will be published at this site: https://brewerscupofca.com/See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.The Craft Beer Summit is a great networking opportunity for like-minded entrepreneurs to learn more about their business. The Guilds also provide an important service to their members. For example, the fact that we can taste beer and cider at our farmers markets is due to some lobbying done by the guilds.Visit Homerun Pizza, home of the Knuckleball! Fresh pizza dough made from scratch daily, la pizza è deliziosa!
Fogbelt Brewing founders Paul Hawley and Remy Martin are back on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras. Paul and Remy have been on Brew Ha Ha several times, including this episode last September and this other episode the previous August.This is a busy time for beer fans with the FeBrewary promotion and Beer City all taking place.For Beer Week, Fogbelt Brewing is making Bacon and Beer pairings. It’s as classic as pizza and beer. They serve what they call “Billionaire’s Bacon” and also Salmon belly, served with a flight of beers.Their annual Godwood Triple IPA has just been released. It is made with Simcoe, Mosaic, Aurora and Eldorado hops, all of them. They do three separate dry hops and a touch of caramel malt.Visit Homerun Pizza, home of the Knuckleball! Fresh pizza dough made from scratch daily, la pizza è deliziosa!Ten Years of Fogbelt and Brew Ha HaPaul and Remy just celebrated their tenth anniversary and so did the Brew Ha Ha. They went to school together and studied moviemaking, then moved to New Zealand and ended up working for a winery and making their own beer on the side. Continuing to Australia they “became passionate” about beer. Remy studied beer and Paul studied finance and the new team was ready.See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.The Fogbelt location in Healdsburg is a beer garden which is also in an old train, just like Wine Country Radio. Fogbelt Brewing Co. is located at 1305 Cleveland Ave. in Santa Rosa.The Beer City Festival in Santa Rosa Courthouse Square is on February 24. There are three races, half marathon, 10 K and 5 K, which are optional. Next week the organizers will be in the studio on Brew Ha Ha.Herlinda went to the SF Beer Week gala. It was advertised as a “space” theme, including Star Wars, Star Trek, etc. Herlinda was the only person in the gala in costume.Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.Fogbelt is proud to be making a lot of different beers, something for everybody. Their Redwood Lager won a Gold Medal at the Sacramento State Fair.Fogbelt also organized a Beer Camp, an adult summer camp with lots of beer. They hosted it at Wildhaven in Healdsburg, which is a glamping resort. They had a few classes in search and rescue, cooking demos, a falconry demo, and most of it was all about beer. Paul’s dad is a falconer and taught a class about it.
Jenny Ogston from Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter is here to talk about their Superb Owl party this Sunday.The Victory House Superb Owl party is this Sunday, Feb. 11. It is a ticketed event to Victory House and Chuck’s Bowling. Door open Sunday at 2:30 but the whole facility is open as usual at 9:00. As of air-time today there are some seats left at Chuck’s, although Victory House is sold out for Superb Owl. There are big screens all around and the environment of a big game is exciting.Victory House proudly pours non-alcoholic beers from Athletic Brewing. Sierra Nevada also makes a really good non-alcoholic beer called The Trail House.They have 24 beers on tap, at least 12 are local breweries, hard cider and kombucha too. They also have lots of appetizers and really well made fried food, cuz it’s a sports bar! There are always new items being prepared for future menu upgrades. Jenny has brought a selectin of beers including a non-alcoholic one, a Peach Sour from Cooperage, Inhume, their IPA, from a brewery in Oakland.Herlinda Heras, Fish and Chips JudgeHerlinda’s next trip will be judging the British Fish and Chips Awards, with the reception in the Houses of Parliament. 🇬🇧 We will hear all about it from her on the Feb. 29 episode coming soon.Epicenter has lots of TV screens and shows a lot of sports, everything from ESPN and ESPN-U games to pickleball, corn hole and extreme tag. They are open on days when schools are closed, so there’s a place to bring kids.Poppy Bank Epicenter has soccer fields and runs adult and youth soccer leagues. There is an arcade with old-school arcade games. They also have laser tag and a giant play structure in the little kids area. Chucks has 12 regular lanes and a private VIP area with 4 lanes. Chuck’s Garage is styled like a garage where guys will hang out.
Joanne Marino is calling in to Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras, she is the executive director of SF Beer Week. Ed Gobbo from Harmonic Brewing Co. is also in the studio today. Ed Gobbo's complete interview and podcast episode is over here on this page. (This way, both Harmonic and SF Beer Week get to have their own search traffic and shareable location.) Check out Ed's interview, he has a lot to say. 🍻SF Beer Week has a lot of North Bay events with Old Caz and Pond Farm, among many others. As the event has grown, more brewers than ever have a showcase.The Gala is back at Pier 35 in San Francisco, it’s a great party that people are eager to attend again.Visit Homerun Pizza, home of the Knuckleball! Fresh pizza dough made from scratch daily, la pizza è deliziosa!The late San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee was a great supporter of Beer Week. Joanne talks about how the member breweries who run Beer Week face challenges all the time to survive. It has been proven that breweries contribute to revitalization. For example, it is sad for the Dogpatch community that Harmonic Brewing is no longer there. As brewers struggle to survive, it is important to promote the industry to try to give these business more exposure and more attention.See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.The Gala has a Star Wars theme, so wardrobe and costumes are a factor. Watch out for Herlinda on that red carpet!There are SF Beer Week collaboration brews, Russian River will be there with Pliny, and also lots of smaller breweries like Harmonic.Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and in Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.Let’s have some fun!There are still tickets available so get ‘em now! A VIP ticket gets you access to brewers like Vinny and Natalie and selfies galore.The gala ha a space theme, so all the space movies and tv shows are fair game, including star wars, star trek star search, no not that, but spaceballs definitelyThere are also non-alcoholic beverages. There is a Barrel Brothers non-alcoholic beer as a sponsor. The best part is getting back together with your community. Those are the moments we missed that we want to bring back.
Ed Gobbo, Harmonic Brewing Co. founder, is our guest today on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras. He was on Brew Ha Ha once before, on this episode of September 22, 2022.Joanne Marino, executive director of SF Beer Week, will call in to the show. You can listen to her phone call with Steve, Herlinda and Ed on this separate podcast episode. (Separating the podcast into two allows each one to have its own search traffic and shareable location.)Harmonic Brewing's new location in Thrive CityHarmonic Brewing’s new location is in Thrive Center at the Chase Center, where the Golden State Warriors of the NBA play. The original Harmonic Brewing location was in Dogpatch, a neighborhood in San Francisco where they began their business. Their theme is celebrating Craft, Culture and Community.Visit Homerun Pizza, home of the Knuckleball! Fresh pizza dough made from scratch daily, la pizza è deliziosa!The first beer they taste is Prague Rock, a pun on Prog Rock. It is a Czech Pilsner style. Ed Gobbo gives credit to Admiral Maltings. which is a local facility that makes malt from locally grown barley. He likes working with them because of their careful attention to quality. It is also nice to have a local supplier which lowers the carbon footprint.Ed and his partners were home brewers for about 10 years, and they had other careers before they started Harmonic.See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.Harmonic Brewing will be at San Francisco Beer Week, which is coming up soon. The entire community is excited for the return of the gala at the beginning of Beer Week. Herlinda describes how Beer Week has extended into other parts of the Bay Area. February 9 – 18. The last Gala was in 2020 just before everything shut down. We will hear more about during Herlinda’s call with Joann Marino.Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and in Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.There is even going to be an app this year, to help people plan their attendance to the events. On February 10 there will be an Admiral Maltings event where they can meet the brewers and the maltsters and the farmers too. There are so many events, you have to plan your visit. Ed describes some collaborations he has done, which you can sample at SFBW.(Photo credit: Sarah Chorey from the Harmonic Brewing Co. website.)
Today Herlinda Heras' Maui Report takes the stage on this special podcast episode of Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon.Herlinda Heras called in from Maui where she was travelling for her birthday. She extended her stay and she is finally back today. Herlinda had the opportunity to report on Lahaina when her friend who lives there invited her. She was hesitant to visit, not wanting to be a looky-loo. However as she was invited, she got to see, “many beautiful things to do” there.Whereas the Sonoma County fires were huge, covering a broad area, Lahaina is rather small. A lot of old buildings from the 1700s burned and cannot be rebuilt. But the people on Maui are still operating their business and still need tourist traffic. Thanks to her very wide circle of friends, Herlinda was able to attend some exciting social events and visit some incredibly beautiful natural attractions.See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.Herlinda has brought a beer called Mango Stickee Rice for tasting, which as you can imagine is juicy and delicious. There is also a charity collaboration beer that lots of brewers are making, including Russian River Brewing Co.Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and in Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.Calling in on the phone from Maui is Leanne Pletcher, director of public relations from the Maui Tourism Bureau. They are working to encourage people to come and visit and enjoy the many other parts of the island while Lahaina is healing.Visit Homerun Pizza, home of the Knuckleball! Fresh pizza dough made from scratch daily, la pizza è deliziosa!There are breweries and distilleries on Maui too, that Herlinda encourages people to visit. Maui Brewing Co. is in south Maui, near the coast. Up country, there are small towns and parks to visit as well as a pineapple farm and distillery.Maui LinksHere are some links about Maui brewers and distillers and about visiting and helping Maui:Maui Nui Strong: https://www.mauinuistrong.info/Maui Tourism, general info: https://mauitourism.org/Go Hawaii, travel information: https://www.gohawaii.com/malamaMaui Brewing Co., makers of Mango Stickee Rice beer: https://mauibrewingco.com/Ocean Organic Farm and Distillery: https://oceandistillery.com/Haliimaile Distilling: https://haliimailedistilling.com/Mahalo Aleworks: https://www.mahaloaleworks.com/MAHALO.Maui Brewing Co. Mango Stickee Rice beer.
Old Possum Brewing Co.Flagship Taproom and Old Possum Brewing are both in the house today on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras. The last time Sandro was on the show was this episode in April, 2023.Sandro Tamburin is back in the studio with a big announcement. Flagship BBQ and Old Possum Brewing are teaming up. Flagship BBQ will become the managing partner for retail operations at Old Possum, while Sandro will continue to manage the brewery operation. They will be in soft launch in February then Friday, February 16 they have a grand opening. They will also release their Triple Hopped beer, Tonic Immobility.As they are tasting a pilsner style from Old Possum called La Rosita, Sandro tells the story of Old Possum. He started as a wort producer supplying other brewers. But once he realized that he had also assembled all the other necessary licenses and processes to become a brewer, that’s what he did.Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and in Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.Flagship Taproom has been making BBQ for years. Now they will be serving Flagship Taproom barbeque food and pouring Sandro’s Old Possum beer at Old Possum’s locations.See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options. Check out the family-friendly New Year's Eve party!Sandro also has an IPA called Garibaldi, it is a dry hazy. It uses Nelson Sauvin hops from New Zealand.Visit Homerun Pizza, home of the Knuckleball! Fresh pizza dough made from scratch daily, la pizza è deliziosa!Flagship Taproom does fun promotions like comedy shows, live music and trivia nights that attract a fun crowd.
Natalie CilurzoNatalie Cilurzo from Russian River Brewing Co. is on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras to talk about Pliny for President 2024. Herlinda is traveling today.We begin with Natalie telling the story of how RRBC got started, from when Korbel started the brand and hired Vinny. Later when Korbel decided to leave the beer business, Vinny and Natalie got the brand and recipes, organized a business plan with investors, and opened their brew pub in 2004 in Santa Rosa.That means that 2024 is also the 20th release of Pliny the Younger. When they had to postpone their retail release during Covid, it meant separating the wholesale distribution of Pliny the Younger from the on-site consumer retail release. The brewery is a lot bigger than it used to be and this reorganization has made the process more manageable.Pliny the Younger 2024The 2024 Pliny the Younger will be available at will begin to appear at many of their clients in the Bay Area on draft, at SF Beer Week Feb 9 – 18, and a few other events. The in-person release is March 22 to April 4, this year. The complete release plans are all listed at the Russian River Brewing Co. website and socials.See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options. Check out the family-friendly New Year's Eve party!Russian River Brewing Co. has also released the 2024 Pliny for President. It used to be just for fun, pre-social media. But now, it’s a lot more established, with branding, merchandise and a great slogan, “Hop Care for Everyone.” Blind Pig is Pliny’s running mate, as always. The 2020 release was sold online in cans, and people who were cooped up during the pandemic really appreciated it. This 2024 Pliny for President has flavors of 4 different hops, Simcoe, Nectaron, Amarillo, Zumo, so the beer has citrus and stone fruit flavors from those hops, but a but lower alcohol than last time. It’s at local retail stores and they will release it quarterly.Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and in Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.The Windsor location was designed with Pliny the Younger in mind. It was important for there to be enough space for the crowds that come every year. Some travelers even park their RVs in the Windsor parking lot, with permission.SF Beer Week is back and the opening night Gala is back for the first time since the pandemic. Russian River Brewing Co. will be there. Tickets for different kinds of entry are available at the SF Beer Week website.Visit Homerun Pizza, home of the Knuckleball! Fresh pizza dough made from scratch daily, la pizza è deliziosa!In lingua LatinaPS: some suggested Latin slogans for Pliny for President, suitable for carving into marble: Ex multis cerevisiis, unum = Out of many beers, one.Lupuli pro Omnibus = Hops for Everyone.
Steve and BryanCo-founder of Old Caz Beer Bryan Rengel joins Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras in the studio on Brew Ha Ha today. Bryan was on Brew Ha Ha last August on this episode, and his partner Tom Edwards was a guest on this other episode from March 31, 2022.The first beer tasted today is called Chismosa Clara, their take on a Mexican Lager. There is an amber ale version. This is a lighter one, made to be like Modelo Especial. They are located in Rohnert Park which is growing and gaining popularity.A hazy IPA is the next tasting, called Early Sunset. It’s an example of a creative process of starting with a special recipe that they make in kegs only, to see if it becomes popular. If it does, they will make a label and produce it. This is how they select which beers to produce more of.Old Caz is opening a new location in SOCO Village, right in the middle of the square. It is under construction now and their goal is to use the old taproom only for special events and to move the public tasting to the new place. They have a specially designed concrete pad for heavy food trucks to park.Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and in Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.Herlinda Heras is calling in from Maui. She is sitting at Maui Brewing Company, looking at the ocean. She is there for her birthday and to see breweries that are participating in the Kokua relief beer project.The Kokua ProjectKokua is an independently owned restaurant and brewery. The Kokua project is a fund raiser for victims of the Lahaina fire last August. On the other side of the island from where the fires happened, it is still quite beautiful. Being from Sonoma County, we can relate to having fires and also doing brew projects to raise funds for fire relief.For info about the Kokua Project: https://mauibrewingco.com/kokua/The Global Empowerment Mission Maui Brewing Fire Fundhttps://globalempowermentmission.kindful.com/?campaign=1268238TS Restaurants Legacy of Aloha https://www.tsrestaurants.com/legacy-of-aloha/Maui Humane Society https://www.mauihumanesociety.org/ See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options. Check out the family-friendly New Year's Eve party!Visit Homerun Pizza, home of the Knuckleball! Fresh pizza dough made from scratch daily, la pizza è deliziosa!
Herlinda Heras in Maui reporting on the Kokua Project.Herlinda Heras is calling from Maui, to talk about the Kokua Project with Steve Jaxon on Brew Ha Ha today. Bryan Rengel of Old Caz Beer is also with us. Over here is the podcast episode of that entire show. Here is just the portion where Herlinda speaks to us from the Maui Brewing Company, looking at the ocean. She is there for her birthday and to see breweries that are participating in the Kokua relief beer project, which is raising money for Maui fire relief.The Kokua ProjectThe Kokua project is a fund raiser for victims of the Lahaina fire last August. On the other side of the island from where the fires happened, it is still quite beautiful. Being from Sonoma County, we can relate to having fires and also doing brew projects to raise funds for fire relief.Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and in Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.Please consider making a donation to any of the following organizations for Maui fire relief:For info about the Kokua Project: https://mauibrewingco.com/kokua/The Global Empowerment Mission Maui Brewing Fire Fundhttps://globalempowermentmission.kindful.com/?campaign=1268238TS Restaurants Legacy of Aloha https://www.tsrestaurants.com/legacy-of-aloha/Maui Humane Society https://www.mauihumanesociety.org/ See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options. Check out the family-friendly New Year's Eve party!
Marc Meltonville, food historian, is our guest on today's Brew Ha Ha podcast, in a replay of a May 21, 2020 show. There is no new show today due to bad weather upsetting people's travel plans, so today's podcast episode repeats one of Steve Jaxon's favorite classic Brew Ha Ha shows. Enjoy! 🍻Brew Ha Ha today is an interview with English food historian Marc Meltonville, on the telephone from England, talking with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras. Marc is the consulting food and drink historian for the historic royal palaces in the UK. So he knows a lot about what people were brewing and eating and drinking in different periods of history.Marc Meltonville jokes that being a Consulting Food Historian doesn't feel like a real job. He entered the field when he was working in a museum and someone came to him asking about a Tudor food project. He mentions that during the 1918 flu pandemic, they did not shut the pubs, even when they closed over venues. The British pub licensing laws close the pubs from 3pm to 6pm and they close again at 10pm.Herlinda mentions that a lot of our familiar alcoholic beverages actually began as medicinal cures. Marc agrees, that a lot of recipes were in the "physic" i.e. medicine books, not the cooking books.Distillation was reserved for tonics. Around the early 17th century the digestive drink after dinner became popular. Gin and tonic is an example.Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and in Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.Restoring Ancient KitchensHampton Court and Kew Gardens both have extensive kitchen which have been recently explored, discovered and put back into use to demonstrate techniques and recipes from the past. Marc was also recently at Newland Grist Mill in Pennsylvania, outside Philadelphia. They have a mill that can make its own malt, so they have built a colonial brewery with period equipment. "Two guys with a stick and a bukcket." Marc has also worked at Williamsburg and at Mt. Vernon where they produce George Washington whiskey without modern equipment.See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options. Check out the family-friendly New Year's Eve party!His current two brewing projects involve looking at brewing processes in the 1700s. Also, he is designing an event based on recipes of Stonehenge, 4500 years ago. He used a mass spectrometer to study the residue of old containers to understand their actual. That led to what he calls a "backwards recipe" where he reverse engineered the brew based on the residue. Yeast is from fruit skins, grapes in southern Europe or apples in the north, he realized that by mixing barley, cut apples, honey and water, he got a drink, that he calls, "a drinky thing. "He made a "pre-beer beer" like they did 4500 years ago before malting of barley or extraction of yeasts. It tasted like hard cider. Herlinda says it reminds her of braggot, which is a form of mead from barley malt and honey.In the past, food was a luxury for wealthy classes, whether in colonial America or Europe. This was true with regard to food and drink, across the centuries.
Adam Bosch, co-founder of Parliament Brewing in Rohnert Park, joins Herlinda Heras in studio on Brew Ha Ha today. He was on Brew Ha Ha once before, on this episode of September 8, 2022 along with Peter Lopez of Juncture Taproom.Adam has brought several Parliament beers for a taste and talk. The first is a German style Pilsner that won best Pilsner at Battle of the Brews this year. The second glass is the same pils but dry hopped with Riwaka hops from New Zealand. That provides a little toasted spice flavor and makes a comparison with the other pils.Patience, a perfect nameAdam also brought a barrel-aged beer called Patience, perfectly named, because time was key. The barrels had whiskey in them for more than 13 years, then the beer is aged in them for a year and a half. Then it was in the bottle for 4 years. At 13% ABV it is an Imperial Stout sipping and savoring, the opposite of a 'daytime' lager. It can be aged like a fine wine and this one is already 4 years in the bottle.On February 9th of 2024 they will be attending San Francisco Beer Week, and this is the first year that the gala is back. For the occasion they are preparing some special releases. One is a lambic made with cherries that they get from a grower near Sacramento. They call it the Bridesmaid because it took second place in several competitions.Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and in Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.ParliamentWho can resist a musical pun? Parliament Brewing company deserves a little bit of Funkadelic in the break. After the break, we hear a quick history of Parliament Brewing. When his brother got out of law school, he got a home brewing kit. He fell in love with the science of beer. They and their father and some partners opened 5 months before the pandemic shutdown, and survived. Adam gives thanks to his staff and vendors and collaborators who all contributed to making it work. They changed their business plan, under the suggestion to "react, don't over-react."See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options. Check out the family-friendly New Year's Eve party!Two other hazy beers are next to taste. The first is Prism, very hoppy and fragrant 6.6% with herbal tea flavors. The second is Crash, 7.1% ABB, with Riwaka hops. Herlinda was stuck at the airport the other day and got to taste some Parliament Kaleidoscope in the airport bar. We also hear about a trip to Washington that the Bosch brothers took, to see the hops that they use.
Herlinda and Josh.Our guest today on Brew Ha Ha is Heidrun Meadery head meadmaker Josh McCarthy. The Heidrun is the name of a mythical viking goat. Mead is the oldest alcohol in the world, brewed with honey.Heidrun takes the still fermented mead and then turns it into a sparkling beverage using the traditional champagne method. They are the only meadery that we know of so far that does champagne mead.Honey is very sweet, Josh explains. They add water to the honey to dilute it to the sugar proportion desired, and they also remove other parts like wax. Then they chill it down and handle it like wine. The bubbles are done the same way as in traditional champagne. The only difference is the ingredient they start with.The mead is able to carry flavors of the forage that the bees covered, so you can taste radish blossom, carrot blossom and more in the mead. They do brut naturel, so they are bone dry.See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.Hawaiian Christmas BerryThey also have an estate at Point Reyes Station, and they collect honey there. They also bring in honeys from around the world. This honey comes from Hawaii. Josh points out that whatever flavors come from the honey are the only flavors in the finished product. They never add any other flavors, just the honey itself. Their small community of bees includes feral hives and domestic hives. They don’t like yellowjackets which come and destroy the hive. Herlinda reminds us, don’t use Round-Up which takes out the good bugs too. Honey, water and yeast make mead. Josh explains, they start like beer but treat it like wine.Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.They use the same fermenting yeast that champagne producers use. It does not impart any of its own flavor. They ferment about 10 days for the wine to get through fermentation. Then they do a natural settling process, four to six or eight weeks, depending on the honey. Each variety is very different. Their tasting room is located in a greenhouse and it is a nice visit. There are many flowering plants that are for the bees, and you can taste the garden in your glass.Every wine they make is 12.5% ABV, which is the same as sparkling wine.
Today's podcast episode is a replay of a fun episode from May 9, 2019, featuring Norman Greenbaum, longtime Sonoma County resident famous for the song Spirit in the Sky (because today, Thursday December 14, The Drive is running a replay of the show from 2 weeks ago, live on Wine Country Radio, in our usual time slot). Enjoy this episode from pre-Covid-19 days!Norman Greenbaum and his portuguese guitar.Norman Greenbaum is our guest on Brew Ha Ha today, joining Steve Jaxon, Mark Carpenter and Herlinda Heras. He wrote and performed the iconic 1969 song "Spirit in the Sky." Herlinda Heras is back from her trip to Portugal and has brought three Portuguese beers to taste.Norman Greenbaum is a longtime Sonoma County resident. Steve asks Norman if the success of his song still surprises him. It has been in movies and commercials and continues to have its own life. Any band or singer wants to have a hit record, and he was lucky to have a hit on the charts. He says he may have been a one-hit wonder but it has been in over 60 movies and a couple dozen commercials.The song in commercialsIt was in an ad for Audi in the last Super Bowl. Spirit in the Sky was in the Budweiser Discovery Reserve American Red Lager beer advertisement. The beer was brewed to commemorate the 1969 moon landing. The song was recorded in San Francisco.Herlinda asks Norman to tell the story of the song and he remembers various scenes and themes from old Western films. The Stovall Sisters were his backup singers, they were from Oakland where they also sang in church. Mark Carpenter remembers the environment of the late 1960s and remembers the song as a really big hit.See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.Beers from PortugalHerlinda Heras has brought beers from Portugal, including an "APA" which they call an American Pale Ale. Praxis Brewery is in Coimbra which is famous for having really good water. The Praxis family younger generation has revived the brewery and Mark says it's a great example of Europeans doing an American style. It is 6% alcohol which is reasonable. There is also an 8/5% double Bock from Vaida Brewery outside of Aveiro which is south of Porto. Herlinda has also brought a beer with a woman on the label.Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.Norman Greenbaum remembers that New York was a center of music recording but he was not fond of the city. He knew that Hollywood was the other center of that business so he went to LA. He started Dr. West's Medicine Show and Junk Band and signed with a record company immediately. The Eggplant that Ate Chicago was their first hit.Now his songs have been in countless commercials and movies. Norman does say he is flabbergasted and thanks "the Spirit in the Sky for taking such good care of me." He never gets tired of hearing it even if he wrote it. It still sends shivers up his spine.Norman has brought a special guitar today which is from Portugal. He bought it at the flea market in Petaluma for $25, 40 years ago and brought it to a luthier for repairs. It disappeared and 42 years later, the guy contacted him saying it was fixed! It is called a Viola de Terra made of birds-eye maple.
Elk Fence Distillery co-owners Scott Woodson and Gail Coppinger join Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha. The Elk Fence Distillery is a recently opened small-batch craft distillery that makes American single-malt whiskey, botanical gin and vodka. It has the distinction of being the only distillery located in the city of Santa Rosa, California. Juniper, coriander, tangerine and grapefruit all go into the botanical gin.They were supposed to open on March 14, 2020, the day that the state closed down for Covid. The Drive was on the air that day when Governor Newsome made the announcement. They had a party ready for 600 people that they had to cancel.Real Kentucky and Pennsylvania Learnin'They actually went to Kentucky and Pennsylvania to learn how to distill. The guy who made their equipment directed them to two schools where he knew they would learn how to operate his equipment. The gin ages in new American white oak barrels. It looks like a Sauvignon Blanc. Scott calls it Christmas in a glass.Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.Their tasting room is at 464 Kenwood Court in Santa Rosa, open from 11am-4pm Fridays and Saturdays. It's across from Lithia Dodge, close to the studio. Their product is also in Bottle Barn, Wilibee’s, Oliver’s (soon) , Grossman’s and Perch and Plow.The name Elk Fence comes from where they grow their barley, near a fence that separates 300 elk from all the dairy farmers out in Marin County where they live. Scott lives in Inverness and Gail lives in Point Reyes.Shorty's Bunkhouse on KWMRGail also does a radio show on KWMR a listener-supported community station, on alternating Thursdays, 6:30pm–8:30pm. The show's name is Shorty’s Bunkhouse and she plays bluegrass, americana and more. Check out the sample 2-hour show on her show's website. She started on the radio in 1997. Their signal is strong and can be heard in Sonoma County too. Steve Jaxon knows that station and likes it. He heard Robert Earl Keen playing Merry Christmas from the Family for the first time and they realize it was on her show.See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.Next they taste the American single-malt whiskey. They won a silver medal this year for this at the American Distilling Institute. The American distilling Institute founder is Bill Owens. (He is also the man who took a famous picture of violence at the ill-fated Rolling Stones concert at Altamont.)Next they shake up a cocktail called The Entitled Housewife, named after Becky Robinson, a performer that Herlinda also knows. Scott's original cocktail is made with their Golden Own barrel aged gin, Mr. Black coffee, some pecan liqueur, and club soda.Scott and Gail are Elks and Herlinda is a Moose and may become an Elk now. The Elks Club of Petaluma should come to Elk Fence and elk it up.
Herlinda Heras and Kevin McGeeKevin McGee, President and CEO of Anderson Valley Brewing Co, AVBC, joins Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha.The foundation of brewery dates to 35 years ago. It is the world's first solar powered brewery. Kevin explains how they recently streamlined their lineup of IPAs, including their classic west coast IPA, Hop Ottin'. They are tasting the Coastal Ale which is a partnership with the Surfrider foundation.Anderson Valley Brewing Co. will be taking over the ale stands at the Dickens Christmas Village in the Cow Palace in San Francisco. They will be pouring 11 different beers. Some of them are seasonal, like the Winter Solstice beer.Herlinda describes the fun and excitement at the Dickens Christmas Village, including old fashioned Victorian games and a fencing school. There are character actors and skillful character portrayals of Charles Dickens himself as well as many characters from the story A Christmas Carol. They perform plays and there is tea time, to do a proper British tea and also a Sherlock Holmes mystery attraction too.Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.BoontlingThe name of one of their beers, Baal Hornin' means good drinking in Boontling, the local dialect.Since 1997, every year Anderson Valley Brewing Co. has hosted the Booneville Beer Festival. Proceeds going to hyper-local charities, within 10 or 20 miles of the brewery. Over the years they have raised over 1.8 million dollars. The next Beer Fest is Saturday, May 4, 2024.See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.If you visit Booneville, don't try to drive home too late in the day. The road is perilous, but there are lots of lodging opportunities around.The next tasting is the Winter Solstice beer. It is rich tasting and at 6.9% ABV it is stronger than the easy drinking varieties.Beer plus deer = beer, hence Barkley the mascot of Anderson Valley Brewing Co., a bear with antlers.
Ava Kemper's Hello Hello HelloCollin MacDonnell, of Henhouse Brewing Co. and Ava Kemper, intern, are our guests today on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras. Ava Kemper holds a BS in Environmental Science and Management from UC Davis and is also a graduate of the UC Davis Master Brewers Certificate in Brewing Sciences program.This year Ava has been an intern at Henhouse Brewing Co., where she developed and then brewed her own beer called Hello Hello Hello.Collin tells about Henhouse Brewing Co.'s intentions in organizing their internship program with UC Davis. They wanted to create job opportunities for everyone and Ava's internship is the first one under the new program. Ava describes entering the UC Davis Master Brewer's program after starting to work in the field of her first degree, which is Environmental Science.Ava's beer is called Hello Hello Hello. Its name comes from the title of a song by one of her favorite artists, Remi Wolf. Herlinda appreciates Hello Hello Hello, she calls it clean and aromatic, a perfectly balanced beer.Henhouse's 12th AnniversaryHenhouse is coming up on its 12th anniversary. Since 2015 they have been located a short walk from where The Drive's radio studio is located, in a converted train car. Henhouse does support many local non-profits and they feel strongly about their position in the community.Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.The release party for Hello Hello Hello is in the Henhouse Santa Rosa location on Friday, Nov. 17. They have also opened a room in Novato where they only play vinyl records. Collin is proud of this result of their internship program. They really wanted the internship to be a well rounded experience, not just about brewing. They wanted it to be about the beer business, so production, packaging, quality and field sales. Ava attended a Big Chicken marketing meeting and heard a presentation about financial statements too. It focusses on the entire business. Herlinda too recognizes the importance of the practical business side, including corporate contingency plans for the future.See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.
Homerun Pizza Knuckle ballsCynthia Caughie, owner of Homerun Pizza, joins us in the studio today on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras.Collin McDonnell and Ava Kemper from Henhouse Brewing Co. are also in today. Listen to their conversation with Herlinda and Steve Jaxon on this separate podcast episode, right here. Lauren Schwing from Alliance Medical Center is also staying in the studio, to talk about their Giving Tuesday initiatives associated with Henhouse and Homerun Pizza, after telling us about that also in the previous segment of The Drive.Homerun Pizza has been around for 20 years and Cynthia Caughie has owned it for the last five years. She was a server there for 13 years and then had the opportunity to take ownership. That happened after the Tubbs fire. Her mantra is “Community supporting community.” Check out the Homerun Pizza website and socials to see Cynthia tell all about it.They make their pizza dough and their sauce from scratch daily. Their signature dish is the Knuckle Ball. It is like a small round calzone, pizza crust stuffed with mozzarella cheese and either peperoni or bacon. Steve Jaxon gives the authentic Napoletano pronunciation “muzzarell” for mozzarella. You can tell he heard the dialect around his home as a child, as many Italian Americans once did.Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.Homerun Pizza had a party in March and will have another party before the end of the year, to celebrate their 20th year in the community.Baseball NamesThey have a menu full of items that are named after something or someone in baseball, such as the Ty Cobb Salad.On December 5, they will experiment with a bingo night. In honor of Ava Kemper and her Hello Hello Hello beer, they will have a full keg of it there that night.See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.Cynthia tells about how Homerun Pizza is going to celebrate its 20th anniversary with Giving Tuesday, by doing it every third Tuesday of the month. It is a way for them to show their gratitude to the community that supported them through the pandemic.Lauren Schwing from Alliance Medical Center says it’s a good day when she can hang out around Homerun Pizza. They will have other community partners with raffle prizes on the Homerun Pizza Giving Tuesdays. It’s a great opportunity to get a great pizza and some presents all in the name of charity.Phil Niekro, Hoyt Wilhelm and Charlie Hough never thought of this!Homerun Pizza also offer frozen Knuckle Balls. If you purchase an order of frozen Knuckle Balls they will make a $5 donation to Alliance Medical Center. They make their pasta sauce from scratch. “It’s like my nonny’s,” says Cynthia. They have an extensive menu of wraps, salads, burgers and more. And if you like Ranch dressing, put some on a Knuckle Ball. Yum! The name of mozzarella cheese comes from the Italian verb ‘mozzare’ which means to cut a piece off of a larger piece of something. In this case, the cheesemakers have their hands in some very hot water, pulling and kneading a large ball of cheese. They will pull off a piece big enough to fit in the hand, knead it into a ball, and set it aside. The action of detaching the piece gives the name to the cheese. -C. DiMatteo, The Drive Italian translator and etymologist.
Shadow of a DoubtNatalie Cilurzo, co-owner of Russian River Brewing Co. joins Herlinda Heras and Steve Jaxon on Brew Ha Ha to talk about their plans for 2024.2024 is going to be a big year for Russian River Brewing Co. First, it is their 20th anniversary. They opened on April 3, 2004, on 4th St. in Santa Rosa. They also released the first Pliny the Younger in 2005. The Pliny release dates are now March 22 – April 4. They do wholesale distribution on draft for retail customers in February, still.Pliny the Younger is a super hoppy triple IPA, about 10.25% ABV. It started as a beer they made to drum up some business during the slow season. For several years they did this with no fanfare. But in 2010 people started communicating online, including at sites like RateBeer.com. The beer was rated one of the best beers in the world. Since then, it has grown into an international hit. For more about the 2023 Pliny the Younger, here is Natalie's BHH podcast episode from last February.They do no advertising and its success is 100% consumer driven and they only made two batches at the Santa Rosa pub, so probably about 60 kegs. They always remind their team how important it is not to take its success for granted. It’s on tap for two weeks, and people can buy a limited amount. It gets pretty crowded on weekends.Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.Natalie describes the base recipe of Pliny the Younger as Pliny the Elder on steroids. It uses a lot of hops but almost every year there is a tweak to the hops chosen.Shadow of a DoubtThey taste Shadow of a Doubt seasonal porter. It’s 9.9% and is named after an Alfred Hitchcock film that was shot in Santa Rosa in 1943.One final announcement, Pliny will be running for President again, Pliny for President and Blind Pig for Veep. On December 12, it will be released on tap and then it will be brewed quarterly through election season. Blind Pig Brewing Company was the name of Vinny Cilurzo's first brewery, back in Temecula, California in 1994.
Sausalito Liquor CompanyScott Jampol, the founder of Sausalito Liquor Company, is our guest today on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras.They are a brand-new company that launched about two and a half weeks ago. They begin by tasting Marin Coastal Gin, one of their three new products. It is made with ingredients that are locally sourced for a unique local flavor. Gin has to be juniper-forward, to be really gin. It has some Albanian and Italian juniper, as well as California citrus peel, and nori seaweed.They found a local source of seaweed foraged off the coast in northern California.The junipers in Europe have softer berries. Scott describes the differences between wild juniper and farmed juniper from California and Europe.Scott has been working on getting the new company ready for about three years. They have a brand new website and they can ship to 48 states. He worked in marketing for tech companies including OpenTable where he was head of marketing. He wanted to do something local and community-oriented and physical, after all his time spent in marketing where things are less tangible.Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.Sausalito's Distilling HistoryHe discovered that Sausalito had a distillery, from 1892 to 1963, when it burned down. At one time it was the largest distillery on the west coast.The whiskeys are labeled “Unsinkable Whiskey” and there is Bourbon and Rye. The labels have a liberty ship on the label. Scott recognizes the Unsinkable mentality of northern California with his label. The bottles are 100% recycled glass.“He’s w-r-y wry” – HerlindaThere are lots of flavors in this rye whiskey, which has finished in port wine barrels. The difference between Bourbon and Rye is that Bourbon has to be at least 50% corn, and Rye has to be at least 50% rye. Otherwise, many bourbons and ryes have different proportions of other ingredients and a broad spectrum of flavors.See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.They are just beginning to book its distribution network, so for the moment the best place to find them is the Sausalito Liquor Company website.
Ken Hartoonian calls in to Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras to talk about the Vintage Beer Show at 21st Amendment Brewery on Saturday Nov. 4 from 9am-1pm.It is called the 39th Annual Western Regional Beer Can and Breweriana Show. Breweriana is anything brewery related. It can be a can, bottle, sign, coaster, bottle cap, neon sign or even some brewing equipment. The first show was held in Watsonville, hosted by the largest rose wholesaler in the state. They have extended the spirit of that show into an event where the public is invited to browse. A lot of brewers really appreciate brewing history. For example, there are lots of vintage beer signs at Russian River Brewing Co.When Herlinda asks Ken about the most unusual item in his vast collection, he mentions a can of 7-Eleven beer, from 1959. It came from a long-defunct brewery in New Jersey and was only made for a short time before it was discontinued.Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.Why Breweriana?Some collectors are willing to pay high prices for these items but they are not persons of average wealth. These people are just looking to diversify their assets, and some items can have demand among collectors. Some companies do keep collections of old products and labels for film productions, including beer labels.See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.Musical Beer Commercials of the 1950sTo keep up the spirit of the 39th annual Western Regional Beer Can and Breweriana Show, this edition of the Brew Ha Ha podcast features three examples of beer commercials from the 1950s. First, at 0:48, a musical ad for Pabst Blue Ribbon with a chorus and jazz band, in the key of E-flat. Then, at 5:30, an ad for Blatt's Beer, with music and singing this time in A-flat. Finally, after the end of the conversation, at 13:20, a Firesign moment followed by an ad for Valley Forge Beer. It features music in the key of G-flat, unless they wrote it out in F-sharp instead. We actually have no way of knowing which key they used, but it has to have been written out for the band and singers, one way or the other. This is a unique enharmonic moment in the universe of musical beer ads.
The October 21, 2023 Oktoberfest event.Wayne Wilson, the Exalted Ruler of the Petaluma Elks Lodge, joins Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha. The Petaluma Elks Lodge is sponsoring an Oktoberfest Beer Event on Saturday, October 21. The Elks are a charitable and fraternal organization, for men and women. This event is a fund raiser for The Elks National Foundation.Wayne Wilson describes their activities like Veterans service projects. The Elks also have one of the largest scholarship programs in the country and the National Foundation supports that. They also get involved in drug use prevention and organized sports competition.How the Elks BeganThe Elks lodge started as a bunch of Broadway actors in the 1870s. They were called The Jolly Corks. The New York Blue Laws prohibited bars from being open on Sundays. As a private club they could serve alcohol after midnight on Saturday nights. They also developed a social and fraternal organization to help their members with issues like injuries and medical problems.The original Elks held a vote to choose their mascot animal and it came down to a vote of 8-7 in favor of Elks over Buffaloes.They just held the Purple Pig Poker Run which is a combination poker game and car and motorcycle rally. It raises money for mental health and medical support for kids in need.Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.They have sold out tickets for the Oktoberfest Beer as of now so the best way to get in is as the guest of an Elks member. Anyone interested in the Elks can just come over and meet them.See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.Their events are an opportunity to socialize while also supporting their many charitable activities. They also put on Sunday Football Breakfasts. They get together with several TVs in a large facility and a patio out back with a barbeque. We also hear about the Mentor Me program and the Children’s Christmas Party.
Brian Hunt from Moonlight Brewing and Regan Long from Local Brewing Co. of San Francisco join Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha. They are both on the show today to talk about events that are happening this Saturday, October 14.Moonlight Brewing Co. has been around since 1992 and they are having a launch party on Saturday October 14 for a new beer called Boney Fingers.Brews on the BayBrews on the Bay is also happening on October 14. It’s a beer festival happening on the USS Jeremiah O’Brien, a decommissioned naval ship in San Francisco harbor. Get tickets at eventbrite, at this link.Local Brewing Co. of SF will be at Brews on the Bay this Saturday, Oct. 14. Brews on the Bay is focused on serving and promoting breweries based in San Francisco and in the Bay Area. Follow the links for tickets and list of participating breweries.Boney FingersThey taste some Boney Fingers, which is very dark, but is only 6.7% alcohol. Brian points out that it tastes like black coffee. The color comes from roasting the grains.The proceeds from Brews on the Bay go to support the Jeremiah O’Brian.See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.They pour a Local Brewing SF beer called “69 Pils” which they started brewing during the pandemic. They used Australian Enigma hops, which are rarely used. Herlinda notices that it makes a strongly flavored beer even if the beer is light. Regan calls it, “nice and subdued.” It has a lower ABV at 5.1%. They won a medal at the North American Beer Awards a few years ago for this beer. Brian notices that this combination of hops provides a dry warmth and it is a delightful change from beers that tend to taste the same. They also taste Loud and Clear, their version of an IPA. They wanted it to be light bodied and not be bitter.Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
Herlinda & SteveBrew Ha Ha welcomes Herlinda Heras back to the studio after her recent trip to Singapore where she was a judge at the Asia Beer Championship. There were judges coming from all over Asia and they tasted and judged beers from Japan, China, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, India and more.Singapore is on the equator so it is a hot humid place and most popular beers there are the lighter lagers and pilsners.We hear about Herlinda’s travel accident which curtailed her travel plans, caused her to have an experience with the Singapore health care system and then to cancel the second leg of her journey. The flight was 16 hours and she was in an uncomfortable seat. She regretted not wearing her compression socks. Herlinda recommends them to anyone.See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.Yuzu Ceylon BeerHerlinda has brought Yuzu Ceylon beer, with the Yuzu, a common Asian fruit, and Ceylon tea. She has a lot of praise for the food in Singapore. There were amazing flavors everywhere, even including chicken feet. Even in the mornings, she needed more time at the buffet. There were different kinds of noodle bars on different days, and so many rice recipes it's overwhelming.Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.Singopore's international airport is well known among travellers as one of the best airports in the world. Herlinda sure thinks it's the coolest airport in the world. It is efficient, modern and comfortable. There is also a unique decor feature. In the middle of the airport they have a gigantic waterfall in a glass dome called the Jewel. Right at about 10:oo o'clock AM, a crown gathered at the Jewel because that is when the waterfall comes on.Herlinda brought a bottle of Pliny the Elder at the judges’ reception and that attracted a lot of attention. It is amazing to see how Russian River Brewing Co.'s reputation is strong around the world.
Hendrick VerspechtHendrick Verspecht from cuVer Brewing Co. is our guest on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon with guest host Peter Lopez sitting in for Herlinda Heras again today. Hendrick’s first time on Brew Ha Ha was this episode of September 16, 2021, just before cuVer opened. He was also on BHH on May 5, 2022. Now they are preparing to celebrate their second anniversary, on October 7, 2023.They begin by tasting the award-winning cuVer signature Pepperwood Saison Ale.Peter is a busy entrepreneur who runs Juncture Taproom and is a partner in Santa Rosa Pizzeria. Today he has brought some sandwiches from Santa Rosa Pizzeria. They are all named after something iconic in Santa Rosa. This panino is called Taylor Mountain. Another is Pierre’s French Dip.cuVer is pronounced “koo-VAY.” (Cuver is the infinitive 'to ferment,' its past participle cuvée, 'fermented.' -ed.) When the Cushing family and the Verspecht family formed the partnership, they took the first letters of their two names and made cuVer. Hendrick tells that the French expresson “cuver son vin” literally means to ferment one's wine, but idiomatically it means to sleep off a hangover.The Pepperwood Saison Ale was the first recipe that Hendrick ever made. It is a Belgian farmhouse ale flavored with California Bay Laurel and Meyer lemon peel. Those are ingredients are not available in Belgium so this is a real California Belgian version.cuVer Second Anniversary: October 7cuVer will be celebrating their second anniversary on October 7, 2023. Peter Lopez’ restaurant was one of their first customers. The anniversary celebration will feature a food truck, Lila’s Streetside Eats, and will go from 12 noon to 8 pm on October 7. They will also have a darts and cornhole tournament. They have a darts league every Tuesday night. The party will feature a competition where you can play to win cuVer merch.They are located in Windsor at 7704 Bell Road. They are down the street from Barley and Bine. They are closed Monday and Wednesday. The other days, Tuesday and Thursday open from 5-8pm, Friday and Saturday 12 noon to 8pm and Sunday from 1-6pm.The next beer they taste is a Belgian quadruple, which is even stronger then the Belgian Tripel.Hendrick tells the story of how his father wanted Belgian beers after they moved to California, and he started home brewing, for themselves as much as for others. Hendrick also gives credit to Anderson Valley Brewing and North Coast Brewing and Russian River Brewing Co., who also make Belgian styles.
Paul Hawley and Remy Martin, co-founders of Fogbelt Brewing Co. along with Fogbelt Brewing Co. Head Brewer J.P. Bellotti are our guests on Brew Ha Ha, with Peter Lopez sitting in for Herlinda Heras. Remy and Paul were last on Brew Ha Ha on this episode of August 18, 2022 to tell the Fogbelt story as of then.Peter Lopez brought some Calzones from Santa Rosa Pizzeria, which he promised to Steve Jaxon the last time he was here with his partner Ignacio Ruiz.Remy, Paul and J.P. brought a case of different Fogbelt beers, some Octoberfest, two West Coast IPAs, two Hazies and their flagship lager. Fogbelt has five wet hop beers, brewed with fresh hops harvested and used immediately.Wet Hopped BeerThey use hops from local hop farmers, to support them. They like to make as many of these beers as they can, because they happen only in hop harvest season. The comparison is to fresh herbs versus dried herbs in the kitchen. They taste Fogbelt Wet Hoptober, brewed with freshly picked hops from a local hop farm, Blossom and Bine.See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.Hop farming has made a comeback in Northern California. Paul helped start the Norcal Hop Growers Alliance, to help bring hop farming back to California.They also talk about Fogbelt Beer Camp at Wildhaven. It’s like an adult summer camp, a new spin on the beer festival. Wildhaven is a “glamping” resort in Healdsburg on the Russian River, with canvas tents and firepits. They have a falconer, they teach wilderness survival, and there will be good beer and victuals.Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.Fogbelt also has a relatively new spot in Healdsburg that they opened about a year ago. It’s called Fogbelt Station, because it’s on the tracks and there is a caboose on site. They have 15 beers on tap. Remy and Paul both grew up in Healdsburg. Both of them also have a strong family background in wine.
Melissa Luci from Alexander Valley Hops and Fal Allen of Anderson Valley Brewing Co. visit Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras. Fal Allen has been on the show many times, the last time was this May 13, 2021 episode.It is hop harvest season right now, as Melissa describes. Hops grow as long vines and need tall poles and wires to climb. A field of hops looks like a plantation of telephone poles.Hops were grown from the late 1800s to about 1950 when the price collapsed. Alexander Valley Hops started in 2019 on a very long and skinny lot. They have an active Instagram page. The hops grow up poles that are 18-20 feet high. There is a top wire at that height. They want the plant (called bines) to reach that height by the summer solstice.Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.The Lost Coast Fresh Hops FestivalOn Saturday, October 14, from 2-8 PM is the Lost Coast Fresh Hops Festival, in Shelter Cove, CA. Here is their link on Brown Paper Tickets. All of the breweries up there have made a beer out of Alexander Valley Hop Farm's Chinook hops which thlost cey will open at the festival. For fresh hops, they need about 100 lbs for an 8 barrel batch. They try to use them within 24 hours. They give flavor and aroma that is very green, something that you can’t get with dry hops. Mad River Brewing is one of the sponsoring breweries.See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.Fal Allen has brought a bunch of Anderson Valley Brewing Co. beers. A lot of people were IPA obsessed for a few years, and that pendulum seems to be swinging back, so Pilsners are more and more popular now. They are tasting a Russian River Brewing Co. Hop Time Pale Ale which is made with fresh local hops, once a year at hop harvest. AVBC is also participating in a cooperative brewing project to benefit Maui.One is called Salted Caramel Porter. It’s a 9.5% ABV beer that Fal describes as a dessert beer. If you like espresso and chocolate, you may like it.Herlinda travels a lot and she will be in New York, Lithuania then Singapore.Alexander Valley Hops served 16 breweries this year, the most ever for them.
Santa Rosa Pizzeria menu.
The co-owners of Santa Rosa Pizzeria, Peter Lopez and Ignacio Ruiz, join Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha today. Peter is a frequent guest and occasional co-host on Brew Ha Ha, here is Peter's most recent BHH episode, from March of this year.
Peter Lopez is back with Ignacio Ruiz, aka Nacho, as co-owners of the new Santa Rosa Pizzeria. They have been open for about a month. They are active on Facebook, at this link. Nacho tells the story of how he and Peter worked together in another restaurant, then they reconnected. Peter found a location that used to be under another name. Also, Barolo’s Pizza was there for about 15 years. So the place has a pizza pedigree. In less than a month they started! The Art of Pizza Peter also runs Juncture Taproom and Ignacio is also the controlling partner of Art’s Place, so he is also an ideal partner for Peter. Ignacio learned pizza while working in an Italian restaurant, and he also makes pizza at Art’s Place. Art was a master and taught the art to Ignacio. Art Ibleto’s kids still control the Pasta King name, so he steers clear of things like their famous ravioli. They do have an extensive wine and beer menu.
They named all the pizzas after Santa Rosa icons, including Jerry Robinson, former Raider and All-American UCLA Bruin linebacker of yesteryear.
Jerry Robinson (84) UCLA, 1978
Peter considers his place to be a family friendly taproom, with something for everyone of all ages. He wants people to feel comfortable and safe. They even have their own Charlie Brown statue. He originally named Juncture Taproom “Confluence.” Juncture is at the corner of Mission and Montgomery, close to Howard Park and Spring Lake, where Rincon Valley and Bennett Valley come together.
There is a band called Igor and the Red Elvises that plays there. They are a great band, a lot of fun. They won Star Search with Ed McMahon on TV long before American Idol and The Voice. They took the money, bought a van an went on tour. They have a cult following.
Santa Rosa Pizzeria is open noon to 8 pm, and they do deliveries from 11:30 to 8:30.
Herlinda brought a guitar pick from the Beatles museum in Liverpool and she has lots more stories from Liverpool in the later part of the show.
Bryan Rengel, co-founder of Old Caz Beer, joins Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras in the studio today on Brew Ha Ha. Co-founder Tom Edwards was on California Wine Country on this episode on March 31, 2022. Also in this show we will hear from Herlinda Heras who is just back from a lightning trip to Liverpool, England last weekend.
Old Caz celebrated an anniversary last weekend. They shut the parking lot down on Saturday and had a standing room only party. Old Caz Beer is named after Old Cazadero Road. They are actually located in Rhonert Park. He and his partner met at Sonoma State on the rowing team. They were also into cycling and wanted to name a brewery after a road in west Sonoma County. They settled on Old Cazadero Road, because he describes it as a “six-mile death climb” with all kinds of exposure to sun and shade. It has all of west county in one beautiful six-mile hill.
From Scuba to BeerAfter college Bryan worked as an underwater welder in the Gulf of Mexico, later in Africa and then in Alaska. He was the captain of a gold dredging boat in Alaska named the Midas, which is the name of their blonde beer today. After his second summer in Alaska, his friend Tom was working at Bear Republic and they decided to start a brewery together then.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
They have been in business for five years and have had the taproom for four years. “It’s been a hell of a ride,” says Bryan.
Their taproom is open every day of the week, weekdays 3-9, Saturdays noon – 10 and Sunday noon – 7. They have food trucks almost every day. Their goal is to have them seven days a week. Old Caz makes a lot of different varieties and Bryan says they make a beer for everyone. It’s a long list. There is one called Orange Crush, an Imperial Kettle Sour. It is an 8% beer that tastes like a mimosa.
See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.
They taste their Bukovany Pivo, a Czech Pilsner. It just won Gold at the US Open. It is a crisp, clean refreshing Pilsner. Bryan says, “We only make crushable beer.” It’s another term they made up for a good beer that you will want a second and a third of.
Herlinda in LiverpoolHerlinda has arrived from SFO just today, having returned from England. She had to go to Liverpool for a chance to interview Frieda, the former manager of the Beatles’ fan club. She met Pete Best when he played in Sonoma County. He has opened a Beatles Museum in Liverpool and Herlinda made their acquaintance. She hardly did any interviews at the time. She also got a chance to meet other people associated with the band. Herlinda describes a kind of present-day Beatlemania she experienced during the trip. “I’m kind of tired, actually,” says Herlinda, without a hint of irony.
She also saw Burning Man from the sky flying in.
We don’t do things normal, we do things ‘extra credit.’ – Bryan Rengel, Old Caz Beer
Bryan describes how Old Caz got a lot of free equipment from Craigslist. His partner Tom also tells that story on his CWC interview back in March 2022. His new space in SOMA Village is under construction and they hope it is all ready by the end of the year.
Brew Ha Ha is back, with Natalie Cilurzo from Russian River Brewing Co. and Jenny Ogston from Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter. The Drive with Steve Jaxon is back on the air, on Wine Country Radio 95.5 FM, weekdays 3-6 pm. The Drive is also streaming at TheDrive955.com. Brew Ha Ha is also back on Thursday afternoons on The Drive. Steve Jaxon is hosting today's episode, along with Herlinda Heras.
Herlinda Heras is just back from Finland where she was judging the Sahti competition there. She talks about being a judge at competitions around the world. Some are in countries with long beer traditions like Germany, Belgium and Poland. Others, like Portugal, are developing new brewing industries now. In Finland, the Sahti is a traditional brew that dates back to Viking times.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
Jenny Ogston talks about how the Victory House is set up for the coming football season. They have over 40 TV screens just in the Victory House area of the Poppy Bank Epicenter. Russian River Brewing News Natalie Cilurzo has news about the Russian River Brewing Co. and their dog-friendly location in Windsor. The beer garden is open every day and the pub is open Wednesday through Sunday. The beer garden has lots of shade. They also have a couple of new statues from the Schultz Museum. She got a set, of Peppermint Pattie and Marcie playing frisbee. They are on display in the beer garden.
See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options. Line Dancing at Victory House Victory House now had Country line dancing, with free lessons on Tuesday nights and large events on Friday nights with DJs. They also have bingo on Wednesdays with Harry Duke and trivia on Thursdays. Poppy Bank Epicenter has everything from indoor soccer, basketball, volleyball, trampolines and bowling. They also have laser tag, virtual reality and a large arcade with lots of old and new games. They host big events and just had their largest one ever for 1500 guests. There is something to do for the whole family. They used to have axe throwing for about one eight-month period, which was fun and frightening.
Russian River Brewing Co. is approaching its twentieth anniversary next year of the downtown Santa Rosa pub. It is also the twentieth anniversary of Pliny the Younger. Natalie talks about a seasonal release called “It takes a lot of great beer to make great wine.” It is a light and refreshing hoppy blonde ale, about 5.25% alcohol.
Russian River Brewing Co. is finishing a construction project at the Windsor pub, turning one of their production spaces into a Lager house. They will brew more STS Pils and Velvet Glow Lager. The package will be a 6-pack of 12-ounce cans for the first time, which will be available in November or December.
Hop Time Harvest Ale is coming out soon, using all Alexander Valley grown hops. Also, Natalie and Vinny will be making their annual trip to the Pacific Northwest to select hops from this year’s harvest. The Fall Season at Epicenter The Fall is a busy season at Epicenter. Victory House is their feature bar, with 24 beers on tap. Half of their beers are locally produced. 25% off arcade games, bowling and more, Monday-Thursday from noon to 6pm, entertainment is 25% off. Kid’s Night Out is every second Saturday of the month, and there is live music from local bands on Saturdays. They also have Comedy Night one Friday a month.
The also taste another RRBC brew, Hop Father IPA, which is named after one of Vinny’s nicknames.
Finally, Natalie describes a charity collaboration to benefit Maui that Russian River Brewing Co. is participating in. After the fires that struck the island recently, hundreds of breweries are participating by brewing the special recipe and sending the proceeds to Maui fire relief efforts.
This episode features Tara Nurin, author of A Woman's Place Is In the Brewhouse. It was originally recorded on November 4, 2021. The Drive has been on summer vacation and we haven't had new Brew Ha Ha shows. This is the last repeat episode before next week when The Drive returns to live radio, Wine Country Radio 95.5 FM, Mon-Fri 3-6. The first new episode of Brew Ha Ha will be Thursday, August 24. Cheers!
Tara Nurin
Tara Nurin, author of A Woman's Place Is In The Brewhouse, joins Herlinda Heras and Harry Duke on Brew Ha Ha today. Mark Carpenter is away this week and Harry Duke is sitting in for Steve Jaxon. Tara Nurin is the Forbes magazine beer and spirits business writer. She has been working on this book for four years and she is finally on book tour!
She has a book signing event at Russian River Brewing Co. on December 16, 2021. Herlinda suggests she could do a special label beer for the occasion. Tara describes the book, the first to document the rich history of women in brewing. The book looks at economic, political and religious factors and there are interviews with all the prominent women in the brewing business over the last several decades, such as Natalie Cilurzo, CEO of Russian River Brewing Co. New Albion Most people do not know the whole story about the first new ground-up craft brewery in the US after Prohibition, founded in 1976 in the town of Sonoma, called New Albion. There were two women who worked with the founder Jack McAuliffe, and they did the funding and the accounting. They were hard to get for interviews but Tara met one of them, Susie, and features her story in the book.
Tara Nurin will be at Russian River Brewing Co. on December 16, for a book signing of "A Woman's Place Is In The Brewhouse: A forgotten history of alewives, brewsters, witches and CEOs."
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
Visit our sponsor The Beverage People / Fermenter’s Warehouse for everything you would ever need to make beer and all kinds of other fermented foods and drinks, at home.
This episode features Erin Hinze from Bitter Girl Bitter and Mike Barber from Barber Lee Spirits. It was originally recorded on November 4, 2021. This is the end of Summer vacation for The Drive and Brew Ha Ha, so this is the last week of reruns while we don't have new shows. Next Monday, August 21, The Drive returns to live radio so the next new episode of Brew Ha Ha will be Thursday, August 24. For now,. Cheers!
Erin Hinze from Bitter Girl Bitters and Mike Barber from Barber Lee Spirits distillery in Petaluma join Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras today on Brew Ha Ha. Also, Dustin Sullivan is in, to announce the opening of his second restaurant. Morning Mood by Edvard Grieg, played on a wood recorder:
http://brewhaharadio.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Grieg-Morning-Mood-on-a-Wood-Recorder.m4a
Erin Hinze was on Brew Ha Ha on this episode of May 17, 2018. Mike Barber’s wife organizes the Petaluma Holiday Food Fair. There are lots of vendors including Bitter Girl Bitters, The Spice Queen and many others. You can do Christmas shopping at the Petaluma Hotel and have a cocktail too. (The 2021 edition took place on Nov. 23; look for the 2022 edition at their website.)
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info. Bitter Girl Bitters Erin explains that her bitters, "...are designed to make cocktails taste amazing," using homegrown ingredients. All her bitters have a fun concept and a fun name. She brought one with coffee flavor today. I like to say that bitters are a bartender’s salt and pepper, a concentrated flavoring additive that is meant to enhance a cocktail, to bring out the spirit and the flavors, to make it a little bit tastier. -Erin Hinze For example, they are tasting some whiskey from Barber Lee Spirits, that has a little bit of maple shrub and some of these coffee bitters in it. The name of this Bitter flavor is Morning Wood, as it is based on coffee aged in oak barrels.
Visit our sponsor The Beverage People / Fermenter’s Warehouse for everything you would ever need to make beer and all kinds of other fermented foods and drinks, at home. Barber Lee Spirits Mike Barber of Barber Lee Spirits describes his single malt rye whiskey. It is 100% malted rye, a difficult and rare style for an American whiskey. It is what he started with seven years ago and is still the flagship product, among others. He and his wife have been making wine for the last seven years. His first barrel sold quickly and then he and his partners decided to build the distillery for real. They got a place and a still and they use all their own receipes and do every step themselves. You can enjoy my entire micro-booze empire… I think it’s the coolest block in Sonoma County.” -Mike Barber. Dustin Sullivan is opening Easy Rider restaurant in Petaluma, near Barber Lee Spirits. They have been open since Dec. 2021. He is a Californian and his partner and chef is from Virginia and knows Southern cooking. They plan to combine the best of Sonoma County farm production with Southern style recipes. For example, their Caprese salad us made with fried green tomatoes. After the Moscow Mule, an Old Fashioned The second cocktail is an Old Fashioned. Erin says the bitters are the aromatic finish on a cocktail. You need to sip on it to enjoy the aromatics and the combinations. “To me this is Thanksgiving in a glass.”
Mike Barber describes the other products. 90% of their production is the two main ones, the rye whiskey and a single malt corn whiskey. But they also make special small batches of all kinds of distilled spirits. They use their custom-built fat bottom pot still. For example, they have a Gravenstein Apple Brandy, Rum made with Piloncillo sugar, they are about to bottle their Grappa and they make an absinthe blanche.
Barber Lee Spirts uses Bitter Girl Bitters in their cocktails and has them for sale at the distil...
We continue the Brew Ha Ha summer vacation with this repeat podcast of an episode from October 5, 2021, all about fresh hops, with Natalie and Vinny Cilurzo, co-owners of Russian River Brewing Co. Cheers!
Fresh Hops are front and center today on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Mark Carpenter, as we welcome Vinnie and Natalie Cilurzo from Russian River Brewing Company. Vinnie and Natalie are the co-owners of Russian River Brewing Co. and they have brought a pack of fresh hops into the studio today. Now is a busy time, the hops are being harvested and there are special hoppy beers being made and enjoyed. (This was recorded during Covid-19 times.) The Russian River Brewing Co. Winds0r location and the Santa Rosa pub are both open. They have been using the parklette on 4th Street, which was done to allow social distancing for Covid precautions, and while they won't be there forever, they are using it and enjoying it for as long as possible. They also have some longer term construction plans to expand in Santa Rosa.
Vinnie says that RRBC has brought in a lot of fruit lately, peaches and grape pumice, Syrah and Sauvignon Blanc, which they use in various fruity beers with some sour tartness. They have one called Hop Time, which is on tap and in cans in their brew pubs only. It's the only way to get it. They made a double batch in Santa Rosa. It uses wet hops so it is a bulky job, using locally grown hops from the Crane ranch. RRBC has a sour beer club, only for fans of that style, no hoppy beers.
"Next year, we will make Hop Time with barley that Ron and Erica Crane have grown, also. So that will make it a complete local beer," says Vinnie.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
Susan Boyle
Again as The Drive is on Summer vacation, here is a repeat of an episode of Brew Ha Ha, originally recorded on October 6, 2022, with Susan Boyle, the official Irish Spirits Ambassador. Cheers!
Susan Boyle, the Irish Spirits Ambassador is the guest of Herlinda Heras with Peter Lopez who is sitting in for Harry Duke on Brew Ha Ha today.
First, Harry Duke is calling in from a roadside attraction on Route 66 in Oklahoma, on his road trip. Oklahoma City has a thriving craft beer scene, and he’s “not in the land of IPAs anymore.” If he sees one or two on the board, it’s a surprise. The Pilsners and Lagers are more popular there among the craft brewers. They are going from their Fall beers to their Winter beers. Ireland's Bord Bia Bord Bia is the Irish Food Board, that oversees food and drink exports from Ireland. There is a renaissance going on in Irish distilling. After the low point of the 1960s there has been a great revival. Herlinda points out that Bourbon and Whiskey start off with the wort, the same way beer does, only they don’t add hops and they distill it instead of ferment.
Herlinda has brought a bottle of Guinness West Indies Porter. It is a historic recipe, which came from their corporate archives. There is a lot of brewing history in those documents. They have a whiskey called Lost Irish, a blended Irish whiskey. Irish whiskey can be aged in any kind of wood, such as chestnut or acacia, besides oak.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
Susan's portfolio includes whiskeys, cream liqueurs, white spirits including gin and Irish Poitín (pronounced “potcheen”) sometimes also called Irish moonshine. Irish cream liqueur is one of three spirits whose name and origin are regulated, along with Irish whiskey and Irish Poitín.
This whiskey has spent time in six different casks which impart a spectrum of flavors. It is drinkable and smooth with caramel, toffee and nuts in the flavors. "Everything tastes better with friends."
We have a special conversation with Bob Brewer, former Anchor Brewing employee, while The Drive and Brew Ha Ha are still on Summer vacation this year. There is sad news in the brewing industry, as Sapporo has announced that Anchor Brewing is closing. Here is the conversation that Herlinda Heras recorded on July 12 with Bob Brewer, who worked for Anchor for many years.
When Bob Brewer was originally hired at Anchor in 1985, he had been working for a beer wholesaler which also distributed Anchor, since about 1977. He was a draft beer installer and also did nearly everything to deliver beer, including carrying kegs around San Francisco. Bob would always say he had the best job in the world. “I get to deliver the best beer in the world to the best people in the world in the best city in the world.” He was working to support his wife who was getting a degree in petroleum engineering. She took a job in southern California and he made the move. When Mark Carpenter called to ask if he could become their distributor there, Fritz Maytag presented him with “the presumptive close” and he got the job. He also got some work experience in England, which had a completely different regulatory environment. There was a brewery which was making a beer that they called Steam, too. But he mostly concentrated on the local market. The international market was more to “show the flag” than to move lots of beer. “I don’t now whether the beer was the novelty or I was.” He worked with a famous English beer expert named Michael Jackson. Visiting the Barley Farm in Washington Fritz Maytag, who owned Anchor at the time, had a relationship with a farmer in southern Oregon who grew the barley that they used in the Christmas Ale. This was Fritz’ idea so that his staff could understand the origin of their ingredients. There was a famous bus trip to Yakima with Fritz and Anchor staff including Bob. They stopped at Mendocino Brewing Company for some Red Tail Ale, one of the original craft brewers. (It is now Hopland Tap run by Ron Lindenbusch, ex of Lagunitas.)
But “the elephant in the room” is the fact that Sapporo is closing Anchor. This feels like a loss in the family to Herlinda, and to many of us in the broad Anchor family. Fritz Maytag wanted to retire and sold the company to an investment group. They invested in the company and hired Bob as an ambassador. And then they sold to Sapporo. For most of the rest of this episode, Bob Brewer talks at length about the history of Anchor including some thoughts about the recent history and its closing.
Ryan Gibbons and Kent Fortner.
With The Drive on Summer vacation, here is an encore presentation (which sounds more elegant than 'repeat') of this January, 2023 episode which is a personal favorite of Herlinda Heras.
Mare Island Brewing Company co-founders Ryan Gibbons and Kent Fortner join Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha today. Mare Island was a naval shipyard since the earliest days of California and Herlinda was actually born there, since her father was in the US Navy. It was the oldest naval base west of the Mississippi, and also has the oldest golf course and one of the oldest Tiffany stained glass windows in the west, in its local church. Read about the history of Mare Island here.
Kent and Ryan founded Mare Island Brewing Co. after they met in the wine business. They are both professional wine makers. It is near the city of Vallejo and the city fathers asked him if he could move his winemaking operation there. The topography wasn’t right for that option, but when they met each other again in early 2013, they found the opportunity to open the brewery, on a shoestring. Mare Island Mare Island used to support the town of Vallejo, which fell on hard times after the base closure. The city has supported a lot of reinvestment and development of new businesses including the brewery.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Click the logo to visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
With their experience making wine, they wanted their beers to be balanced and to make traditional recipes without chasing trends. They also took the opportunity to place historical information about Mare Island on their labels. It was a center of military production. A long list of important systems was produced there, including submarines and aircraft carriers. The cans also all feature a ship in the design, with a short version of the story of that ship on the label.
Visit our sponsor Victory House online for their latest viewing and menu options. Mare Island Brewing Company locations Mare Island Brewing Company has three locations. One is at the Vallejo Ferry terminal, in Vallejo, where you take the ferry to San Francisco. The Coal Shed Brewery is on Mare Island and the First Street Taphouse is in Benicia. They brew all the beer on Mare Island and they also host events there.
Their beers are named after ships. The labels have stories that tell the histories of the ships on the label.
Herlinda & Suzanne
While The Drive is on summer vacation and no new BHH show this week, here is a show from last April featuring Suzanne Hagins from Horse and Plow Cider in Graton to talk about the cider they make from apples grown locally in and around Sebastopol, California. Cheers!
Suzanne Hagins from Horse and Plow Cider in Graton is our guest on Brew Ha Ha with Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras.
Horse and Plow makes cider and also wine. All of their cider comes from Sebastopol-grown apples. They are dry and naturally carbonated and they show the quality of the Sonoma County fruit. They are based on the famous Gravenstein apples that are mostly grown in Sebastopol. It is a blend of 12 different apple varieties and is very dry.
Horse and Plow started as a winery. The tasting room is off Hwy 116 between Graton and Sebastopol.
Cider and Mead are both good alternatives to wine and beer, for festive occasions and meals. They are tasting the Horse and Plow Farmhouse Cider. It is mostly Gravenstein apples and very dry. Visit Horse and Plow Horse and Plow ciders are at Bottle Barn and Whole Foods, Willibees, Pacific Market and Andy’s. Hwy 116, Gravenstein Hwy, close to Andy’s, open 12-5 Thursday through Monday. They accept reservations online or by phone. There are art shows and music performances. They do tasting flights of wines, ciders, and mixed flights. It is family and dog friendly.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Click the logo to visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
Horse and Plow uses many unusual varieties of apples in their ciders, more than 30 varieties.
Cider is made like wine, which made it easy for them to add cider to their operation which was already licensed for wine. Fully half of their business at the tasting room is cider.
Visit our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.
They also taste their Rosé made from 100-year-old dry-farmed Carignane vines located in Mendocino County. They pick the fruit early to preserve the acidity. There are strawberry flavors in the wine. They have one-liter refillable growlers that can be refilled with red or white wine or cider. Finally they taste their Pinot Noir, known for being fruit forward with a silky texture.
Harry Duke & Natalie Cilurzo.
While The Drive is on vacation and there is no new BHH show today, here is a reissue of the show from last February 2, with the very first taste of the 2023 Pliny the Younger, featuring special guest Natalie Cilurzo from Russian River Brewing Co. Enjoy!
Natalie Cilurzo from Russian River Brewing Company joins Brew Ha Ha with the first growler of the Pliny the Younger 2023 edition.
Later, the subject changes to SF Beer Week, when Colin McDonald from Hen House Brewing and Gail Williams will also be on. That portion of today’s live show will have its own separate podcast page, here.
Today’s episode of Brew Ha Ha continues a tradition of Russian River Brewing Co. bringing the new Pliny the Younger into the KSRO studios for its first tasting. Here is last year’s episode on the same occasion. A Triple IPA Pliny the Younger is a Triple IPA, which means it is a lot hoppier and a little bit higher in alcohol than regular double IPA beers. It is actually a quadruple dry hopped beer. “There is a copious amount of hops in this beer, which gives it that beautiful luscious aroma.” The hops are Simcoe, Amarillo, Chinook, Citra, Mosaic, Nectaron, Warrior and Elixir. Elixir, “the strawberry hop,” was added last year. Nectaron is the new hop for 2023. It brings nectarine and candied citrus fruit flavors.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Click the logo to visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
Pliny the Younger’s official release will happen from March 24 through April 6. During that time it will be on tap in Santa Rosa and Windsor. Guests will be limited to three 10-oz. pours and bottles will be available too, at the brewery. You can purchase bottles or sit down at the brewery. They started local distribution today and there are hundreds of locations serving it.
Rejection is their Valentine's Day Ale. It is on tap and in cans at their two locations.
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There is no new Brew Ha Ha episode this week, so here is an encore presentation of our episode from November 17, 2022, featuring Dave Burkhart, the author of the book The Anchor Brewing Story which was just published at the time.
Anchor Brewing historian Dave Burkhart and former Anchor brewing chief Mark Carpenter join Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha today. Mark Carpenter is the former co-host of this show who began working at Anchor in 1971. Author Dave Burkhart has been with Anchor Brewing Co. for thirty-one and a half years. Very early in his tenure began collecting historical documentation of the brewery. His book, The Anchor Brewing Story, has just been published.
Mark and Dave agree that Anchor has a bright future since the new owners (Sapporo) are investing heavily in the company. Dave started at Anchor on a Monday and by the following Saturday, he started researching the company. In 2010, he took the title Anchor Historian. He describes finding out about the original owner Gottfried Breckle, who first went from Germany in 1852 to Valdivia, Chile. It was “the irresistible lure of gold” that brought him to California. Anchor's Early History A lot of this early family history is documented on this page of the Anchor Brewing website. Gottfried came to California in late 1953 or early 1854 and worked in the gold fields, then worked for a local brewery. He became an American citizen in 1854. He “did what everyone did in the gold rush, he reinvented himself.” Eventually he owned the Golden Gate Brewery in San Francisco, which burned down. He took the insurance money back to Germany and opened a brewery there. Then he came back to San Francisco and opened another brewery in the Russian Hill neighborhood. Then he sold it and invested in a saloon that they turned into brewery in 1871. That marks the beginning of the company that became Anchor in 1896.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
There were more than thirty breweries in San Francisco in the late 1800s and 847 drinking establishments in town, as well as many corner grocery stores in the city which also served beer in the back room. The Anchor Pub There is a pub now at Anchor Brewery that is a showcase for their panorama of beer recipes. One is Humming Ale, which uses Nelson hops. It’s the same recipe as Liberty Ale except that uses Cascade hops. That was the first IPA in California, although they did not want to call it that. Fritz Maytag, who was Anchor’s owner at the time of its late 1960s rebirth, wanted to make that type of beer that he remembered from his student days back east. It has a lot more hops than other beers at the time.
Visit our sponsor Victory House online for their latest viewing and menu options.
Visit our sponsor Victory House online for their latest viewing and menu options. Anchor Steam Beer Steam Beer is called a California Common in the beer index books. There are several possible origins of the term Steam Beer. It is a California story and without Anchor there would be none of it. Lager beer needs cold conditions, so there was no ice in the city and they needed to make beer without it. They came up with the idea of a Cool Ship, a large shallow pan with a large surface area. It was exposed to the atmosphere, there were louvered windows in the room. The mean temperature was cooler then than now. When the warm wort was pumped up into the cool ship, the difference in temperature produced steam.
Another theory holds that when they dropped the beer back to the floor below, they added yeast to it. Then they filled large wooden barrels with the beer. If a bartender opened a keg while the beer was still fermenting, tapping the keg would produce a spray that was similar to steam. Yet another idea is that bartenders would pour from different kegs of different ages.
Marcin & Artur visit Anchor Brewing in San Francisco.
Since there is no new Brew Ha Ha show today, for this podcast episode we offer again this fun and revealing episode recorded last January 19, with Herlinda Heras' two guests from Maryensztadt Brewery in Poland, Marcin and Artur. Enjoy!
Marcin Malecki and Artur Napuripski of Maryensztadt Brewery in Poland are our guests today on Brew Ha Ha with Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras. Artur is the sales manager as well as a beer sommelier and brewery historian, and Marcin is the brewery's owner. Herlinda Heras has been a beer judge at the Polish national beer competition for the last few years, along with Artur. Herlinda invited them to California for a visit and for a collaboration at Anchor Brewing and a visit to some famous Sonoma County craft breweries.
Marcin tells about their visit to Brew Ha Ha sponsor Russian River Brewing Co. and how impressed he was with their Windsor location. They also visited Brian Hunt at Moonlight Brewing.
Grodzisz is a smoked wheat beer, which is a unique Polish style. It uses 100% oak-smoked malt. Herlinda finds it refreshing. Artur describes it as a unique style and says the malt is hard to find. Polish brewers stopped making it in 1993 but they revived it recently. Beechwood smoke has a different flavor, like ham or cheese. This oak smoke is more like a campfire and is more subtle.
Visit our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options. Craft Brewing in Poland The craft brewing industry is young in Poland. They began about ten years ago with an American IPA. The brewery’s name Maryensztadt is a small neighborhood in the heart of Warsaw, part of the old town. They wanted the brewery to be there, but they could not produce alcohol there. So they established the brewery in a small town very close to Warsaw. They try to make the brewery as “green” as possible, or sustainable, using as little energy and water as possible and recycling water. When they visited Russian River Brewing Co., they thought they would like to be that big in ten more years.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Click the logo to visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
Marcin, Herlinda & Artur.
Marcin has always been interested in beer and was a consultant brewer before opening the brewery. Artur has been interested in beer since long before the craft beer revolution. He eventually became a beer judge and got a beer and cider judging certificate. He is studying for his mead certification too. Poland has a long tradition of making mead, and even the certifying body, JCP, does not know all about it. Poland is also a huge producer of apples, but not cider apples. There is a small but promising cider revolution going on, but the problem is getting the right apples. There is also a thriving hops production in Poland.
Herlinda told Mark Carpenter, former Brew Ha Ha co-host, about Polish beer so he went there on a vacation and met Artur. Anchor Beer was the first good American beer to be available in Poland after the fall of Communism, and many people still remember its arrival and importance at the time. As Marcin says, "...your craft revolution is really great!"
Tom Hart, co-founder of Humboldt Cider is our guest on Brew Ha Ha with Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras, with special guest Peter Lopez. Peter is the founder of NorCal Beer Geeks and he also runs the Juncture Taproom in Santa Rosa.
Tom Hart started Humboldt Cider in 2014 with his partner. They saw an opportunity for cider and started learning how to make it for local events in small batches. For a location , they renovated an old milking barn. Most recently, they started canning during the pandemic. This was an initially forced transformation of their business but it has worked well.
First to be tasted is their Drysdale Cider, made with 4 different culinary apples, golden delicious, granny smith, fuji and gala. It classifies as a dry cider on the dryness scale.
Juncture TaproomJuncture Taproom is celebrating its 6th anniversary. He has been planning this celebration for a long time. NorCal Beer Geeks and Humboldt Cider have made a collaboration called Sally’s Jamaica. It is flavored with Jamaica flower like the refreshing Mexican beverage which is made from Hibiscus flowers. It’s named after Peter’s sister Sally. It makes a light and dry apple cider. They are bringing in all the musicians and food vendors who are with them all year too, for the celebration. Juncture Taproom is located at 4357 Montgomery Drive, at the corner of Mission.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Click the logo to visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
They are also tasting the Cherry cider, flavored with two kinds of cherries, Montmorency for tartness and Morello for color. This won gold at GLINTCAP, the Great Lakes International Cider Competition, which is the biggest cider competition in the country. It won despite their fear of heat damage before the tasting.
Visit our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.
NorCal Beer Geeks collaborates with VetConnect, to help veterans with all kinds of personal services, including helping them navigate available services, because sometimes some veterans are not even aware that they are eligible for certain services.
The last Humboldt Cider product tasted today is the Gravenstein Cider, made with fruit from old trees in northern California, which used to be more abundant, and which produce the best cider out there.
Visit Humboldt Cider online at their website, their Faecbook or Intsagram.
Author Marty Nachel, author of Beer for Dummies, joins Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha, on the phone from ChicagoMarty has also written How to Judge Beer Like a Pro.
In order begin to judge beer like a pro, the first prerequisite is practice. However that’s not all. You have to know beer styles and be familiar with different off aromas and flavors as well. Herlinda agrees and adds that the scientific names of things are important to know, to understand beer at this level. For example, Brett, or Brettanomyces. (The term Brettanomyces comes from the Greek for “British fungus.”)
Marty has been in the craft brewing industry in many roles for more than thirty years. He first got interested in beer on a long weekend vacation to Toronto where he took a tour of the Molson brewing company. He had never tasted beer so fresh, and in so many styles in one sitting. The most interesting place he has judged beer is in South Africa. He was lucky to be working with a literary agent who knew the publishers of the for Dummies series. They had just done one on wine so they wanted one on beer too and Marty got the gig. There doesn’t seem to be one for Cider yet. Actually he self-published How to Judge Beer Like a Pro, on Amazon.
Visit our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.
Marty is in Chicago which is home to some great lager style breweries. Goose Island is the local brewery with a brew pub on Clark St. Lagunitas has also opened a location in Chicago, which just reopened a few weeks ago. They made a big impression there when they opened, but since being acquired by Heineken, the novelty seems to have worn thin there.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Click the logo to visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
Herlinda and Fridge
Nickolas Garson, AKA Fridge, sales rep from Cooperage Brewing joins Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha. Cooperage is just about to celebrate 8 years as one of the premiere locations to get a beer in Santa Rosa. They are located on Airway Court between Piner and Hopper.
Their family-friendly location is open seven days a week, Monday through Thursday from 2 to 8 pm, Friday and Saturday from noon to 11 pm and Sunday from noon to 8 pm. Their website and socials have the updated daily food truck schedule. They went out of their way to make the location comfortable and beautiful. The bar is a long redwood tree trunk.
Cooperage’s founder Tyler helped Nickolas get to know and to enjoy craft beer and that led to him working in the craft beer industry. Nicholas was inspired by his first taste of good craft beer back in the day. It may be hard to remember today, but at one time, average beer in America was not very good at all, with little or no attention to freshness or flavor. Well, we took care of that, didn’t we?
Visit our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.
Cooperage Brewing 8th AnniversaryAs part of their 8th anniversary, they have a band performing on June 10, Painted Waves, a local pop-rock band. The Coop Co-op is on the 11th with vendors and DJs.
The anniversary party itself is Friday the 23rd and Saturday the 24th with a rock climbing wall, face painters and mechanical bull riding. The vendors include vintage clothes and shoes and they are adding more and more to the list. It is a nice opportunity to help small local businesses. They have beer and yoga sessions. The price includes a beer after yoga.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Click the logo to visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
They have been tasting Lazy Cat lager, which was originally a staff collaboration. The name is based on their brewery cat named Beyonce. It is made with Luminosa hops, which has no pine or resin character. It has a tiny citrus undertone. They are also tasting the Mexican lager.
Nicholas brought Trimcoe, a new West Coast IPA. Cooperage Brewing beers are available in grocery stores as well as restaurants and bars all around Sonoma County.
Lo & Behold Crispy Pork Spareribs
Laura Sanfilippo & Sean Raymond Kelley from Lo & Behold Bar Restaurant join Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha.
Lo and Behold has three partner owners, who met while working for others. They thought Healdsburg had space for a casual place, large and spacious, with a great bar. Almost a year and a half ago, they opened Lo and Behold.
Sean Kelley grew up with his grandmother’s Sunday dinners. He ran kitchens in some prominent restaurants and then went to culinary school at Tante Marie’s in San Francisco. He wants his flavors to appear familiar and comfortable, but with extraordinary flavors.
The Healdsburg Wine and Food Experience includes spirits for the first time. Tickets are still available for the event.
It’s all Healdsburg bartenders, pairing “farm to glass.” Her partner Tara has a farm where they grow the herbs and flowers that they use, a nice long list of flavors. Sean has also brought a bunch of appetizers.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Click the logo to visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
They thought Healdsburg had space for a casual place, large and spacious, with a great bar. Lo and Behold has a nice selection of Italian Amaros, or Amari, either way, which are dark herbal liqueurs that vary between bitter and sweet. Every one of the bartenders has a special, original concoction for their Healdsburg event.
Global Comfort FoodSean describes the restaurant as Global Comfort Food. For example, fried chicken is a winner all over the world. Harry asks what it was like opening a restaurant at the end of a pandemic. Laura thinks it may have been an ideal time. Also, they have been in Healdsburg for a long time and they had a lot of customer loyalty. They also have a nice patio. When people were ready to come back out, there they were. It was hard, but they had already worked through the entire pandemic. This is the first restaurant that the partners have ever owned themselves, after running restaurants for others for a long time.
Tomorrow, Friday May 18, from 4-7 PM at Lo and Behold, there is a Healdsburg Wine and Food Experience event. It is a stand-up meet and greet with Healdsburg’s best bartenders. The bartenders will be all at their own stations on the big patio.
Herlinda, Krzysztof and Marcin.
Marcin Ostajewski from Browar Fortuna and Krzysztof Panek from Browar Grodzisk in Poland join Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha.
Krzsyztof and Marcin have just arrived from Nashville, where they attended the World Beer Cup. Both of their breweries are located in western Poland, not far from Posnan. Browar Grodzisk is based in Grodzisk Wielkopolski and Browar Fortuna is in Miłosław.
The Grodziskie style is Poland’s own, originating in the town of Grodzisk. It is a unique beer, the only one in the world brewed with 100 % wheat malt, smoked with oak wood. The brewing process is difficult and long and it has to take its time. Grodziskie is light and refreshing, with a unique flavor among beers on the lighter side.
Marcin tells about early 20th Century advertisements for this beer that refer to it as “Polish Champagne.” There are samples of old Grodziskie ads here on Browar Grodzisk website. (This reminds me of Miller High Life, The Champagne of Bottled Beers, their old slogan. -cd)
Visit our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.
GrodziskieKrzsyztof is quite serious about making Grodziskie as well as possible. He did extensive research in order to replicate the old equipment and he collected information from many people. The brewery fell into disuse after communism. Beginning in the 1990s, investors came in and closed breweries that were not cost-effective. Since lagers were in demand, beer consumers demanded that. Only later they were able to bring Grodziskie back when they re-founded the brewery.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Click the logo to visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
Marcin talks about their home brew competition. The only rule is that beers in competition can’t use wild yeast, which would interfere with their brewing operation. The brewery will produce the winning recipe at the next year’s festival.
Krzsyztof describes how hard it was to find the right malt for Grodziskie. They found a malter just over the border in Czech Republic.
The home brewing community developed in Poland during communism when there was not enough good beer available commercially. When they brought Grodziskie beer back into production, the home brewers society was an important source of recipes, yeast and information.
Next they taste Komes, an idea that came from Krzysztof wondering what would happen if he took their award-winning Baltic Porter, and froze it. He kept it for 2 weeks in the deep freezer. Below the ice there was a condensed liquid, made of alcohol and all the flavor elements. They tasted it and decided it was extraordinary. Then they put it in whiskey barrels. After 4 or 5 years of the project, they have several hundred bottles. There isn’t much of it, but now they do batches of about 1000 bottles.
Herlinda, Sayre & Mercedes
Mercedes Hernandez founder of the SOCO Market and Sayre Pietrowski from Hen House, are our guests on Brew Ha Ha with Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras.
The Freshtival is this Saturday, May 6 at Somo Village in Rohnert Park. Get tickets here, they are going fast!
As the show begins they open a Moonlight Death and Taxes that is only a few days old. Brian Hunt from Moonlight and Vinny Cilurzo from Russian River were the pioneers of quality and freshness. Today the billboard outside Santa Rosa says Welcome to Fresh Beer Country.
The Importance of FreshnessSayre talks about what they call second-half beer quality. The Hen House company mission is to improve beer quality for the end consumer and to create wealth for our community. Freshness is the one quality metric that the consumer has access to. You can see if a beer is kept cold and you can see its date of production. These two factors are vital.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Click the logo to visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
The best place to get the freshest beer is this Saturday May 6 at Somo Village in Rohnert Park. The event is sponsored by the Bay Area Brewers Guild.
Brian Hunt says, “Fresh beer is like live music. Stale beer is like listening from the parking lot.”
THE SOCO MARKETMercedes Hernandez describes how the SOCO Market started during the pandemic. Many Sonoma County businesses didn’t have a physical location so she invited eleven local makers to exhibit and sell together. It grew to over 60 vendors and then the city of Santa Rosa invited them to a market space in Old Courthouse Square that can have as many as 90. They have a market every month from April to August.
The SOCO Market with its panorama of jewelry, plants and clothing vendors lends a fun and colorful atmosphere for the Freshtival. The Art of Freshness Gallery will be showing artists who have created label art for local brewers.
The first beer tasted was The Art of Freshness, which is the name of a beer and the theme of the festival. They also taste Matiné Idol. For the rest, go to the Freshtival!
Today’s tastings on BHH.
Zach Kelly
The 2023 Freshtival is today’s subject, as Zach Kelly, the brewmaster at Hen House Brewery joins Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha today. Fal Allen also calls in from Booneville later in the show.
The Freshtival takes place on May 6 at SOMO Village. Zach Kelly has been the brew master at Hen House for about a year and a half now.
The Freshtival, May 6, 2023In addition to all the breweries, many artists will be at the Freshtival, who are responsible for the art work for the labels on many craft beer cans. The Freshtival also features live bands, which makes it a great music festival as well. There is also a community market.
Visit Hen House Brewing or Event Brite to get tickets and to see everything about the Freshtival.
They are tasting a Petit Saison beer from Hen House which is only 4.5% alcohol. The term Saison beer refers to a beer with a low alcohol content, which would allow someone to enjoy it while also doing something else. Zach tells about how he made this beer for his wife. He experimented with recipes and since they went to New Zealand on their honeymoon, this beer uses all New Zealand hops. She didn’t know he brewed it for her, so he put on a May Day party at the brewery and presented it there. This particular beer was canned about three hours ago, speaking of fresh beer.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Click the logo to visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
Zach Kelly spent about five years at Russian River, previously worked at Left Hand Brewing in Colorado, and started at Keegan Ales in New York.
This Beer Creates Opportunity
They are tasting Sonoma Sunshine, a dry-hopped Kolsch beer. (See the title picture) Their artist, Blanca, who designed the label, has also painted a mural in the tasting room.
The Brewers Guild is holding a mixer to promote The Inclusion Beer Project and the beer labeled This Beer Creates Opportunity. The project is dedicated to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) and open access in the craft brewing industry.
Hen House is located at 322 Bellvue Ave. in Santa Rosa. They also have a location called the Palace of Barrels in Petaluma. They serve a beer called “Day Zero” which comes right off the production line. In the near future they will be opening a new location in Fairfax.
Fal Allen
Fal Allen of Anderson Valley Brewing Co. joins Harry Duke and Herlinda to discuss the Booneville Beer Fest, this Saturday in Booneville. Fal Allen is the brewmaster at Anderson Valley Brewing Co. in Booneville, which is sponsoring the 25th Annual Booneville Beer Fest. There will be 80 breweries there with at least 180 different beers.
All the proceeds go to local non-profits in the area. They have raised over $1.25 million dollars for local charities in the last quarter century.
There are also 4 bands and 10 food vendors, along with the 80 breweries, and lots of crafts for sale. There will also be cider brewers there. You can learn all about it at the Booneville Beer Fest web page, here.
Anderson Valley just got named the most under-rated place to visit, for beer and wine. AVBC has been around for 45 years, but there are wineries in the area that are 100 years old. The hotels are booked for this event but there is no shortage of camping. Tickets are available at the Anderson Valley Brewing Company website, for this Saturday, April 29.
Ted Vivatson from Eel River Brewing Company is our guest on Brew Ha Ha with Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras. He is the owner and co-founder of the brewery, which is located in Humboldt, California. They opened in 1995. About two years after that, they were pioneers in organic practices.
Ted grew up in Danville, California and was deployed in Germany in the US Army and there he got to know high quality beer. After he left the service, he noticed that there was no good local beer, so he and some friends set about to make some. Today Eel River is one of the oldest craft breweries in America.
He took a temporary job in the US Forest Service while studying engineering and home brewing. It wasn’t always easy to find ingredients and equipment back then before home brewing became popular. He took classes at UC Davis and the Siebel Institute. Now, he and the other craft brewing pioneers are seeing their children move into the same business.
They are tasting a beer called Climax which is named after a locomotive train. He made it to order for a friend who asked for a “naked” beer, meaning something plain and simple with no altered ingredients.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Click the logo to visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
It was really hard to find organic hops and grain back then. They found organic hops in New Zealand and they had to send someone down there to secure the first supply. This is a very simple beer with a low ABV and only 100 calories per serving.
The next beer tasted is a California Blonde Ale which has won 5 medals at the Great American Beer Fest. They also have opened their Amber Ale. Their first organic beers were limited by what ingredients were available.
Visit our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.
Ted Vivatson was also a pioneer in hard selzer, and Herlinda and Harry agree that his hard selzer the best tasting one around. They worked on it for about two years, to develop the right recipe. Finally they got it right. It’s the only one naturally fermented.
Herlinda, Jenny and Bryan.
Bryan Donaldson from Lagunitas and Jenny Griffo from Griffo Distillery join Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha. Bryan Donaldson is the Brewing Innovation Manager at Lagunitas and Jenny Griffo is a co-founder of Griffo Distillery.
Lagunitas and Griffo Distillery have collaborated on a single malt whiskey accented with hops. The two companies are located a half a block away from each other. Jenny and Bryan describe the process of distilling the mashed beer with hops and then they barrel age it for three years.
They will only release 600 bottles of it. People who attend the party on Thursday the 27th of April will get some. The event will feature food and a selection of beers, at Lagunitas. Then, guests will take busses across the way to visit Griffo, for the continuation, following the creation of this whiskey. Guests will get a bottle of Still Waldos single malt whiskey. There will also be live music and specially made chocolates.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Click the logo to visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
Tickets are available on the Griffo website. Tickets are going fast to the first eating at 5:30, and there will be a second seating at 7:30. There will only be 25 total tickets to each seating. There will also be tastings of the Waldos beer, which Lagunitas makes every year.
Lagunitas Waldos Special Ale Triple IPA
Bryan describes his career path, which includes a Masters in Brewing from Charlie Bamforth at UC Davis, and jobs at Lagunitas soon after. He has also developed a tea-based beverage for Lagunitas, which is completely alcohol-free. Bryan says he is most proud of Hoppy Refresher, which is a dry-hopped sparkling water.
Griffo Distillery is also constantly innovating. Their last new product was a cold-brewed coffee liqueur. Griffo also has pop-ups coming to the distillery. On April 28, Second Staff, a local catering company, will be serving Korean Fried Chicken. They are on Scott Street in Petaluma.
Visit our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.
This year’s Freshtival is scheduled for May 6 Sonoma Mountain Village in Rohnert Park. All of the beer there will be less than 7 days old. Information is available at the dedicated page on the Hen House website.
Indian Valley Brewing co-founders Joe and Matt Tachis visit Brew Ha Ha with Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras today.
Their story begins in the 1950s when their father came back from Korea and went to work for Hamm’s brewery in San Francisco. He was their west coast sales manager, there was beer around the house.
From the back room to the taproom.They started Indian Valley in 2017. They were home brewing with their father and brothers. People liked their beer, so they started the brewery in back of Joe’s electrical shop and started distributing to bars and restaurants. Now they have a taproom in Novato, near the Novato smart train station. The whole family was there to help along the way, to work on everything.
The taproom is open every day. There are some food trucks that park nearby. They have Mexican food on Friday nights, which gets a great turnout, and pizza and trivia on Thursday nights. It is open 3-8pm Mon.-Thurs., 3-9pm on Friday, 2-8pm on Saturday and 12-5pm on Sunday. Kids and dogs are welcome.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Click the logo to visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
Joe likes the lighter beers, blondes, lagers and pilsners, and Matt likes “the maltier stuff” so ales and porters. They are tasting the Hazy Blonde Ale, it’s refreshing and light. This recipe came from their original home brewing activity. Next they taste the Hopalong, their flagship IPA. This is the brainchild of their brewer Sean Cochrane.
Visit our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.
Why they say “Keep your day job”Joe and Matt still work their day jobs and Sean makes beer full time. The brothers still do a lot of work, since they have pro construction skills. They just finished installing a conventional system. They bought a used system that came with no information about how to operate it apart from the burners. Their brewing capacity is three barrels. Their beer is on tap for now at the taproom and they have a one-at-a-time 16-oz. canning machine. They usually have 12 or 13 taps at a time available, with some rotating in and out roughly monthly.
Some of their beers, like their father’s favorite Scotch Ale, are always there, since the customers demand them. It is malty and dry. It’s called Grumpa’s which is a grandchild’s variation on Grandpa. It won Battle of the Brews for best ale, and best in show too, the year before. At the most recent edition of the competition, they were on the new equipment which was not quite perfectly set up, and they didn’t win.
The taproom has wood panelling which keeps the room quiet, compared to rooms with concrete walls which make a noisier locale. This is a choice, so people can hear each other’s conversation.
Anchor Brewing San Pancho Mexican lager
Dane Volek from Anchor Brewing calls in to Brew Ha Ha with Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras to talk about their new San Pancho Mexican lager. Dane is the new Brewmaster at Anchor Brewing, so he has the job that used to belong to Brew Ha Ha founding father Mark Carpenter.
Joe and Matt Tachis from Indian Valley Brewing in Novato are also in the studio today during Dane’s call. Their full interview with Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras is available on their own podcast page, here.
San Pancho is a Mexican style lager with natural lime flavors. They did some test releases in the brew house which went well, and the folks around the brew house liked it too. The label on the can is inspired by Mexican mural art.
The recipe begins with pale malt and some flaked corn and makes a refreshing dry beer.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their Windsor location. Click the logo to visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
Anchor Brewing is also where Herlinda’s guests from Poland did a collaboration brew last January, mentioned in this Brew Ha Ha episode. Dane describes the Baltic Porter they made that day, using Anchor’s yeast. Marcin Malecki and Artur Napuripski of Maryensztadt Brewery in Poland have invited Dane to Poland to do another collaboration there.
Visit our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.
For this baseball season, Anchor Brewing is working with the San Francisco Giants. Their beer is at the ballpark and they might do an Anchor Day promotion this year. We also hear about the artist who did the San Pancho Mexican Lager beer label who is from Mexico City. The label is also inspired by the kind of mural art in the Mission district of San Francisco. They may also do this kind of artwork on their IPA. Anchor is getting ready for the busy summer season. The public taproom is open Wednesdays through Sundays. They have 24 taps which are about half their usual commercial beers and the others serve many other smaller batches and experiments that they also produce.
Herlinda & Suzanne
Suzanne Hagins from Horse and Plow Cider in Graton is our guest on Brew Ha Ha with Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras.
Horse and Plow makes cider and also wine. All of their cider comes from Sebastopol-grown apples. They are dry and naturally carbonated and they show the quality of the Sonoma County fruit. They are based on the famous Gravenstein apples that are mostly grown in Sebastopol. It is a blend of 12 different apple varieties and is very dry.
Horse and Plow started as a winery. The tasting room is off Hwy 116 between Graton and Sebastopol.
Cider and Mead are both good alternatives to wine and beer, for festive occasions and meals. They are tasting the Horse and Plow Farmhouse Cider. It is mostly Gravenstein apples and very dry.
Visit Horse and PlowHorse and Plow ciders are at Bottle Barn and Whole Foods, Willibees, Pacific Market and Andy’s. Hwy 116, Gravenstein Hwy, close to Andy’s, open 12-5 Thursday through Monday. They accept reservations online or by phone. There are art shows and music performances. They do tasting flights of wines, ciders, and mixed flights. It is family and dog friendly.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Click the logo to visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
Horse and Plow uses many unusual varieties of apples in their ciders, more than 30 varieties.
Cider is made like wine, which made it easy for them to add cider to their operation which was already licensed for wine. Fully half of their business at the tasting room is cider.
They also taste their Rosé made from 100-year-old dry-farmed Carignane vines located in Mendocino County. They pick the fruit early to preserve the acidity. There are strawberry flavors in the wine. They have one-liter refillable growlers that can be refilled with red or white wine or cider. Finally they taste their Pinot Noir, known for being fruit forward with a silky texture.
Matt, James & Cassius.
Herlinda Heras visits Ghost Town Brewing in Oakland, plus we have three other guests on Brew Ha Ha with Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras today. Matt Inslow from Flagship Taproom, Cassius Camus from Battle of the Brews and James Holt, owner of Civilization Brewing are also in the studio.
The Battle of the Brews is Saturday April 1, from 1 to 5 pm. It is the 26th annual beer event hosted by the Active 20-30 of Santa Rosa. In addition to a fund raising event it is a BJCP Judged beer event. It has also evolved into a barbeque competition. It is held at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds. In the Grace Pavillion Building there will be 65 different breweries and a large stage with a succession of bands. There will be food and drink galore, too.
Flagship TaproomMatt Inslow from Flagship Taproom will also be at Battle of the Brews. This will be their third time there. At the Flagship Taproom they have a great menu, and since the Battle of the Brews needs 500 servings of an item, they chose their rosemary smoked pork tenderloin sandwich, for the competition. Picture smoked pork tenderloin, with freshly made aioli sauce, melted brie and arugula all on a soft brioche bun. They have a wood-fired smoker for tri-tip, chicken thighs and pork ribs.
There are three locations of Flagship Taproom. A group of friends opened the first one opened in Cotati in 2016. There are 20 rotating beer taps and they do barbeque. They also like events, so they have trivia nights, tap takeovers, comedy shows, with indoor and outdoor events. They are also in downtown Santa Rosa, at 446 B Street. Then at the end of April 2022 they opened a location on the Windsor Town Green. They are at 1001 McClelland Drive.
Ghost Town BrewingHerlinda Heras calls in from Oakland where she is visiting Ghost Town Brewing. It is near the Oakland Coliseum where the A’s play. Ghost Town has been around for about 10 years but became famous during the pandemic after they started canning their beer. Herlinda will be a judge at the Battle of the Brews. Herlinda has been a beer judge at several international competitions and it is fun for her to be judging in her own backyard for once.
The next beer they taste is called Super Lemon Haze. Their different hazy beers are named after different bud strains, like Pineapple Express and Moon Rocks. It’s a simple beer with great aroma and fruity flavor from 100% Citra hops. It is always a top seller.
Civilization BrewingCivilization Brewing is located at 490 Mendocino Ave. at the corner of Ross St. (where the old Local Barrel used to be). They have decorated it with a lot of “wierd stuff” from junk shops and antique dealers. They have arcade games and big statues, and an old cathode ray tv tube for playing the really old video games. The last beer is the Peach Rhubarb Sour.
Harry & Natalie.
Natalie Cilurzo brings the 2023 Pliny the Younger from Russian River Brewing Co. to Brew Ha Ha with Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras today.
This is the 19th presentation of the new Pliny the Younger. This version is a little bit different than the one that premiered in February. The Pliny the Younger base recipe is fairly stable, at about 10.25% ABV, but there is a tweak to the hops and this year that is a new hop from New Zealand called Nectaron. Vinny decided to put a little more bittering hops into the second mix. The hop aroma is brilliant and beautiful and the flavors really shine through.
The New Release ScheduleIn February they did a limited release. The first Friday in February used to be the launch date. Last year they had to postpone distribution due to a Covid outbreak, and what they found out was that their accounts appreciated the rollout this way, so they will continue to release for wholesale, draft only, in February and then in person, on draft and in bottles, for their brewpubs only, in late March.
Natalie describes about a four-month process they have to manage for the release event. There is merchandise galore to design and order, the label, packaging, timing and logistics for all that, wristbands, et cetera. There are 28,000 unique wristbands, marked with date and location, with four pull tabs. The first three tabs are redeemable for one 10-ounce pour. The fourth, or B tab, allows the bearer to purchase two bottles to go. A lot of people enjoy the social event, including meeting people in line.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their Windsor location. Click the logo to visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
There are usually 20 beers on tap at Russian River Brewing Co. in addition to Pliny the Younger. They are releasing Hopfather IPA and a sour peach beer, tomorrow.
Visit our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.
Herlinda and Natalie were at the California Craft Brewers Association conference this week. On the last day, the final talk had Natalie, Vinny and Ken Grossman on stage talking about the beer business and then they served a taste of Pliny for everyone, which was a big hit.
There is a cheese tasting too, for people waiting in line. The California Artisan Cheese Festival is at the Fairgrounds, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Cowgirl Creamery, Cypress Grove and others will be there.
Herlinda and Bee.
Kapu Bar house manager Bee Baker is our in-studio guest on Brew Ha Ha with Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras today.
Kapu Bar has taken over the Tuttle’s Drug Store location in downtown Petaluma. They have done extensive redecoration and it is a marvel to see. The first weekend they were open in January they had over 1000 people through the front door. Business has been brisk and there is a line out the door almost every day.
The first use of Tiki décor was Don the Beachcomber’s, which opened in Los Angeles in 1934, after Prohibition ended but well before the beginning of WWII. Tiki designs became popular in California after the War, when returning servicemen brought back more and more Polynesian-inspired designs. There have been many famous Tiki-styled restaurants and bars, which Bee describes as “escapism.”
At the bar they make all of their syrups in-house from scratch. From the kitchen, they have an extensive menu that even includes Spam, and of course there is special glassware and ceramic ware to match the drinks.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Click the logo to visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
Tiki DesignKapu Bar’s designer, Bamboo Ben, is the grandson of one of the head designers of the Disneyland Tiki Room, as well as the Swiss Family Robinson House and the Jungle Cruise. They have plans to adapt an outdoor area as well. Bamboo Ben’s son Blake has carved Tikis out of the reclaimed wood from their outside fence. They wear “aloha” shirts and they don’t spare the accessories and decorations. Here is a look at the interior, on the Kapu Bar website.
“It doesn’t get more West Coast than a Tiki Bar.” – Herlinda
They have Poke Nachos on the menu. They source the freshest Ahi they can source, which their chefs cut and dress for Poke, with all their flavors. It is one of their most popular menu items. Bee has also brought a lot of other treats, including the spicy Chinese style peanuts. They are boiled with ginger, onion, star anice, citrus peel, bay leaf and peppercorn. After boiling they are tossed in a ginger-scallion sauce, with a bit of sesame. They are tasty but messy. There is a discussion of their extensive menu which is also online, here. The Banana Split “is for the young at heart.”
Visit our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.
Kapu Bar is located at 132 Keller St. in Petaluma. For reservations, go to Open Table. The bar is first-come first served, with no reservations.
Peter and Tyler.
Peter Lopez and Tyler Laverty join Harry Duke on Brew Ha Ha today. Co-host Herlinda Heras is visiting England and will call into the studio. We begin with a phone call from Herlinda who is in England to be a judge in the British Pie Awards.
Herlinda Heras is in England judging the British Pie Awards again. We also hear about her travels to breweries in different places. She also got lost and ended up in the oldest pub in England. It is in Nottingham, under an 800-year-old castle. She is in the town of Milton Mowbray which is not very far from London. She will also visit a brewery in Wales. We will hear all about it when she is back on Brew Ha Ha next week.
Tyler Laverty is back on the Brew Ha Ha to remember the Third Street Aleworks Taproom. Their last day of operation was yesterday. We have covered the closing of the Third Street Aleworks in a couple of recent podcasts, in this episode and also here.
Peter Lopez was there yesterday and “it was definitely a lovefest.” The taproom is closed but the beer label will continue. They will produce beer for distribution to retail and hospitality markets in northern California.
How the Transition BeganDuring Covid, they started distributing more and more in cans and kegs. As they adapted and changed, that has continued to be successful. However, the downtown business environment is difficult. Crowds are smaller and spending is down. There are a lot of factors, but ultimately, when the lease was up, they decided to continue making changes and adapt as a brand.
They are optimistic about having expanded their distribution and they are focusing on a couple of core brands. They hope to have their new production facility up and running next year. They plan to have a small taproom at the new brewery too.
They will continue to make Bodega Head IPA and Annandale Pale Ale, Blarney Sisters Dry Irish Stout, Italian Style Pilsner, Mr. Mosaic Double IPA and Raspberry Tart Pastry Kettle Sour. They have won a lot of medals at GABF and Beer World Cup. Blarney alone has won 13 medals.
Their beers are available in lots of major retail locations throughout Sonoma and Marin Counties as well as Bottle Barn.
Herlinda & Tara Jasper
Tara Jasper, owner and creative force behind SipSong Spirits, is back on Brew Ha Ha with Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras today. The last time she was on Brew Ha Ha was this episode of July 30, 2020. Tara grew up among the coastal redwoods of northern California. After studying culinary arts and raising a family, she started making gin. She begins by shaking up a cocktail with SipSong Spring Gin, one of her seasonal gins and they toast to all the hospitality and medical workers.
All their botanicals are harvested in early spring in Sonoma County. There are all kinds of juniper. In Finland, they use juniper as part of the flavoring of Sahti. Our ornamental juniper berries are shaped like mace balls. The ones in Finland were soft and become sappy and stick when you break them open. SipSong gins often win blind tastings among gin fans. She enjoys the idea of making gin without a lot of fussing around like in a busy kitchen, and then being able to share her work all over the place.
The Ah-Ha MomentWhen she started making gin, she didn’t know if she could make a gin that she would enjoy more than her favorite gin. Monkey 47 was her favorite at the time. It was $65 for a 375 ml bottle. In a blind tasting of her gin against that one, she preferred her own. That was her “ah-ha moment” when she decided she wanted to get a still and start making gin.
“We have some amazing local distillers in this area. We’re very lucky. It’s so cool. This is no longer wine country. This is booze country,” says Tara Jasper.
She met someone who had the same still she wanted, but only used it part time. Since then, she has been using it, sometimes on short notice when the Spring blossoms are ready.
Fight Like A GirlTara is also a pilot and she holds tastings in an airplane hanger. She is also active in women’s health care awareness, especially regarding the BRCA gene and how important it is to know if one is a carrier. Tara is a breast cancer survivor and she supports Fight like a Girl, a breast cancer support community.
There is an old Prohibition law that makes shipping of spirits illegal. During the pandemic, that law was suspended but only temporarily. She suggests that people express their preferences to their elected officials, to allow shipping of spirits permanently.
Indira gin won a double gold, which means every judge gave it a gold. It is flavored with botanicals and people love it in a Gibson. Another friend has suggested that she make gin with hops.
Mike Schnebeck of Fort Point Beer Co.
Mike Schnebeck from San Francisco’s Fort Point Beer Co. visits Brew Ha Ha with Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras today. Fort Point is an independent San Francisco beer company. They have become one of San Francisco’s best known independent breweries by following their calling to make craft beer more accessible.
Herlinda begins by describing the Fort Point SF Beer Week Dim Sum beer and cider pairing. She mentions their Kolsch beers, which is their specialty. The owners started with Mill Valley Brewing Company, which started in 2010 and then Fort Point started in 2013.
Fort Point has two locations, one is the Ferry Building taproom and the other main taproom is on Valencia St. in the Mission district. There they have a San Francisco seafood menu in addition to their beers.
The Fort Point MissionFort Point’s mission “…is to make really balanced approachable and nuanced beer,” what they call good beer for everyone. They take classic existing styles that they add a twist to. Mike worked for Beer Works based in San Diego, where he developed his interest in craft beer. Beer Works gave him an opportunity to brew beer. Today they are the largest independent brewer in the city.
Visit our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.
Mike’s title of director of brewing innovation is basically an R&D position. He shifted into this more creative role after managing the day-to-day operation. Some of his current recipes date back to his time at Beer Works. They will make about 27,000 barrels this year.
Fort Point’s signature beer is the KSA, Kolsch style ale. He thought their Park Pale Ale would be the flagship but the customers had other preferences. He did visit Cologne, Germany to study the local beer, which is where Kolsch style beer comes from.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Click the logo to visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
Fort Point has just launched 2 ciders, Super Dry and Super Natural, a Rosé-inspired cider. A lot of breweries are expanding their product line. Several have added selzers but Fort Point has chosen to add cider to their production.
They liked dry cider. Many ciders sold as dry were not really that dry. They spent some time developing their recipe to make it dry the way he wants it. It is “bone dry” says Herlinda.
At the Dim Sum event, the dry cider went very well with all the Asian dishes. The cider went very well with dishes like Crispy Pork Rib and Peking Duck.
SUPER NATURAL CIDERThe Super Natural cider is described as Rosé-inspired. They add hibiscus and rose hip to the cider base, which give a nice light pink-orange color. The ciders have been out for about a month so far, so they are starting to appear on shelves in stores like Hole Fudes. They are, or will be, available on draft in local restaurants.
They also taste a hazy IPA called Lobos. It’s funny how hazy beers are popular now, but Mike explains that the industry has figured out how to make those beers now. Mark Carpenter, who was head brewer at Anchor for more than 40 years, remarked that he worked hard to make the beer clear and never hazy, and the reversal of tastes is surprising and ironic. In England they have hazies called Scrumpies.
There is a beer called Yuzu KSA which is their Kolsch with Yuzu, a kind of Japanese grapefruit with interesting flavors.
Tara Nurin
Tara Nurin calls in to Brew Ha Ha with Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras, to talk about spirits sales and her article in Wine Enthusiast magazine. It shows Spirits replacing Beer as the largest share of the alcoholic beverages market. It’s not a majority of spending, but a plurality by a small margin. The article is on the website of Wine Enthusiast magazine. Its title is “Move Over, Beer: Spirits Are Now Alcohol’s Biggest U.S. Money Maker.
The article states that, “sales for 2022 show spirits now claim a record-breaking 42.1% of revenue in the alcohol market, compared to beer’s shrinking 41.9% and wine’s stagnant 16 %.” Of course, beer is at a disadvantage in counting dollar share, compare a $10 pack of beer to a $100 bottle of some luxury spirits. Beer will still sell more volume due to its nature.
Visit our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.
There may be some influence from the pandemic on this result. However, spirits have been gaining market share for the last thirteen years. Also, previous generations were less prone to experimentation and innovation as people are today. Also, there are more ready-to-drink beverages which are very hot right now, such as hard selzers. The more expensive of these are spirits-based, as opposed to malt-based. The new drinks are known as “RTD” which stands for Ready To Drink. The fact that this term is also applicable to beer and wine is possibly lost on the authors of the term.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Click the logo to visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
RTDs are growing faster than other segments of the alcoholic beverage industry. New products are launching with higher and higher prices, which may be a bad sign for brewers.
Tonic Immobility from Old Possum Brewing
Matt Wilson from the Santa Rosa Beer City Festival is here, so is Sandro Tamburin from Old Possum Brewing, to join Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha.
This year’s Beer City Festival is on Saturday February 25, in Courthouse Square in Santa Rosa, from 11am to 4pm. Local brewers will be there, such as Russian River, Bear Republic, Hen House, Lagunitas, Old Possum and Third Street Aleworks.
Brews NewsThere is big news in the beer business this week, since Bear Republic has sold most of its assets and brands to Drake’s Brewery, which is based in San Leandro. Peter Lopez, founder of Norcal Beer Geeks, calls in to talk about the deal. Peter is also proprietor of Juncture Taproom in Santa Rosa. Racer 5 was the first IPA he ever tasted and he respects how Richard Norgrove led the charge to make northern California the hop capital of the world. “Now I know we have found a great partner,” says Richard Norgrove. “The merger with Drake’s can be a win-win, for sure,” says Peter.
Beer City FestivalThe Beer City Festival has running events in the morning, before the beer events later on. There are three races, a half marathon, a 10K and a 5K. The beer event is from noon to 4pm, but the races start at 8 am. There is a VIP tasting from 11 to noon. Tickets are available online, $60 for Beer City admission and $20 for designated drivers who aren’t partaking. There are separate entry fees for the races, see the Run Beer City website, here. There are games, performers, food and music, and it is pet and kid friendly.
Old Possum will be there with its flagship Garibaldi IPA.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Click the logo to visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
Tonic Immobility is the new Old Possum beer, being released on Friday. Tonic immobility is the scientific name of how the Possums pretend to be dead. It is 10.2% alcohol by volume, which is very high. Sandro is experimenting with a new hop called Pink, from Idaho. Stay tuned.
Visit our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.
Herlinda asks Matt about Ghost Town Brewing, which has won some big awards recently, and will be at the Beer City festival in Santa Rosa. There are circus performers in the crowd, and there will be bands playing music, to create atmosphere. The event is in a public area and it’s open to the public, and so are the food trucks. Only the tasting is ticketed. It’s also a good day to follow the beer trail.
Barebottle Brewing Company co-founder Lester Koga is in the studio with Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha today.
There are three Barebottle Brewing locations and the one in Bernal Heights is very family friendly, which Lester explains. He visited Germany and France frequently and discovered the German beer gardens. These are large public parks with different stalls offering beer, sausages, pretzels, etc. It is an integrated communal space where alcohol is present as a normal part of life and not some kind of heavily regulated vice.
Family and Pet Friendly in Bernal HeightsIn the Bernal Heights location the brewing operation is right in the same space with the hospitality space. He wants his guests to be able to bring their kids and their dogs. Conscious of the business side of brewing, they also noticed that their brand was popular in the south Bay Area so they opened a location in Santa Clara. Lester mentioned having been a guest on KNBR, a Bay Area sports station, and he considers that to be a sign of how craft brewing is deeply integrate with the local culture.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Click the logo to visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
A dark beer goes with chocolate so that is a pairing that they do, in a collaboration with Zocalo, a local chocolate maker.
Next they taste a west coast IPA that Barebottle Brewing made in collaboration with Ghost Town. They just canned it yesterday. Lester likes Ghost Town for how they accentuate the bitter flavors in their beers.
Visit our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.
Wine too!Barebottle Brewing makes a wide variety of beers and he has brought several into the studio today. They also make wine, also under the Barebottle label. There is a sparkling pet nat from Anderson Valley, and also Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. They use about 14 tons of grapes per season and just did some Syrah and cool climate whites, Albariño and Vermentino from Buelton in Santa Barbara County. They also have some Barbera from Amador County.
Colin McDonald from Hen House Brewing and Gail Williams join Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras to talk about SF Beer Week 2023. Colin was also on Brew Ha Ha last year at this time, to talk about Hen House’s annual Big Chicken release.
SF Beer Week started in 2009 and ran every year except for the Covid year. It is back now, including a lot of interesting creative events and de-centralized parties. From Sonoma to Monterey counties, from the city to Livermore, there are events spread out across the East Bay, North Bay, the City, San Ramon Valley and Silicon Valley.
Big ChickenHen House’s Big Chicken is produced and shipped so that it can be consumed as fresh as possible. Fog Belt is doing artisanal bacon with their beer. There is even a Beer and Cookie pairing at Monk’s Kettle in San Francisco on Feb. 14. Since SF Beer Fest overlaps Valentine’s Day, there seem to be a lot of chocolate pairings with beer. Hen House is making a special beer called Valentine’s Day Nightmare.
Visit our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.
They are sampling a Hen House Pilsner that is light and beautiful with Jasmine flower flavors, called Star Turn. It is soft, bright and crisp with a little honeysuckle sweetness.
Equity and Inclusion in BrewingThey also have a collaboration called Activate, with Crowns and Hops Brewing in Inglewood, a brewery that is black-owned, woman-owned and veteran-owned. Gail tells about how there was an effort to get more black-owned breweries and so they support education and investment for that purpose. They wanted to make taprooms more welcoming and broaden the customer base. The Bay Area Brewers Guild Equity and Inclusion Committee made a collaboration among brewers from 6 breweries, at Drake’s in San Leandro. It is called “This Beer Creates Opportunity” and it will fund a diversity-focused endowment at UC Davis.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Click the logo to visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
The beer they are tasting is a Saison, named after the beer that was made for seasonal workers in France. Saison means season. It has some light flavors of black pepper and coriander. Hen House has also done Big Chicken again this year, it is their celebration of quality, freshness and hoppy beer. They like to get as much locally-sourced ingredients as possible. They have more than 180 locations where it is available, on their Instagram page.
The SF Beer Week has a calendar-driven display of all the events happening in all the Bay Area locations, for the duration of Beer Week.
Click the logo to visit SF Beer Week dot org.
Natalie Cilurzo from Russian River Brewing Company joins Brew Ha Ha with the first growler of the Pliny the Younger 2023 edition.
Later, the subject changes to SF Beer Week, when Colin McDonald from Hen House Brewing and Gail Williams will also be on. That portion of today’s live show will have its own separate podcast page, here.
Today’s episode of Brew Ha Ha continues a tradition of Russian River Brewing Co. bringing the new Pliny the Younger into the KSRO studios for its first tasting. Here is last year’s episode on the same occasion.
Pliny the Younger is a Triple IPA, which means it is a lot hoppier and a little bit higher in alcohol than regular double IPA beers. It is actually a quadruple dry hopped beer. “There is a copious amount of hops in this beer, which gives it that beautiful luscious aroma.” The hops are Simcoe, Amarillo, Chinook, Citra, Mosaic, Nectaron, Warrior and Elixir. Elixir, “the strawberry hop,” was added last year. Nectaron is the new hop for 2023. It brings nectarine and candied citrus fruit flavors.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Click the logo to visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
Pliny the Younger’s official release will happen from March 24 through April 6. It will be on tap in Santa Rosa and Windsor. Guests will be limited to three 10-oz. pours and bottles will be available too, at the brewery. You can purchase bottles or sit down at the brewery. They started local distribution today and there are hundreds of locations serving it.
Rejection is their Valentine’s Day Ale. It is on tap and in cans at their two locations.
Visit our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.
Herlinda, Michael & Keita.
Michael John from Omurasaki Sake Co. and Keita Tominaga of Hana restaurant join Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha. Keita was last on Brew Ha Ha on this July 2022 episode.
Michael John is VP of Development for Omurasaki sake brewery of Japan & California and chef Keita Tominaga is chef at Hana restaurant in Rohnert Park. Michael has just come off a plane and Keita is taking a quick break from the kitchen to be here.
Sake is brewed more like beer, even if sometimes people still refer to it as rice wine. Michael suggests that it’s made like a beer and drinks like a wine. Sake is actually now part of the curriculum for sommelier certification.
Keita Tominaga reports that Hana is thriving and so is Pabu, their partner restaurant in San Francisco.
Visit our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.
Ross Koda’s family has had a farm since his grandfather immigrated from Fukushima, Japan in 1908. He wanted to send his California organic rice back to his family in Fukushima, to be brewed into sake. The sake is called Uka which means metamorphosis, emergence or transformation which the butterfly on the label represents.
How Sake is MadeMichael gives a summary of how sake is made. The process begins with a rice milling machine that mills off the brown exterior of the grain. The high-grade Sake production mills 50% of the grain off, they to further and mill off 60% for this Sake. There is a chart of sake production on the Omurasaki Sake website, on this page.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Click the logo to visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
The Uka dry and black label are the same except they use different yeasts. Everything else being equal, the two yeasts give different flavors and aromas.
The Uka dry is shy, light, etherial, dry, crisp. The Uke black label has more body, is silkier, deeper, more floral, more profound, according to Herlinda.
Keita talks about trying to spend some more time behind the sushi bar at Hana, rather than being “stuck” in the kitchen. Hana is open Tuesday through Saturday 4:30pm to 9pm and 4pm-9pm Friday and Saturday. Reservations are preferred, especially Friday and Saturday, so call the restaurant or book on Open Table.
Michael mentions that sake uses the same yeast as beer. He started this job in 2003 and has visited Japan many times since then. In his first year they brought in 18 products from 11 breweries and the business is still going strong.
There is a sparkling sake too, with bubbles that are natural.
Marcin & Artur visit Anchor Brewing in San Francisco.
Marcin Malecki and Artur Napuripski of Maryensztadt Brewery in Poland are our guests today on Brew Ha Ha with Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras. Artur is the sales manager as well as a beer sommelier and brewery historian, and Marcin is the brewery’s owner. Herlinda Heras has been a beer judge at the Polish national beer competition for the last few years, along with Artur. Herlinda invited them to California for a visit and for a collaboration at Anchor Brewing and a visit to some famous Sonoma County craft breweries.
Marcin tells about their visit to Brew Ha Ha sponsor Russian River Brewing Co. and how impressed he was with their Windsor location. They also visited Brian Hunt at Moonlight Brewing.
Grodzisz is a smoked wheat beer, which is a unique Polish style. It uses 100% oak-smoked malt. Herlinda finds it refreshing. Artur describes it as a unique style and says the malt is hard to find. Polish brewers stopped making it in 1993 but they revived it recently. Beechwood smoke has a different flavor, like ham or cheese. This oak smoke is more like a campfire and is more subtle.
Visit our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.
Craft Brewing in PolandThe craft brewing industry is young in Poland. They began about ten years ago with an American IPA. The brewery’s name Maryensztadt is a small neighborhood in the heart of Warsaw, part of the old town. They wanted the brewery to be there, but they could not produce alcohol there. So they established the brewery in a small town very close to Warsaw. They try to make the brewery as “green” as possible, or sustainable, using as little energy and water as possible and recycling water. When they visited Russian River Brewing Co., they thought they would like to be that big in ten more years.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Click the logo to visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
Marcin, Herlinda & Artur.
Marcin has always been interested in beer and was a consultant brewer before opening the brewery. Artur has been interested in beer since long before the craft beer revolution. He eventually became a beer judge and got a beer and cider judging certificate. He is studying for his mead certification too. Poland has a long tradition of making mead, and even the certifying body, JCP, does not know all about it. Poland is also a huge producer of apples, but not cider apples. There is a small but promising cider revolution going on, but the problem is getting the right apples. There is also a thriving hops production in Poland.
Herlinda told Mark Carpenter, former Brew Ha Ha co-host, about Polish beer so he went there on a vacation and met Artur. Anchor Beer was the first good American beer to be available in Poland after the fall of Communism, and many people still remember its arrival and importance at the time. As Marcin says, “…your craft revolution is really great!”
Ryan Gibbons and Kent Fortner.
Mare Island Brewing Company co-founders Ryan Gibbons and Kent Fortner join Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha today. Mare Island was a naval shipyard since the earliest days of California and Herlinda was actually born there, since her father was in the US Navy. It was the oldest naval base west of the Mississippi, and also has the oldest golf course and one of the oldest Tiffany stained glass windows in the west, in its local church. Read about the history of Mare Island here.
Kent and Ryan founded Mare Island Brewing Co. after they met in the wine business. They are both professional wine makers. It is near the city of Vallejo and the city fathers asked him if he could move his winemaking operation there. The topography wasn’t right for that option, but when they met each other again in early 2013, they found the opportunity to open the brewery, on a shoestring.
Mare IslandMare Island used to support the town of Vallejo, which fell on hard times after the base closure. The city has supported a lot of reinvestment and development of new businesses including the brewery.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Click the logo to visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
With their experience making wine, they wanted their beers to be balanced and to make traditional recipes without chasing trends. They also took the opportunity to place historical information about Mare Island on their labels. It was a center of military production. A long list of important systems was produced there, including submarines and aircraft carriers. The cans also all feature a ship in the design, with a short version of the story of that ship on the label.
Visit our sponsor Victory House online for their latest viewing and menu options.
Mare Island Brewing Company locationsMare Island Brewing Company has three locations. One is at the Vallejo Ferry terminal, in Vallejo, where you take the ferry to San Francisco. The Coal Shed Brewery is on Mare Island and the First Street Taphouse is in Benicia. They brew all the beer on Mare Island and they also host events there.
Their beers are named after ships. The labels have stories that tell the histories of the ships on the label.
Ron Holt
Ron Holt from Civilization Brewing Company is our guest on Brew Ha Ha with Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras.
Olompali Lager is named after the closest state park to their Petaluma brewing facility. They have also brought their signature Pilsner. The brewery is brand new. They just opened their taproom on Oct. 31. They got started as North Bay Brewery Tours. Ron talks about how he got to know a lot of people in the business and gained a lot of knowledge about beer during that time. He got to see inside and outside of a lot of breweries.
The Civilization Brewing Co. TaproomThe taproom is located at 490 Mendocino Ave. at Ross St, in Santa Rosa, across the street from Three Disciples. “If your grandma’s living room was cool…” is how Ron describes it. There are food purveyors nearby and they sell snacks. They are active on Instagram where their address is @civilizationbrewingcompany. They will have events every week night. Tuesday they will do beer pong, Wednesday old movies and video games for Popcorn night. Industry night is for people who also work in the hospitality industry. Friday they will have themed vintage vinyl LP night.
The name takes its inspiration from the historical theory that organizing the production of grain and beer was a driving force in the development of early civilizations. They were home brewers who just wanted to make really good beer.
Visit our sponsor Victory House online for their latest viewing and menu options.
The next beer, called Sweet Fire, is flavored with apricot and habanero peppers. The flavor is very subtle and it matches the aroma. They also have Azacca Bold as Love west coast IPA and one called Ego Death, double IPA. That one comes with a Timothy Leary quote. They work with Sandro Tamburin to make the wort then they do their fermentation and packaging in their own location.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Click the logo to visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
The last beer, called Ego Death, is about 8 to 8.5% ABV. This beer comes with a Timothy Leary poem, “O voyager, the time has come for you to seek new levels of reality…” We are all one, so Cheers!
Bell’s Beer is now available in California and John Mallett from Bell’s Brewery calls in to Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha to tell about it. He is an old friend of Vinny and Natalie Cilurzo. They have a history of working together, including founding the Hops Quality Group.
Bell’s Beer has not been available in California, until now. John is very pleased to be able to get into the northern California market. The brewery has won some of the same awards that Russian River Brewing Co. has won. The brewery has grown steadily since its founding in the 1980s. He has been at Bell’s since 2001. Their website tells the whole story of their beers available today, as well as their entire history. They also do a lot of community support and outreach.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Click the logo to visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
The Beer Finder on the Bell’s website is a search tool that will point you to where to find all of their beers. The page is a database lookup, so you can enter search terms such as location, type of beer, type of retail location and distance from your zip code. The database will then return search results to suggest where to go to get the beer. There are 30 different locations around Sonoma County where Bell’s Beer is available. Bottle Barn also has some of their beers.
Visit our sponsor Victory House online for their latest viewing and menu options.
Herlinda Heras & Phaedra Achor.
Flora Luna Apothecary founder and chief mixer Phaedra Achor is our guest on Brew Ha Ha with Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras today.
Herlinda is back from Poland, where she was a judge again at the Polish national beer competition. We hear about the beers she judged and some smoked cheeses she tasted.
Phaedra Achor has been making bitters for a long time. Her line is on sale at Bottle Barn and other locations but she has also finally opened her own lounge which serves mocktails. She began as Monarch Bitters but she rebranded as Flora Luna Apothecary after the pandemic and she has also added syrups to her product line. She makes all her products, which are botanically based, in Petaluma, in small batches, hand crafted. Aside from the sugar and water base for the syrups or the spirit base for the bitters, all of her products come from botanical sources.
Bitters started as medicinal products, in the early 1800s. Some are used as a digestive. Bitters are made with barks, roots and aromatic botanicals. Barks and roots are inherently bitter and when you extract the bitter compounds, they deliver their flavor.
Visit our sponsor Victory House online for their latest viewing and menu options.
The Apothecary is located at 122 Kentucky Street in Petaluma. The lounge is a showcase for her products. She does not need alcohol licensing since her products are not alcoholic drinks. Despite the presence of all the wine, beer and spirits business in Sonoma County, there is hardly any space for people who choose alcohol-free beverages.
Mixers are what make non-alcoholic drinks interesting, as well as alcoholic ones. Some mocktails can be not very interesting. The Apothecary has a whole menu of non-alcoholic cocktails and drinks. They are open Friday, Saturday and Sunday 4:30 pm to 8:30 pm and 11 am to 3 pm on Sunday. The place is tiny, she has 18 seats.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Click the logo to visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
Phaedra will show how to make cocktails, low-alcohol drinks and mocktails which are non-alcoholic drinks, to be served hot or cold. The first cocktail uses ginger that macerates in some bourbon, with whiskey and ice. The whiskey is from Griffo Distillery in Petaluma, which is finished in stout beer barrels. These ingredients go into the shaker with the ice:
• 1½ ounces of bourbon whiskey,
• ½ ounce of apple cider,
• ¾ ounce of tart cranberry juice,
• ½ ounce of tangerine juice,
• ½ ounce of Flora Luna Cardamom Clove syrup,
• 4-5 drops per cocktail of Flora Luna coffee-cacao-peppercorn bitters,
• ¼ ounce of Little Apple Treats Lemon Coriander shrub. (A ‘shrub’ is a drinking vinegar.)
(Measuring cocktail ingredients is important to keep the cocktail’s flavors balanced.)
Phaedra has also mixed a mocktail using Free Spirits Bourbon, which is flavored like bourbon whiskey but is non-alcoholic. Free Spirits makes non-alcoholic substitutes for spirits that go into her mocktails. You can also make the same cocktail with a half an ounce of bourbon instead of an ounce and a half.
Third Street Aleworks News with Tyler Laverty leads off today's show. He is back on Brew Ha Ha with Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras after appearing here just one month ago. He is here to deliver the news that after 26 years in the same location, they have decided not to renew the lease at the downtown pub location. However, they will continue to produce and distribute beer. They have been building a production facility already for about a year. They will self-distribute locally and have established local distributors in other counties.Visit our sponsor Victory House online for their latest viewing and menu options.Tuesday, March 14 will be the last day of operations. They will also continue to participate in San Francisco Beer Week and Santa Rosa’s own Beer Passport in “Feb-Brew-ary” and they eventually plan to have a new taproom. Third Street Aleworks is iconic. It was the first brew pub where both Harry and Tyler had a beer when they each came to Santa Rosa. They opened on March 8, 1996, so they will celebrate their 27th anniversary.Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.Big Picture IPAThey are tasting one of Third Street Aleworks’ west coast IPAs. This is called Big Picture IPA, which uses Amarillo, Simcoe and Strada hops, which they put right on the can, so people know what went into it. One of their owners, Matt Vella, designs all of their labels.Distribution will be crucial for their new success. And, as long as they are still open downtown, Bayou on the Bay will continue to provide food at the taproom, seven days a week. They will have cans of their dry stout again, which they sold out of a month before they won the gold medal at GABF and the Beer World Cup.
Jenny Ogston and Wes Skelton from Victory House and Poppy Bank Epicenter are in studio with Harry Duke today on Brew Ha Ha. They are also expecting a phone call from Herlinda Heras who is in Krakow, Poland, where she is judging a big beer competition.Jenny Ogston is the GM of Poppy Bank Epicenter and Wes Skelton is the front-of-house food and beverage manager of Victory House. Poppy Bank Epicenter has several areas devoted to different kinds of sports and recreation. There are all these different attractions: Sports City, an entertainment arcade with bowling, pool and darts; Victory House, AnyTime Fitness and Sky Zone, a trampoline park. Victory House is a restaurant and sports bar full of big screens with a great menu of food and beverages. Wes describes Victory House as a giant sports bar.Tamarind Mango MuleThey taste a cocktail that Wes invented, called Tamarind Mango Mule. It has Tamarind vodka, fresh lime juice, mango purée and ginger beer. There are at least 24 beers on tap there too. They have Modelo, Third Street Aleworks, Parliament, Hen House, Sierra Nevada, Lagunitas and many more.Herlinda Heras calls in from Krakow, Poland. She is judging the national beer competition there along with other judges from many other countries. She will bring some Polish beers back to Santa Rosa. Herlinda will also have some guests from Poland on the show in the near future.The Victory House opens at 6:30 am for the World Cup final games this weekend. They have lots of NFL games on the big screens. Generally, the 49ers take priority when they are playing, but there are other teams that have followings too.New Year's EvePoppy Bank Epicenter has a New Year’s Eve Family Party, which is a great place to bring the family, so the grown-ups can have a nice time together while the children are busy playing games. They do the balloon drop at 9pm west coast time, for the benefit of the families.
Casey Williams (l) & James Claus (r)James Claus, co-owner and brewmaster of 3 Disciples Brewing is here, and so is Casey Williams of Barrel Proof Comedy, to join Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha today.Casey Williams has been doing comedy shows at 3 Disciples and still does shows at Barrel Proof Comedy. He spent fifteen years in the carting business and was doing comedy shows on the side."Beer is our religion."3 Disciples Brewing is located in Santa Rosa (next to the Tipsy Taco). They celebrate their fifth anniversary next year. Matt, Luke and James are the three disciples and their mottos is, “Beer is our religion.”Sally Tomatoes is still an event center, even if the restaurant is closed. James describes how they turned their location into one of the best music and comedy venues in Sonoma County. They moved brewing operations from Sebastopol to Santa Rosa about a year and a half ago. It is a great space and they are working on getting their operation moved to 1018 Santa Rosa Plaza for the last year. It is the old Two Tread location and came with equipment. As of Jan. 1 they will be moved in entirely. James is very happy with the new venue.Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.There is big Brews News today, which they describe as two doors opening. As 3 Disciples are leaving the old venue, Casey is taking it over. 501 Mendocino Ave. will now be called Barrel Proof, an entertainment venue for comedy and music. It is also a great location and Casey knows its potential. Barrel Proof will still sell 3 Disciples beer. They also have the Tipsy Taco next door and food trucks that come by. The new 3 Disciples location does have a kitchen. “I can promise you it will be great.” Barrel Proof has a goal of opening by the third week in January.Sebastopol Origins3 Disciples started in Sebastopol seven years ago. Two years ago they moved into 501 Mendocino but they have outgrown it. Ron Sly does the artwork on the 3 Disciples cans. They have known Ron for a while, he used to be in the same home brew club. When Covid happened, breweries needed to distribute beer in cans, so they needed good art. James new Ron was perfect for that gig. Let There Be Light Pilsner, a German style beer, clean and light, with German hops. It’s only 5% and it’s a Pilsner. 3 Disciples started with three Belgian styles. Since the people like IPAs now, they had to make a lot of that.Visit our sponsor Victory House online for their latest viewing and menu options.They second beer is their new West Coast IPA, 3D IPA. 6.5% with Idaho 7 Centennial and Cascade hops. He gets lemon and pineapple flavors. The Cascade hops give citrus notes and the Centennial gives pineapple flavors. The next one is called Galaxy Invaders, a hazy IPA. It is primarily Galaxy hops from Australia, and the 2022 vintage. The hops are fresh from a month ago, where it’s summer down under. The fourth beer is called Galaxy, Citra and Mosaic and features Galaxy invaders from outer space. Then there is a kettle sour called Fruity Kettles, made with apricot, peach, tangerine, vanilla and milk sugar.
Anchor Brewing historian Dave Burkhart and former Anchor brewing chief Mark Carpenter join Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha today. Mark Carpenter is the former co-host of this show who began working at Anchor in 1971. Author Dave Burkhart has been with Anchor Brewing Co. for thirty-one and a half years. Very early in his tenure began collecting historical documentation of the brewery. His book, The Anchor Brewing Story, has just been published.
Mark and Dave agree that Anchor has a bright future since the new owners (Sapporo) are investing heavily in the company. Dave started at Anchor on a Monday and by the following Saturday, he started researching the company. In 2010, he took the title Anchor Historian. He describes finding out about the original owner Gottfried Breckle, who first went from Germany in 1852 to Valdivia, Chile. It was “the irresistible lure of gold” that brought him to California. Anchor's Early History A lot of this early family history is documented on this page of the Anchor Brewing website. Gottfried came to California in late 1953 or early 1854 and worked in the gold fields, then worked for a local brewery. He became an American citizen in 1854. He “did what everyone did in the gold rush, he reinvented himself.” Eventually he owned the Golden Gate Brewery in San Francisco, which burned down. He took the insurance money back to Germany and opened a brewery there. Then he came back to San Francisco and opened another brewery in the Russian Hill neighborhood. Then he sold it and invested in a saloon that they turned into brewery in 1871. That marks the beginning of the company that became Anchor in 1896.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
There were more than thirty breweries in San Francisco in the late 1800s and 847 drinking establishments in town, as well as many corner grocery stores in the city which also served beer in the back room. The Anchor Pub There is a pub now at Anchor Brewery that is a showcase for their panorama of beer recipes. One is Humming Ale, which uses Nelson hops. It’s the same recipe as Liberty Ale except that uses Cascade hops. That was the first IPA in California, although they did not want to call it that. Fritz Maytag, who was Anchor’s owner at the time of its late 1960s rebirth, wanted to make that type of beer that he remembered from his student days back east. It has a lot more hops than other beers at the time.
Visit our sponsor Victory House online for their latest viewing and menu options. Anchor Steam Beer Steam Beer is called a California Common in the beer index books. There are several possible origins of the term Steam Beer. It is a California story and without Anchor there would be none of it. Lager beer needs cold conditions, so there was no ice in the city and they needed to make beer without it. They came up with the idea of a Cool Ship, a large shallow pan with a large surface area. It was exposed to the atmosphere, there were louvered windows in the room. The mean temperature was cooler then than now. When the warm wort was pumped up into the cool ship, the difference in temperature produced steam.
Another theory holds that when they dropped the beer back to the floor below, they added yeast to it. Then they filled large wooden barrels with the beer. If a bartender opened a keg while the beer was still fermenting, tapping the keg would produce a spray that was similar to steam. Yet another idea is that bartenders would pour from different kegs of different ages. The newest beer was the foamiest. So there is some uncertainty about the term.
Today is the forty-seventh anniversary of the first brewing of Anchor Christmas Ale. There is a different tree on the label every year. This year, it is a Blue Gum tree, also known as the Eucalyptus.
Sean Paxton and Lauren Price
Mindscape Fermentations co-owner and brewer Lauren Price and Home Brew Chef Sean Paxton are our guests today on Brew Ha Ha with Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras. Sean Paxton has been a guest on Brew Ha Ha thrice since this first appearance in April of 2018. He was back in November of that year in time for this episode. His last time on the show was this show in November of 2019 which was all about turkey.
Lauren Price is the co-owner and brewer at Mindscape Fermentations, whih does all things fermented so that means Kombucha, Kimchee, Sauerkraut and more.
Sean Paxton the Home Brew Chef is in to talk about cooking with beer again. He has had the number one Beer Brine Turkey recipe online. Mindscape Fermentations The Mindscape Fermentations mission of uniting fermentation across all cultures, including foods and beverages that are fermented. Her title is Microbe Manager. She describex how we have a relationship with the microbes. They opened about six months ago and are located in Rocklin right off Hwy 80, just outside Sacramento on the way towards Reno. Lauren did the Master’s program at UC Davis when Charlie Bamforth “The Pope of Foam” was teaching there. She has brought Alligator Teeth pale ale and a Kombucha with cotton candy grapes, for tasting. They also have some Knuckleballs, which are stuffed pizza dough balls, to snack on.
Visit our sponsor Victory House online for their latest viewing and menu options.
Sean has of course been on a few times before Thanksgiving. His chef uses spelt and whole wheat flour and a special culture to make his pizza dough. They use local organic ingredients.
Lauren has poured the Mindscape Fermentations pale ale called Alligator Teeth. It uses special hops, Bravo and Idaho Seven. Mindscape Fermentations allows outside food at their location and they also have panini and cured meat platters. Their place is a hybrid between a taproom and a very low-key restaurant.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info. The Home Brew Chef Sean’s website Home Brew Chef has several beer bring turkey recipes. The doppelbock beer is Sean’s favorite for cooking but it is a style that is not easy to come by these days. He also mentions that the Russian River Brewing Co. beers are all very food-friendly because of their intense flavors. Hoppy beers should not be cooked unless you are adding a lot of extra sugars. The hop oils intensify and make harsher flavors.
Herlinda remembers a salad dressing that Sean made with a Bear Republic Racer 5. He mentions that his website is an online cookbook and the recipes are set up to help cooks that are cooking for groups of all sizes, not just four servings.
Sean was in a movie called Beers of Joy which is available on various streaming services.
Later we get to the Kombucha from Mindscape Fermentations, which is a kind of fermented tea. It is called Gypsy Games.
Ed McGrath from Ace Cider and Adam Ray, founder of Beer City are both guests on Brew Ha Ha with Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras. We have had Ed McGrath on Brew Ha Ha most recently on this July 2020 episode.
Brew’s News with Herlinda is sponsored by the Beer City Festival, which was going to be in Calistoga in November this year but instead will be held Easter weekend, April 16th, 2023. Also, Santa Rosa will have a Beer City festival on February 25th, 2023, downtown in Old Courthouse Square.
They begin the show by christening the new KSRO studio with an heirloom cider. It’s a dry cider that tastes a bit different every year. It is 9% ABV, Herlinda calls it "sneaky." Gravensteins! This is an heirloom cider made from local Gravenstein apples. The French ciders have less alcohol and uses more traditional cider apples. During Prohibition all the American cider apples were chopped down because they’re not for eating. Today there is a west coast style cider, called Blackjack, made from west coast apples. There are also distinctive ciders coming from New York and Michigan. Ace Cider founder Jeffery House has been a guest on Brew Ha Ha before.
Visit our sponsor Victory House online for their latest viewing and menu options.
They have another cider called Ace High, a card playing reference. It is semi dry and has subtle fruit flavors. Ace doesn’t add food coloring or sugars so the colors are all natural. Blueberry doesn’t give color, so the other berries do.
Beer City is less than a year old. Adam Ray tells about how the idea started in Santa Rosa, about how to create an attraction.
Ed McGrath is happy to have introduced cider to more people than anybody. Cider is gluten free, since there is no grain.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info. Cider for Thanksgiving Cider is the perfect pairing for a lot of Thanksgiving foods; not the sugary non-alcoholic kind, but the real fermented cider. Ace has also made a seasonal pumpkin cider (although the pumpkin is nearly flavorless and what we are actually tasting in all of these things is the spices, not the pumpkin).
Hendrick Verspecht
Brew Ha Ha gets a visit from Hendrick Verspecht from cuVer Brewing. He has been on Brew Ha Ha before. Today he brought some beer to the studio. He brought their three Belgians. Pepperwood Saison, a Belgian Saison with meyer lemon peel and bay leaf, and two types of Belgian abbey ales, a golden one and a dark one.
Tyler Laverty, Vinnie Cilurzo and Brian Hunt are all guests today on Brew Ha Ha with Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras. Tyler Laverty is brewmaster at Third Street Aleworks. Vinnie Cilurzo is brewmaster and a co-founder of Russian River Brewing Company. Brian Hunt is the founder, co-owner and brewmaster at Moonlight Brewing Company. This is a powerful bunch of beer guys AND they all just won medals at the Great American Beer Festival.
They can’t resist joking about playing fast and loose with the “official” brew descriptions of the BJCP, which are online here. Listen to these beer heavyweights, check out the BJCP descriptions they’re referencing, taste some of the beer, and then see what you think. That’s the scientific method as applied to this show. This kind of audience involvement shows the power of radio and beer together. Taste and see. And tell your friends!
Visit our sponsor Victory House online for their latest viewing and menu options.
Brian Hunt describes the Moonlight beer called Wee Nibble that won a medal. His brewmaster Zach Greenwood wanted to make a Petit Saison which ended up winning.
Vinnie Cilurzo describes the beer that won a medal for Russian River Brewing Co. called Intinction.
Tyler Laverty describes the challenging business environment and the recent changes at Third Street Aleworks. They have had to close the restaurant and now they have popups providing food. Bayou On The Bay has taken up residency and he brought a Cajun Birria style taco, and the Cajun Cali Burrito, from their menu.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
Dylan Prater of Mother Road Brewing Co.
Brendan Moylan, founder of Moylan’s Brewery & Restaurant, Moylan’s Distilling and the now-closed Marin Brewing joins Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha. First, Where the Hell is Harry? Before we talk with Brendan, Harry Duke is finishing his three-week interstate tour and he is calling in from Flagstaff, Arizona and we meet Dylan Prater, the manager of Mother Road Brewing Company in Flagstaff.
Dylan Prager joins Harry Duke and describes the Mother Road Brewing Company. John Steinbeck called Route 66 The Mother Road in The Grapes of Wrath. In November they will celebrate their 11th anniversary. Their two core beers are the Power Six IPA, the number one selling independently owned IPA in the state. The other is Conserve and Protect Golden Ale. A portion of proceeds go to the Arizona Game and Fish Dept. The taproom in Flagstaff is also the original brewery, although they also brew beer in another nearby location. Dylan describes their quest to provide “radical hospitality” to make it a place you will want to visit. He started the first brewery after attending St. Mary’s College. “I just knew I wasn’t going to be an accountant and I had to have a plan.” He was one of the founders of Marin Brewing Company in 1989 when there were only 25 breweries in California. Today there are thousands. Today he has Moylan’s Brewery. They are located in Novato right off the 101. One of their signature beers is a Scotch Ale. Beers from Scotland will be light on the hops. Moylan’s Distillery opened in 2003/2004. They are located behind the Buckhorn in Petaluma. Their whiskey has won many awards.
Moylan's Brewery Moylan’s is huge inside and has a menu with things like a half-pound hamburger, an epic corned-beef Reuben sandwich, bangers and mash with a lot of mash, fish and chips and all kinds of pizzas and salads. Marin Brewing Co. used to have a lot of beers on tap and Moylan's also has a lot, they have 12 on tap now. They just installed a 2000-pound mill on the second floor. Marin Brewing Co. had a 32-year run.
Herlinda mentions that Anchor's Liberty Ale was the first IPA, they just didn't call it that. Brendan mentions that the youngest beer consumers today are interested in having a constant rotation of new beers. Moylan's has an active Facebook and Instagram, and they are open 7 days a week until 9pm. They plan to bring back live music next year.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
Susan Boyle
Susan Boyle, the Irish Spirits Ambassador is the guest of Herlinda Heras with Peter Lopez who is sitting in for Harry Duke on Brew Ha Ha today.
First, Harry Duke is calling in from a roadside attraction on Route 66 in Oklahoma, on his road trip. Oklahoma City has a thriving craft beer scene, and he’s “not in the land of IPAs anymore.” If he sees one or two on the board, it’s a surprise. The Pilsners and Lagers are more popular there among the craft brewers. They are going from their Fall beers to their Winter beers. Ireland's Bord Bia Bord Bia is the Irish Food Board, that oversees food and drink exports from Ireland. There is a renaissance going on in Irish distilling. After the low point of the 1960s there has been a great revival. Herlinda points out that Bourbon and Whiskey start off with the wort, the same way beer does, only they don’t add hops and they distill it instead of ferment.
Herlinda has brought a bottle of Guinness West Indies Porter. It is a historic recipe, which came from their corporate archives. There is a lot of brewing history in those documents. They have a whiskey called Lost Irish, a blended Irish whiskey. Irish whiskey can be aged in any kind of wood, such as chestnut or acacia, besides oak.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
Susan's portfolio includes whiskeys, cream liqueurs, white spirits including gin and Irish Poitín (pronounced “potcheen”) sometimes also called Irish moonshine. Irish cream liqueur is one of three spirits whose name and origin are regulated, along with Irish whiskey and Irish Poitín.
This whiskey has spent time in six different casks which impart a spectrum of flavors. It is drinkable and smooth with caramel, toffee and nuts in the flavors. "Everything tastes better with friends."
Richard Norgrove and Josh Grace
Bear Republic brewer Richard Norgrove and Josh Grace of Grace Bros. Brewing join Herlinda Heras in studio. Peter Lopez is sitting in for Harry Duke who will call in later and Tara Nurin will also call in to talk about the award her book just won. Tara Nurin was a guest on Brew Ha Ha on this episode of October 21, 2021, and talked about her book.
First, Tara Nurin calls in to talk about about her book about women in brewing winning an award. Tara has been on Brew Ha Ha many times including this October 21, 2021 episode where she described the recently published “The Woman’s Place Is In The Brewhouse.” The book has just won the first prize from the North American Guild of Beer Writers. She really likes hearing stories from readers who identify with the many successful women in brewing. It was also a great experience to do the research interviews and meet a lot of her heroes. Tara has some stories coming out on the Food Network website too.
Richard and Josh tell the origin story of the Grace Bros. Beer, which was making beer in the early 1900s. He works in the business of buying and selling wineries, which often includes trademarks. In the course of another business deal, he found the Grace Bros. Beer trademark was available. He describes the process of recovering the trademark, which is on the beer that they are tasting today. Grace Bros. was one of the largest breweries 100 and more years ago, in Sonoma County. They stopped making beer in the 1960s and now they are relaunching the beer with Bear Republic. A portion of the profits go to the historical society and to veteran’s assistance.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
Russian River Hop Time Harvest Ale made with 100% Sonoma County hops and barley, and malt from Admiral Malting. They are canning it now at Russian River Brewing Co. Where the Hell is Harry? Harry Duke is calling in for an installment of “Where the Hell is Harry?” this time from Flatonia, Texas, which is between San Antonio and Houston. He was at the Alamo earlier and posted pictures on The Drive’s face book page and ended up at the oldest saloon in Texas, The Buckhorn, in San Antonio. When he asked for a local beer he had one called Texican from Blue Star Brewing Co. of San Antonio, a light Mexican style lager, which was perfect for the hot weather there. Harry describes seeking out Classic Rock stations while driving across the southwest. At one point, at night, doing 80 MPH (the speed limit there) Freebird came on... And gas is $2.85 a gallon, but the tradeoff is, you’ve got to be in Texas. Grace Bros. Beer They had a big release party for the new Grace Bros. beer. They sold out in the first day. The beer is a classic, light easy-drinking beer (under 5%), as it was originally. They tried to imitate the ingredients and process and they got to experiment as home brewers in order to get the recipe right. Grace Bros. started brewing in 1897 and apart from Prohibition, it was idle from 1953 to 1958, then again until 1967. But in the heyday of the 1940s, when it was most popular, this was the beer. They were careful to use just the right hops, which is California Cluster. It’s a Bavarian type lager, even if in those days, it was basically just called beer. The pub is in Rhonhert Park on Roberts Lake Road and the beer is on tap. They might release it in Spring or earlier in Summer next year.
Harmonic Brewing co-founder and brewmaster Ed Gobbo is our guest today on Brew Ha Ha with Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras. He begins by telling how three buddies started Harmonic Brewing. Ed was a chemical engineer for a pharma company and his two friends worked in Internet advertising. They were making beer for a party of 100 friends and the whole thing just took off from there. The brewery is located in the Dogpatch area of San Francisco, and also in Thrive City at the Chase Center, where the Golden State Warriors play. They make a full range of beers, but mainly, what they love to drink. For example, the Mexicali lager is lightly hopped, with Mazueca hops which have a hint of lime. How Local Is That? They look at themselves as a community brewery. Harmonic Brewing got in touch with the Warriors because they are tied into the community. They did a lot of community events together and then were invited to a location in the stadium. They also use malt from Admiral Malting in Oakland.
The name Harmonic brewing comes from the partners’ love of music, they are also musicians who play together. The brewery “the mother ship” in Dogpatch has a different food truck every day, Tuesday through Sunday. That is dog friendly, they do not have a kitchen. In the Chase Center with the great view, it’s service animals only.
Harmonic Brewing’s Dogpatch taproom is located at 1050 26th St., San Francisco, CA. Tuesday 4-8, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday 3-9 and Saturday noon-9 and Sunday 12-6.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
They were looking for a location all over the city but the Dogpatch location seemed the most ideal. It is industrial and is attached to a metal shop. They built all the metal furniture there too, and the metal tap handles. The community is awesome. There is an active neighborhood association and everyone knows everyone else. Since they moved in they have found the neighborhood to be fertile ground for collaborations with like-minded brewers. Their setup at Thrive City in the Chase Center is made to handle high traffic in short bursts. Samplings of Harmonic Brewing Ed has brought some different Harmonic Brewing products, including the ones in the picture above. They also use malt from Admiral Malting which uses a specially developed strain of barley that grows in California. They personally convinced some farmers to grow a strain of barley with a lower protein, for the brewers. The result is very flavorful beers, like this one called Yeast of Burton.
You Love to “C” It uses 100% Citra hops. They are also proud of the Dogpatch water, which comes straight from Yosemite via the Hetch Hetchy aqueduct, and is very clean and pure tasting.
Ed’s family is from Istria, in Italy, near Croatia. His parents are from Croatia and his family also has an Italian palette that comes from all the Italian foods like mozzarella and prosciutto that they make.
There is a San Francisco festival called Brews On The Bay, and it is Ed’s favorite festival. It is held on a former warship. The breweries set up on the ship and they enjoy a view of the bay and the city.
Triple Point Brewing founder Alex Barlow joins Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha today. Alex has been a judge with Herlinda at some international beer competitions. One of his beers won at the Portuguese competition where Herlinda was a judge earlier this year. Triple Point Brewing is still fairly young. It is the successor to another brewery which didn’t make the cut financially but which was successful otherwise, including a good location and good partners. Alex also ran a beer sommelier school in England. He worked for Bass for 18 years and did consulting for 14 years doing beer education and training.
Herlinda and Alex were in the middle of judging a beer competition together when the news of Queen Elizabeth II’s passing reached them. He says it felt strange to be away when it happened and they all shared a toast to her memory. Triple Point Brewing is located in Sheffield, which has a population of 660,000, 20 breweries and a student population of about 60,000. It is surrounded by countryside and there is cycling and climbing all around Sheffield, in Yorkshire.
They focus on Lagers and the new style hoppy pales. Alex also likes the west coast pale ales and IPAs so they make some of those too. Their biggest selling beer is the Hellas Lager. They have a Fest Beer ready for Octoberfest, with Bavarian hops. He compares it to toast with marmalade on it. Anyone could enter at the Iberian Beer Awards, and he did enter and win, but with a different brew.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
Herlinda has opened a Grape Ale from Dos Corvos in Portugal. This is the style that won in Iberia, but the brewery is from Poland, which was surprising. Alex likes being able to make good tasting beer by experimenting with ingredients. There are three different ways to make Grape Ale. One is aging beer in wine casks, which is fairly common. More recently people use wine must and age beer on that. Otherwise, they mix grape juice with the beer wort and then ferment them together. That third one is Herlinda’s favorite way. You can combine those techniques too.
Peter Lopez and Adam Bosch
Juncture Taproom owner Peter Lopez and Adam Bosch of Parliament Brewing in Rhonert Park join Harry Duke in studio on Brew Ha Ha today. Peter Lopez reports that they are still alive! His gratitude goes to the neighborhood regulars and his staff. Half of his original staff is still with him. Junture Taproom and Lounge is located at the corner of Mission and Montgomery in Santa Rosa. They have 3500 square feet inside and a huge patio that overlooks Santa Rosa Creek. They have a large projection screen with surround sound. It’s a great place to watch a game. The menu is simple but tasty. They have 20 beers in rotation on tap, including several popular ones from Parliament Brewing.
Parliament Brewing in Rhonert Park is a family operation. Adam Bosch runs the tasting room and does sales and distribution, his father Alan mainly does the books and his brother Justin brews the beer. There are always new projects with a new business. He found that they had to start distributing beer in cans, which is growing. They also provide more beers in kegs for bars and restaurants. Their tasting room in Rhonert Park is located just south of the Costco. They have outdoor seating and plans to build more, to be able to hold up to 200 people. They have food trucks, including Tacos San Juan, Buns Only, Camacho, War Pigs, Lila’s Streetside Eats. Tuesdays is Trivia Night with Tacos San Juan and the other food trucks are in rotation, so not on the same day of the week.
Juncture Taproom’s rotation usually has 2 taps each for cider, sours, barrel aged beers, old-world pilsners and lagers, and seasonals. In the winter they may have more Stouts and Porters and in the summer time, more Hefeweizens and Pilsners or Lagers. Kaleidoscope They taste Kaleidoscope, a hazy IPA that is Parliament Brewing’s flagship brew. Peter says it’s so good that they keep it on tap at Juncture Taproom Adam’s brother Justin discovered brewing science in college and invited him to to California to work with him. He is happy with the career choice. Kaleidoscope, at 6.9% AVB, it will not overwhelm you to have more than one. They made the recipe together, Adam chose the ingredients and Justin is in charge of the process. The name Parliament refers to a group noun sometimes used for owls and also for a community of people who collaborate. Kaleidoscope is considered to refer to butterflies (see the can art). More Parliament Brewing Tastings The second beer is a west coast IPA called Smosaic, which is a portmanteau of the names of the two kinds of hops used to make it, which are Simcoe and Mosaic. The AVB is 7.2%, it is more clean, piney, citrusy, the standard west coast IPA. It is balanced and the bitterness is not too strong.
The third beer is called “Seven and Citra” made with Idaho 7 hops and Citra hops. It is more bitter, well-hopped, and at 7.8% Adam calls it the bigger brother of Kaleidescope.
There are a lot of local stores in Sonoma County where they are available in cans and on draft in some. They also make a smoothie style kettle sour, with fruit added, they have Pilsners, as well as Stouts and others.
Herlinda Heras is traveling again, this time she is calling in from Coimbra, Portugal. It is located in central Portugal, north of Lisbon and south of Porto. It has been a university town since the Middle Ages and it still is. Its university is one of the oldest in Europe. Herlinda is in Coimbra to judge in the Brew Coimbra Festival all weekend.
She has noticed that there are a lot of Americans in Portugal right now, on the streets and in public locales. Home prices have doubled since 2019, and Portugal is a new hot spot for Americans (and also lots of Europeans) to retire or to have a vacation home.
The Portuguese brewing industry is well developed. Also, they are known for wine and especially for Port wine. They also make Portuguese Grape Ale. One of them is the winner of the competition she judged. This show is broadcast when it is the middle of the night in Portugal, and we hope nobody from there is listening as Herlinda give a big hint as to who won the competition. The results are due to be announced tomorrow, local time in Coimbra.
Herlinda Heras is also a soccer fan and went to a game in Paris. The stadium food was disappointing, which surprised her. The international panel of judges includes judges from Panama, Britain and the Netherlands.
The grape ale that won the competition might be taken as a clue to California producers, to try making some Grape Ales too.
Anderson Valley's new Pilsner is the subject as Kevin McGhee and Fal Allen from Anderson Valley Brewing join Harry Duke on Brew Ha Ha today. Also in the studio for the conversation is cognac expert Frank Jacuba. This episode is all about Anderson Valley Brewing. Visit this other podcast episode to hear their conversation about cognac, from the same live show.
Anderson Valley Brewing has just launched a new Pilsner beer, which is now in national distribution for the first time in their 35-year history. Fal Allen tells about how they wanted this to be a traditional Pils, with a strong malt backbone and not too hoppy.
Anderson Valley started in 1987, so it celebrates 35 years this December. They focus on classic West Coast style IPA. They distribute nationally and internationally. Kevin’s family purchased the brewery in December of 2019, just before the pandemic hit. This gave them the opportunity to review their branding and their sustainability practices. They are the world’s first solar-powered brewery. They also recycle all of their water on site.
Frank Jacuba who knows flavors, gives his appreciation of this beer as a potential pairing with barbeque. Juicy Session IPA, a West Coast session style, fruit forward, an easy drinking beer. "That’s what we go for at Anderson Valley, beers you can have a second of.” Visiting Anderson Valley Brewing You can visit Anderson Valley Brewing at what they call the Beer Park, which is around 30 acres, located at the intersection of Hwy 128 and Hwy 253 in Mendocino Valley. They have an 18-hole disc golf course, which is free to play, it is dog friendly and they have an outdoor stage. There is a lawn with chairs so it is designed for people to enjoy the outdoor scene. They usually have a food truck and now they have their own menu Fridays and Saturdays. There are other food options in town. There is a group of musician/carpenters who built an outdoor stage with local redwood. They will have as many local musicians as possible there. They have an event page on their website, here.
Fal Allen says Anderson Valley is the most beautiful place he has ever been that has a brewery so he enjoys living and working there.
Frank Jacuba joins Harry Duke in the studio today on Brew Ha Ha, he is a cognac expert who is in today while Herlinda Heras is in France visiting the Cognac region.
Also in the studio today are Kevin McGhee and Fal Allen from Anderson Valley Brewing. They have just launched a new Pilsner beer, which is now in national distribution or the first time in their 35 year history. Turn to this other podcast episode for their entire conversation with Harry Duke about the new Anderson Valley Brewing Pilsner.
Frank Jacuba presents two samples of D’Usse cognac, a VSOP and an XO. He begins by describing the first cognac, the Vsop, and discusses its history and style. He describes one of his favorite ways of enjoying cognac, which is with thin slices of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese and a bit of honey. You can even enjoy it by putting some in a glass of ginger ale. The flavor profile is complex because there is so much cognac of different ages in the blend.
The XO is a minimum of 10 years old, in a black bottle that really stands out on the shelf. There is so much character, history and soul in cognac that it can be really special.
You can enjoy cognac in many different ways. You can make a Sidecar or a Tiki drink with cognac. “A lot of people think it’s stuffy, it’s not stuffy. It’s a lot of fun. (…) Drink it how you want,” says Frank.
Herlinda Heras calls from Belgium to talk to Harry Duke about her travels in France and Belgium on Brew Ha Ha today.
Herlinda is calling in live from Halle, Belgium, where it is 2 am. It’s near the capital, Bruxelles. Drie Fontanen brewery is located there, and Pete Slosberg is celebrating his birthday there tomorrow. Pete Slosberg has been on Brew Ha Ha before. He was a ground-breaking brewer and marketer in the 1980s before craft beer was a thing. Pete’s Wicked Ale was an early craft beer from before it was called that. They were known as micro-brewers back then. There are people from all over the world who have gathered there for Pete Slosberg’s birthday party. They had a dinner for 24 people that evening with lots of local craft beers on the menu and a special birthday brew.
Herlinda also visited Epernay, in France very close to Belgium, which is where Moet & Chandon and Dom Perignon are located. There are lots of little villages to visit and Herlinda endorses their tourism website. It reminds her of Sonoma County but they also have Roman ruins. The oldest champagne winery is from 1584. They also tried the local beer. Their beer styles are light, called blonde and blanche. Herlinda also visited Veuve Cliquot and Pomery.
After Pete Slosberg’s birthday Herlinda has a four-day beer tour in Paris, which has lots of great craft beer bars. Then she goes to Cognac and Bordeaux, to learn about Cognac and brandy. After that she will be a judge at the Iberian Awards in Portugal, the national craft beer competition there. She also describes ratafia de Champagne, which is a mixture of grappa distilled from the pomace left after wine pressing, blended with unfermented grape juice.
Fogbelt Brewing co-founders Paul Hawley and Remy Martin are our guests on Brew Ha Ha with Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras.
Remy starts with the history of Fogbelt. They both grew up in Healdsburg and their fathers were winemakers. They worked a southern hemisphere harvest where they started home brewing on the side. He took the Master Brewer degree at UC Davis while Paul went to work at his family’s winery. 10 years later they opened in 2014.
Their taproom on Cleveland Avenue in Healdsburg is not in a part of town with a lot of foot traffic, so people who come there have made the trip to get good beer, they don’t wander in off the street. They have really grown in the kitchen with a new chef and new recipes. Having begun thinking that they should make lighter lagers but they have to make what is popular. They didn’t want to just make IPAs like everyone else. So they try to keep a wide variety of styles. Their first famous beer was a red ale that was hoppy and higher in alcohol. It’s called Hyperion Red Ale.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
Fogbelt was one of the first breweries to brew with locally grown and locally sourced hops and fresh-hopped beer. They taste a beer called Sapling, what they call a crushable ale, a single malt and single hop. It’s meant to be easy to drink, light and fresh. Most of their beers are named after famous redwood trees.
They also taste a golden stout aged in bourbon barrels with coffee added, called Bamboozle.
Jeffery House, founder of Ace Cider and Becky Bartling, CEO of the Sonoma County Fair join Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha today.
Isn't this illustration one of the coolest pieces of commercial art ever drawn?
Jeffery was on Brew Ha Ha two years ago on this episode of July 9, 2020 along with his partner Ed McGrath. He was the first to bring British style cider to California. Before that he was importing British beers. He sold to Vintage Wine Estates of Santa Rosa. They have also bought another facility in Ohio where they will be making cider. They have installed a high-speed canning line which allows them to do 4000 cases of cans per day.
The Nor-Cal Brew Fest is back this year and so is the Gravenstein Apple Fair. Ace Cider is approaching its 30th anniversary with a special bottling in champagne bottles. They have just added 15,000 square feet and their facility is now 60,000 square feet and are opening tasting rooms in key locations including San Luis Obispo. Ace High They are tasting the Ace High, an 8.4%, and there is a pumpkin spicy cider that will be in supermarkets. There is another called Space that is named after his wife who had a cameo role in Star Wars.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
The Festival starts at 5:30 at the Fair. This is the first year that the Fair is fully back. Attendance is up, all the food vendors are back (except for the Pasta King). There are corn dogs, too. They have monster trucks Friday, and an Eagles cover band called the Illegals. The Beer Fest is open during the rest of the Fair so you can come and go. There is a special ride share location for everyone’s convenience. Becky talks about the Sonoma County Fair having been off since 2019 due to Covid. Steam Week at Anchor Brewing Dane Volek, Assistant Brewmaster at Anchor Brewing in San Francisco, calls in. They are celebrating Steam Week August 14-23, 2022. They have a new tasting room now. Steam Beer is San Francisco’s signature beer. They are also brewing several other special beers for the celebration.
Easy Rider in Petaluma is the subject of this repeat podcast episode, as The Brew Crew is taking a break this first week of August and there is no new show today. This repeat show from Nov. 4, 2021 is in two parts. This part focusses exclusively on Dustin Sullivan’s news about his plans to open a new restaurant in Petaluma called Easy Rider. This other part reproduces the whole conversation with the other guests.
Erin Hinze, Mike Barber and Dustin Sullivan all join Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha. Erin is the founder of Bitter Girl Bitters. Mike Barber is a partner in Barber Lee Spirits distillery in Petaluma. Dustin Sullivan is here to announce his second restaurant to open soon in Petaluma. He also owns and operates Guesthouse in Larkspur, which the website describes as, “...local ingredients / wood fired favorites with west coast charm.”
Today (as this show is recorded on Nov. 14, 2021) Dustin Sullivan announces his plans to open a new restaurant called Easy Rider, in Petaluma, right near Barber Lee Spirits. He is a Californian and his partner and chef is from Virginia and knows Southern cooking. They plan to combine the best of Sonoma County farm production with Southern style recipes. For example, their Caprese salad us made with fried green tomatoes.
Guesthouse is a restaurant that opened in Larkspur, in 2018. He describes it as the restaurant he always wanted to open. He knows the about restaurants, since his parents are both in the business and he has grown up around restaurants and has always worked in them.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
The Brew Crew is taking a break this week and there is no new show, so for the podcast here is a show that was first aired and recorded on Nov. 4, 2021.
Erin Hinze from Bitter Girl Bitters and Mike Barber from Barber Lee Spirits distillery in Petaluma join Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras today on Brew Ha Ha. Also, Dustin Sullivan is in, to announce the opening of his second restaurant. Erin was on Brew Ha Ha three and a half years ago, on this episode of May 17, 2018.
Mike Barber’s wife organizes the Petaluma Holiday Food Fair. There are lots of vendors including Bitter Girl Bitters, The Spice Queen and many others. You can do Christmas shopping at the Petaluma Hotel and have a cocktail too. (The 2021 edition took place on Nov. 23; look for the 2022 edition at their website.) Bitter Girl Bitters Erin explains that her bitters, "...are designed to make cocktails taste amazing," using homegrown ingredients. All her bitters have a fun concept and a fun name. She brought one with coffee flavor today. I like to say that bitters are a bartender’s salt and pepper, a concentrated flavoring additive that is meant to enhance a cocktail, to bring out the spirit and the flavors, to make it a little bit tastier. -Erin Hinze For example, they are tasting some whiskey from Barber Lee Spirits, that has a little bit of maple shrub and some of these coffee bitters in it. The name of this Bitter flavor is Morning Wood, as it is based on coffee aged in oak barrels. Barber Lee Spirits The Barber Lee Still
Mike Barber of Barber Lee Spirits describes his single malt rye whiskey. It is 100% malted rye, a difficult and rare style for an American whiskey. It is what he started with seven years ago and is still the flagship product, among others. He and his wife have been making wine for the last seven years. His first barrel sold quickly and then he and his partners decided to build the distillery for real. They got a place and a still and they use all their own receipes and do every step themselves. You can enjoy my entire micro-booze empire… I think it’s the coolest block in Sonoma County.” -Mike Barber. Dustin Sullivan is opening Easy Rider restaurant in Petaluma, near Barber Lee Spirits. They have been open since Dec. 2021. He is a Californian and his partner and chef is from Virginia and knows Southern cooking. They plan to combine the best of Sonoma County farm production with Southern style recipes. For example, their Caprese salad us made with fried green tomatoes. After the Moscow Mule, an Old Fashioned The second cocktail is an Old Fashioned. Erin says the bitters are the aromatic finish on a cocktail. You need to sip on it to enjoy the aromatics and the combinations. “To me this is Thanksgiving in a glass.”
Mike Barber describes the other products. 90% of their production is the two main ones, the rye whiskey and a single malt corn whiskey. But they also make special small batches of all kinds of distilled spirits. They use their custom-built fat bottom pot still. For example, they have a Gravenstein Apple Brandy, Rum made with Piloncillo sugar, they are about to bottle their Grappa and they make an absinthe blanche.
Barber Lee Spirts uses Bitter Girl Bitters in their cocktails and has them for sale at the distillery. Bitter Girl’s Morning Wood is the cornerstone of their Manhattan cocktail, which is rhe whiskey, sweet vermouth and the bitters.
The bitters are non-alcoholic so they can be used for non-alcoholic cocktails or mocktails. Herlinda mentions Sober Choices in Wine Country Instagram page. Erin bartends at Guesthouse, and has three signatures mocktails. One has a grapefruit basil shrub, one with pomegranate syrup and one with a ginger shrub. So what is a shrub? It’s not a bush. It’s a preservative method now popular among bartenders. Also called a “sipping vinegar” it is made by adding sugar and vinegar. A Maple-Cinnamon shrub, maple syrup, water and cinnamon reduced in a pan,
The Robert Ferguson Observatory, this year's non-profit beneficiary.
The Wine Country Distillery Festival takes center stage on Brew Ha Ha with Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras today, with Lindsay Musco and Doralice Handal. Lindsay Musco is the founder of the Wine Country Distillery Festival and Doralice Handal is representing Les Dames d’Escoffier today. Together they are hosting the VIP section at the Wine Country Distillery Festival. Chris Matthise, from Sonoma Brothers Distilling is also in, with beverages.
The Wine Country Distillery Festival is August 13 at the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts, on the East Lawn. This time it is an outdoor summertime event and this is a new location for them. They will have more vendors, a stage with live music, a cocktail competition and a silent auction to benefit the Robert Ferguson Observatory. Tickets for the VIP Oasis section are $123 and regular admission is $88. They also offer a designated driver ticket, for non-alcoholic consumption, at $12. Les Dames d’Escoffier Les Dames d’Escoffier is one of the only non-profit professional organizations that is focussed on women in hospitality industries. There are 43 chapters around the world with 2300 members and growing. The local chapter has 51 members and has just celebrated its second anniversary. Doralice describes how many members are donating their time and effort to the VIP tent. Julia Child was one of the founders of Les Dames d’Escoffier. In her time, there was a men’s professional organization that excluded women, so she and her partners founded their organization and named it after Gustave d’Escoffier who was known for honoring women in the profession.
The Wine Country Distillery Festival started in 2019. Lindsay Musco describes how she thought of the idea. With all the focus on wine and beer in Sonoma County, she thought the local distillers deserved their own event. All of the net proceeds go to a non-profit, and this year that beneficiary is the Robert Ferguson Observatory. The event takes place August 13, from 12-4 pm. Tickets are available at the LBC website or at their own site. Sonoma Brothers Distilling Chris Matthise runs Sonoma Brothers Distilling with his twin brother. They started in 2012, in Windsor. They only do about 1000 cases per year and they also work with some custom clients. He’s a fireman and his brother is a police officer. They have a prominent role in the Wine Country Distillery Festival. As they start mixing some cocktails, we get to hear how the shaker sounds on a radio microphone. Herlinda has compliments for Sonoma Brothers Distilling who along with Sipsong Spirits are her local favorites. Tara Jasper, founder of Sipsong Spirits, will also be at the event. Tara Jasper and Sipsong Spirits were featured on Brew Ha Ha two years ago on this July 30, 2020 episode, which was soon after she won a double gold medal for Indira Gin. We got to hear the cocktail shaker in that episode too.
Keita Tomenaga & Steve Jaxon.
Keita Tomenaga from the renowned Japanese restaurant Hana, in Rhonert Park is our guest on Brew Ha Ha today. Steve Jaxon is in the studio for the interview, as is Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras.
Keita is the oldest son of Ken Tomenaga, who founded Hana. He has been cooking since he was 19 and has been the executive chef at Hana for over a year. His father passed away last May and everyone mourns his loss and misses him very much. Ken Tomenaga opened Hana before Keita was born. Originally the place was very small, and was based on traditional Japanese menu. Gradually it became so well known that it is considered perhaps the best Japanese restaurant in northern California. The Hana Sake Bar Hana has a Sake bar, which is a newer part of the restaurant. Long after opening, when they remodeled about 8 or 9 years ago, they added the space for the Sake bar. His father started importing Sake from Japanese producers directly. Keita explains that Sake is based on rice, grown, harvested and fermented a certain way. It is an intricate tradition that takes a lot of culture and practice. There are varieties of types and flavors, like beer and wine. Herlinda explains that Sake is erroneously thought of as rice wine. It is really much closer to the process of brewing beer.
Herlinda Heras & the late Ken Tomenaga.
Keita has brought Japanese rice balls, which he explains is the Japanese children’s equivalent of PB&J to American kids. You form triangualr rice balls with your hand, add any kind of filling, and wrap in seaweed. The restaurant is looking for staff so if anyone is interested, they are willing to train in their traditions. An Immense List of Sake Hana’s Sake list is immense. Sake can also be seasonal. There are some fresh-squeezed and non-pasturized Sake can come in the Spring, called Nigori and Nama. The variety also comes with the variety of food items. Some are sweet and savory and go with bigger full-bodied sake. A lighter kind of Sake could go with something like Sushi or white fish. There are all kinds of Sake and they have all kinds of names too.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
Keita suggests that if Sake is too cold, you can miss some of the flavors. He also likes it hot. At one time Hot Sake had a reputation of being cheap, in the USA. In Japan, warming up the Sake is a sign of hospitality to guests. They offer different hot Sake on the menu in the winter. A bowl of Japanese type soup or a hot pot of Udon noodles would go with that.
Right now Hana is open Tuesday and Thursday 4:30-9 and Friday and Saturday 4-9.
The Great Beer In The Sky.
Beer Lands 2022 organizer Dave Maclean is back on Brew Ha Ha with Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras, to talk about this year’s festival. Outside Lands will take place on August 5-7, 2022, and one of its many attractions is Beer Lands, a celebration of the Bay Area’s ever-evolving craft beer community. Dave was on Brew Ha Ha last year too, for the same reason.
The Outside Lands festival is back, and so is Beer Lands, as a part of it. After last year’s edition in October (which was foggier and chillier) this year it is back to the summertime.
Dave is one of the owners of Admiral Malting, which is one of the first new floor malting facilities in California since Prohibition, and maybe beyond. They supply a lot of the craft brewing industry.
Beer Lands is two big tented areas with refrigerated shipping containers pouring beer, located near the back of the polo field, at a crossroads among all the other attractions. Outside Lands wants to create a sense of place with the best of everything. For example, there is Wine Lands, Cocktail Magic featuring local mixologists, lots of food options and more.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
Outside Lands is a music festival and this year’s biggest headliner is Green Day. The whole lineup is on the website. Beer Lands is part of Outside Lands, so ticket holders have free roam over all the lands. Many people will come more than once during the three days. The website has all the necessary info.
Next week, Herlinda’s friend Lindsey will be on Brew Ha Ha. She will talk about the Wine Country Distillery Festival which is coming soon, on August 13th, 2022. This is also an interesting event that features craft distilleries and other artisan vendors. Tickets will be going fast for that too.
Don Winkle
Don Winkle joins Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha today. He is an attorney whose clients include craft breweries. The last time Don was on Brew Ha Ha was this episode of May 16, 2019.
There is a new California law in effect July 1 of this year that mandates a new alcohol server test for licensed retailers. In a highly regulated industry it is important for businesses to keep track of new laws like this. The ABC has clear guidance on their website. In Don’s opinion, the ABC has done a good job with their website and the information is clear and easy to find. They have also shown a lot of flexibility during the pandemic, including relaxing some rules. There is a bill to keep cocktails to go available in the state legislature.
Don describes how he matched his interest in the industry to his job, by being in the right place at the right time. He is an attorney who started with one client in the brewing industry and now he has many such clients. Specialized in the kinds of contracts that are germane to the industry, such as distribution agreements, contracts, regulations and leases that are unique to the industry, he also handles partnership relations. He enjoys being a part of the industry and feels lucky. Of course, tasting and drinking beer is a nice part of the job. Don describes how for a fan, the Pliny the Younger annual event is worth the wait. Some legal issues in the brewing business The cocktails to go law is a retail law issue, and Don’s work is with wholesalers and manufacturers. There was a recent settlement regarding distribution of craft beer. The Reyes-Seismic case started out as a contract dispute that became an anti-trust lawsuit. There is great consolidation in distribution and Reyes is buying up distributors. Being a huge privately owned company, they are not subject to the same scrutiny that public companies live with. They own about 50% of the distribution, which puts pressure on competition. The big distributors have influence on retail shelf placement in major high-volume retailers.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
Brewers and wholesalers are different and separate licenses. Don explains that one kind of brewer can self-distribute, in California. This is not in the law in other states. Enforcement in certain areas may have waned during those times but not much anymore. The brewing industry made big changes. Many shifted from kegs to bottles and cans. Curbside service and delivery made big differences in keeping a lot of places open.
Someone starting a brewery should have good legal advice, as well as plans for insurance and succession plans for partners. Anyone attempting a startup needs advice from people with experience getting a site, equipment, a good lease, and capital to get into production. One key factor is water. How do you get it and what do you do with your waste water? Agreements like leases, insurance and supplier agreements are key to your success and need to be examined carefully. A partnership agreement is one of the most potentially challenging issues for any business, so important for a brewer. “Leases are draconian documents and they need to be gone into carefully.”
Farron's New Orleans Style BBQ
Faron’s New Orleans Style BBQ chef Faron Bailey and his friend and collaborator Sandro Tamburin from Old Possum Brewing are our guests on Brew Ha Ha with Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras today. Faron's New Orleans Style BBQ & Sides He describes the New Orleans style, which pertains to the sides as much as the barbeque meats. He is from New Orleans and his family comes from North Carolina. There the barbeque has vinegar flavors, while Kansas City style is a thicker tomato based sauce. In his personal style, he looks for a perfect balance between spice, sweetness and citrus acidity in his. They serve traditional New Orleans sides like collard greens, red beans and rice and potato salad.
Old Possum Brewing will showcase Faron’s menu this week and again in August on Friday, Saturday and Monday. They also have music at Old Possum, and all the information is available on their website and social media, especially Instagram, says Sandro. “I always wanted to create an environment very similar to home. What I mean by that is, under any circumstances, people who don’t have much, we come together and we put together whatever we have and we make it as tasty as possible and we have a good time.” -Faron Bailey Faron tells his story about how his wife came from Petaluma but they met in New Orleans and lived in Manhattan before moving back to Sonoma County. He has been cooking all his life and wanted to create something in the community that he was familiar with, which is New Orleans style cooking, because it wasn’t available. Sandro heard about Faron’s New Orleans Style BBQ & Sides and made contact with him.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info. Old Possum tastings They are tasting a blood orange flavored Gose beer that Old Possum makes. There are a lot of blood orange IPAs but Sandro thinks the hops don’t go well with the blood orange. Herlinda asked Sandro to tell about how he uses an over the counter probiotic to make the beer sour. It turns out to cost a lot less than other ways. They are tasting the Alien Search Party IPA from Old Possum. Herlinda tells about judging beers in Europe and hearing from people there that West Coast IPAs are very popular.
All of Old Possum's food offerings are listed on their IG page. They are open Monday - Friday 11:30 am to 8:30 pm, 2:00-9:00 pm Saturday and closed Sundays. Old Possum just celebrated their fourth anniversary. Sandro grew up in Italy and remembers tying new growth in the vineyard. But he attended UC Davis and studied winemaking and met Charlie Bamforth there, who has been on Brew Ha Ha on this episode. He is a professor at UC Davis who taught Sandro about brewing. Sandro also makes wine with D'Argenzio winery, a small local winery that also has a tasting room in Burbank, California (in the Los Angeles area).
Brew Ha Ha with Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras welcomes Captain Joe Stewart of Northern Sonoma County Fire District, here to describe Wine Country to the Rescue. The fund raising event is at Trentadue Winery in Geyserville Saturday July 16th. It is a charity auction and dinner-dance to benefit firefighters from Geyserville, Cloverdale and Healdsburg. They protect a 300-square mile rural area, specializing in rural fire protection. They do fuel reduction work for the benefit of the community in lots of areas. It is labor intensive and requires careful use of resources. Wine Country to the Rescue contributes to this work.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
This year they will start a scholarship fund for young people in northern Sonoma County who are considering going into the fire service or forestry. They also sponsor Community Organized to Prepare for Emergencies, called COPE. They ensure that people know about evacuation routes and other fire safety issues through active community promotion with residents. The event is sold out but they always accept donations.
They are there to support volunteer firefighters, fuel reduction and emergency preparedness. All are grateful for the support of Trentadue Winery for hosting. Bear Republic, Kendall-Jackson and Seismic are all participating.
Last year, under different conditions, the event did not have the VIP area or silent auction. It has evolved over more than fifty years into this week’s event. But Joe considers it important as a way of raising awareness for the important work of EMS, dispatchers and first responders, including both the professionals and volunteers.
Kevin Scoles & Natalie Cilurzo.
Almanac Beer Company's Kevin Scoles and Natalie Cilurzo from Russian River Brewing Co. join Brew Ha Ha hosts Herlinda Heras and Harry Duke. Kevin is assistant director of sales at Almanac Brewing and Russian River Brewing Co. is a Brew Ha Ha sponsor.
They begin with two Russian River Brewing Co. beers. Citra Flash Mob IPA is mostly Citra hop and was just canned this week. Blind Pig IPA is a classic west coast style, a clear beer about 6.4% ABV. Blind Pig is close to Vinny Cilurzo’s original recipe started at his original brewery, Blind Pig Brewing Co. in Temecula, which he opened in 1994. Flow Pale Ale Almanac Beer Co. is introducing Flow Pale Ale, their new west coast style pale ale. Herlinda remembers tasting the third R&D batch. It’s light bodied, with a clean finish. The Flow Fest on July 9 will be the premiere event.
The brewery is located on the old Alameda Naval Air Station. Admiral Malting is their next-door neighbor. Their facility was built in 1938 entirely out of redwood.
Their name comes from the Farmer’s Almanac, which has been published since 1888. It was known as a history of weather patterns, for farmers. They want the brewery to represent agriculture and the local farmers who produce what goes into the beer, which also ties into their menu. Their motto is, “Beer is agriculture.” The brewery was founded in 2011 to apply farm-to-table principles with beer. They have been in their current facility for the last four years.
Kolsch is one of their core beers, the fastest growing beer in their lineup. It is 5% ABV and he calls it their “Sunday lawn mowing beer.” It’s a kind of cross between an ale and a lager. They have picnic tables inside and a large outdoor area and food trucks, and free parking. The outdoor space has been a life-saver for them during Covid.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
Pliny the Younger has a positive economic impact in Sonoma County due to the tourist traffic that it generates. Today Natalie describes some 2022 statistics that show increases that were reported in the Press-Democrat. The 6.1 million dollar impact is a 20% increase over last year. It includes spending on hotels, restaurants, etc. “It means a lot to us,” says Natalie.
Kevin describes his journey into beer, which actually started in music. He worked for an guitar and accessory maker, the Ernie Ball company. As a home brewer, he knew he would enjoy working in the brewing business. He started in a distribution company and there, he got to know the two co-founders of Almanac Brewing. About a year ago he began working for them.
They are tasting an Adambier, which is a German style, not very well known. It is a strong, dark lager originally from Dortmund. It is 6.7% ABV with a hint of tartness.
Soundscape Brewing Co. founder Ashley Harrell joins Herlinda Heras and Harry Duke in the studio on Brew Ha Ha today.
Get tickets for the Freshtival 2022 on eventbrite dot com.
The Freshtival is this Saturday, June 25. It is a production of Hen House Brewing and an updated list of breweries is on the Hen House Freshtival web page. There are breweries from as far away as Portland and San Diego and every beer will be no more than 7 days old.
Ashley got to beer from other avenues. She studied music in college and as an art song and opera singer, her dream was to sing on Broadway. She worked behind a bar while living in New York City and pursuing a career in musical theater. Having developed an interest in craft beer, she then worked a brewery and started home brewing. Now she is looking for commercial space in Benicia. As an artist and performer, she likes the idea of infusing storytelling into beer. Lay All Your Love On Me To begin with, a Belgian Whit beer is the first tasting. This Soundscape Brewing product is in competition at NHC the National Homebrew Competition, in Pennsylvania right now. Ashley associates music with the flavors of beer. This beer is called "Lay All Your Love On Me" after an Abba song. The Belgian Whit is a style that Hoegaarden Brewery in Belgium is famous for. It has coriander and orange peel. Ashley likes to use as many local ingredients as possible. She used orange peel from her front yard and coriander from the back yard.
She has licensed the name Soundscape Brewing and is in the process of establishing the location and operations. In the meantime, while still a home brewer, her product is so good it's "ridiculous" according to Herlinda Heras.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
Herlinda, Colin & Harry.
Colin from Hen House Brewing is our guest on Brew Ha Ha with Herlinda Heras and Harry Duke today. Hen House is one of the organizers of the June 25 Freshtival, which is a Hen House production to showcase freshness. Tickets are going fast. They will be bringing in about 160 different fresh beers from 80 or more brewers. No beer served on June 25 will be more than a week old. There will be breweries from as far away as Portland and San Diego.
Herlinda asks Colin to explain what makes a beer fresh. Colin talks about how people know instinctively that fresh food is better and that food that is left out will rot, smell bad and not be appetizing. The same is true of beer. The basic principle applies to beer as to any food. Colin explains that the big factor is oxygen, which in beer oxidizes the hop compounds in the beer.
Colin has brought some beer, one house IPA and another called Language Creates Reality, which use special hops. Those hops have to be fresh and they have to mitigate the factors that accelerate oxidation, mainly time and temperature. The reason why they like to use cans instead of glass is that is keeps light off the beer. They also have to control the temperature of the beer. They even require their distributors and retailers to keep the beer cold.
The Freshtival is coming up this Saturday, June 25, 2022.
The ingredients for beer are much more shelf-stable than the beer is. Hops, if packaged and stored correctly, can be held for two years. This unlike the wine world, where after picking grapes, they have to press them and begin the winemaking process as soon as possible. Colin tells about the effort they make to get their beer to their customers as soon as possible. They now try to have their beer be no more than 7 days in cans or kegs. They also ask them to keep it cold at all times.
Hen House has locations in Santa Rosa, Petaluma and Fairfax. They just opened Fairfax this week. They have a burger with a dry-aged beef burger. Fairfax is a fun town because it’s at the crossroads of many North Bay destinations. They took over the Iron Springs location and they had live music. First they need to get their bearings with the brewery and they plan to add music soon.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
Kevin Lovett from Wolf House Brewing is our in-studio guest today on Brew Ha Ha with Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras. Kevin was master brewer for Cloverdale Ale Co when he bought Wolf House in October 2019. He was going to open two places at once. He is inspired by Jack London, who was a Glen Ellen resident. Some other beers are also named after Jack London stories. The beer they are drinking is called Burning Daylight, which is the title of a Jack London short story. Dutch Courage is another one. We hear about how they managed to open the brewery and restaurant and then finally the music venue. This achievement has fulfilled his original goals.
Get tickets for the Freshtival 2022 on eventbrite dot com.
The Freshtival is coming up this Saturday, June 25. Check out the Freshtival site and the Hen House site for all the info. Lots of food, beer and music, including some gluten free choices, something for everybody. No beer will be older than seven days. Get tickets on Eventbrite. Kevin has brewed a special Hazy beer for the Freshtival that is flavored with some familiar and some new hops.
Kevin’s dad Michael Lovett was a co-founder with Don Barkley of the iconic Mendocino Brewing Co., makers of the renowned Red Tail Ale, which everyone misses. They worked at New Albion under Jack McCauliffe, the first new brewery to open after Prohibition and an originator in what became a movement. When New Albion closed, Don and Michael got the equipment to use for Mendocino Brewing. Kevin worked at his father’s brewery when he was growing up and then he worked for others including Napa Smith and Brian Hunt’s Moonlight Brewing. He became very good at building breweries and is grateful for the mentoring and the opportunities he found in brewing.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more info.
The Wolf House Brewing taproom is located at 131 E. 1st Street in Cloverdale. There are locals and others who come from pretty far away because “the word is getting out.”
Burning Daylight is his Pilsner. He thinks it’s the best beer he has made. They also have a beer called Therapy Session. Pilsners are hard to make and he credits Brian Hunt for teaching him about Lagers and Pilsners and he always has each strain of yeast available.
They have a 9-barrel system so he brews 3 times a month or so. They plan to raise their capacity so they can get into more places. Kevin and his sister and brother-in-law, a chef, are partners in the brewery. They have a full menu including something called a Cloverdale Twinkie, which is a jumbo Jalapeño pepper stuffed with cream cheese, wrapped in bacon and deep fried.
Wolf House Brewing has a pedigree behind it due to Kevin Lovett’s personal history and experience. He grew up at the Hopland brewery taphouse. His first job was bussing tables in about 1995 so he got to be a part of it before it all changed. When he came back in 2005 it was an empty lot and now Ron Lindenbusch has turned it into a destination again. Wolf House and Hopland Tap would be a good two-fer for a day trip. They have a lot of live music, including lots of kinds of Rock (the old joke, “Music? We got both kinds! Country AND Western!”)
Kevin Lovett will pour his Hazy beer at the Freshtival but he won’t give it a name until he tastes it.
Moonlight Brewing co-owners Brian Hunt and Patrick Rue join Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha today. Brian is the founder of Moonlight Brewing and Patrick Rue is now a co-owner. Patrick is the former owner of “Bruery” in Orange County which he sold. After opening a Moonlight Czech Pils Reality Czech, we hear their stories. Patrick started brewing in 1992 and just kept at it. He started in a barn near the airport then to Graton 10 years later then to Coffey Lane and has been there since then. It’s walking distance for lucky residents of Santa Rosa.
Lagunitas bought 50% of Moonlight, then Heineken bought Lagunitas. Now Moonlight is back local with Patrick Rue. Brian gets to tell the story of looking for just the right partner for a long time. Patrick has been a fan of Moonlight since drinking Death and Taxes in college. He admires that they have a steady identity and do not have to chase trends. Patrick opened a Brewery in Southern California and he ditched law school to operate it then sold it to some investors. He tried his hand at wine, his winery is called Erosion. They also brew beer and they make ice cream too.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
Patrick and Brian served together in the California Craft Brewers Association which is how they got to know each other. Brian had a great reputation that inspired Patrick. For a lot of people, including Harry and Patrick, Death and Taxes was popular when they were students. The Importance of Death and Taxes Death and Taxes is Moonlight Brewing’s signature brew. Brian was working for a brewery in Napa and he thought of a beer that he wanted which didn’t exist. Today we are used to a lot of choices but back then, he had to make it. It’s something that works well in hot weather. It is the epitome of the San Francisco style black lager. He made up that term, because his friends in Europe are used to naming beer styles after cities. Even if that’s not a habit in America, it makes sense to him. It is designed for when it’s 90 degress outside. “To me a hop is an accent, it’s not a reason to exist…”
Get tickets for the Freshtival 2022 on eventbrite dot com.
The Freshtival is back on June 25, 2022, at Sonoma Mountain Village. Come for 160 different beers from over 80 breweries from Portland to San Diego. All of the beer poured in this event will be less than 7 days old. For details visit Hen house brewing dot com slash freshtival
Patrick explains how he likes to try to bring unusual flavors into beer, which is unlike what Moonlight does. He likes to use ingredients, yeast strains and spices that don’t usually appear in beer. They have plans to let some Moonlight beer mature in oak barrels for 6 to 12 months. Reality Czech is a style from Pilsen, in western Czechia. They also have Dim Lights, a gently smoked lager. It took some trial and error to get the perfect smoked malts. Patrick’s brand Erosion wine takes some Muscat Canelli (a cool climate aromatic wine) and flavors it with hops, three different ways.
Pond Farm Brewing Company co-owners and co-founders Trevor and Stephanie Martens join Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha today. They own and operate Pond Farm Brewing in nearby San Rafael, California.
The name Pond Farm Brewing has a fun history. Pond Farm was an artists’ residency and workshop that started in the 1940s, in Guerneville. It became known for pottery in the 1950s as the studio of Marguerite Wildenhain, a famous potter originally from Germany.
Trevor’s father was there so he remembers how the community was focused on craft and disciplined work habits. They also have other professional careers. When they chose the name, they had not chosen the location yet. Trevor tells about the transition from aerospace engineering to brewing. He took an internship at Fogbelt, to see how the hobby could feel as a full time job.
Among all their beers, they first taste the San Rafael Lager, a Mexican style lager beer with a hint of corn sweetness. Trevor mentions that they use malt from Admiral Malting in Alameda. The Location Part of their dream was to have a good physical location that felt happy and welcoming. The building they are in has all the beer hall vibes they wanted, with lots of natural light and high ceilings. They actually bought the building and have put solar on the roof! It is a great spot for social gatherings of all kinds. They have been serving beer for about three years but the kitchen has been open for about a month and half. They have pretzels, wings, salads, grilled cheese, brats, veggie sandwiches and kid’s fare too. Pond Farm’s approach to the beer is to have a full hand of popular styles, with the core beers people like, plus some others in rotation. “There are so many styles to drink and to brew and it’s hard to only do the same thing over and over.” – Trevor Martens Pond Farm Brewing is located at 1848 4th St. in San Rafael. They are open Tuesday through Sunday, 3pm-9pm, Friday and Saturday 12noon-10pm, Sunday 12noon-8pm. They have live music there on Saturdays, including popular local bands such as Fairfax Social Club coming up on May 28. That band shares a lot of regulars with the brew house. Other Pond Farm Brews Previously they tasted the 6.8% Hazy IPA, aka a New England IPA. It is one of the four beers that they opened with. It is more balanced than a lot of hazy beers. As they go through tasting the other beers, the first is Lucy, a bourbon barrel aged imperial brown ale. Same As It Never Was is a west coast style that always comes in at 6.7% ABV but uses different hops every time. The label is inspired by the Talking Heads album cover. Another is called Sour Adversity and features a picture of a figure widely believed to have written works of poetry and literature (but who is now known to have been only the front man for the true author). Adrift is a pale ale with a 5.4% ABV, inspired by Sierra Nevada’s style with a little bit more hop flavors.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
Freshtival 2022 is the subject today with Sayre Piotrkowski from Hen House Brewing, who joins Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha. Freshtival is a Hen House event, “a celebration of the art of freshness” that reflects their mission statement. Covid stopped the Freshtival for a couple of years but it is back now for 2022.
The Freshtival takes place on June 25, 2022, 1:00 PM to 6:00 PM, at SOMO Village in Rhonert Park. Tickets are available on Eventbrite dot com. Ticket prices are lower for advance purchase.
Hen House Brewing makes extra efforts to enforce their standards of “second half beer quality.” That means their beer is never warm stored, all of their trucks are refrigerated and the beer goes directly into cold storage at delivery. This is an important distinction for Hen House in the craft beer competitive environment. “The rigors of time, temperature and travel make your beer less delicious.”
They expect 80 different breweries from as far away as Portland and San Diego at the Freshtival. There will be at least 50 beers to taste. All the beer they serve will have been made within seven days of the event. The Freshtival will be, in Sayre’s words, “...the largest variety of brewery-fresh beer ever poured in one place.”
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
Seismic Brewing and Tremor will be serving beer at the Freshtival. Herlinda asks if there will be any “whales” which means rare brews. Sayre thinks that term might apply to some of the breweries that will be there, which may be lesser known and make excellent beer.
Christopher Jackson
Golden State Cider's new owner and Seismic Brewery founder Christopher Jackson is back on Brew Ha Ha with Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras. He was last on Brew Ha Ha on this episode that aired back on July 2, 2019, the day before they opened the Sebastopol taproom.
They are tasting some cider called Save the Gravenstein, which Chris calls an expression of Sonoma County Gravenstein apples. He has known the partners of Golden State for a long time. He would like to take Golden State Cider national, that is the goal. Some of their apples already come from the Pacific Northwest but they could source apples from places like Saratoga, NY too. Sustainability for the Long Term He explains that brands like Seismic and Golden State could be managed for exploitation but he has other ideas. We hear about their desire to run a sustainable operation for the long term, and how they practice water conservation and use green electricity. It is also important to use local ingredients. Their grain and hops are grown within 10 miles of their Sebastopol facility and they use malt from Admiral Malting in Alameda.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
Tremor has won two important Gold Medals recently, at the Great American Beer Festival and the World Beer Cup. Next up is the US Open Beer Championship. One more win and they can claim the Triple Crown for beer. Tremor’s idea was to bring the American Lager back into the craft brew business, but to make it organically and use only barley, instead of the way of “macro” beers.
Seismic Brewing Co. has always had sustainability at the heart of its operations. Climate change is an issue for anyone working in agriculture. In order for his sons to be able to participate in the business years from now, the operation has to be sustainable with mitigating climate change at the core of their ethic.
We have two guest brewers from Seismic Brewing Co. on Brew Ha Ha today, Anthony Ayez aka Turbo and Christian Toran, brewing engineer. They are celebrating Seismic's 5th anniversary this year.
Tremor is their sister brewery, all organic and all locally sourced. They have won several important awards lately for their Tremor California Light Lager. It won 2021 Gold medal at Great American Beer fest and a silver the year before. It also just won at the World Beer Cup in Minneapolis. This international award only happens every other year and it is the biggest award in the business.
Seismic grew up developing recipes in their owner’s garage, and now they run a sustainable brewery in Santa Rosa. They have world-class water re-use practices. They have been located in the Barlow in Sebastopol for the last three years. May 20-22 they are throwing a birthday party called Megafest.
Seismic has grown to 7,700 barrels last year and already 2,400 barrels this year, by May. Tremor California Light Lager, the brand that won the gold, “... is our OG brand for the Tremor family.”
Their wastewater treatment and other sustainable practices are world-class. Reclaimed water is cleaner than drinking water standards.
The Megathrust is a higher alcohol IPA that was not as widely known. Now it is finally being put in cans. This is their first 16-ounce can. Herlinda mentions that canning saved a lot of breweries. Seismic does have a big canning system. Their owner is Christopher Jackson and the Jackson family is dedicated to sustainability and best ecological practices. He will be on this show next week to talk about that and more. Herlinda also has some news, since Seismic has recently purchased Golden State Cider.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.
Tremor uses 100% Organic Admiral Pilsner malt from Admiral Malting in Alameda, California. They developed their processes and recipes together. They are mimicking classic styles with their own twist on them that are truly delicious.
Seismic's purchase of Golden State Cider is nice news in the business. They are neighbors in the Barlow and the companies share such similar core values so it is “a match made in heaven.” Herlinda also mentions that Brian Hunt of Moonlight Brewing has managed to “get out from underneath Heineken.” She can’t talk about many details yet but they will be on the show when they can.
Seismic Brewing Co. is located in the Barlow in Sebastopol: Mondays through Thursdays 3pm-9pm, Fridays 2pm-10pm, Saturdays 11am-10pm, Sundays 11am-8pm.
Megafest runs from May 20-22, a big party with music celebrating their 5th anniversary. Several of the bands that will be playing are actually made up of musicians who work in local breweries.
Hendrick Verspecht joins Herlinda Heras and Harry Duke today on Brew Ha Ha. Hendrick is a co-founder of the first authentic Belgian-style brewery in Sonoma County, cuVer Brewery. The last time he was on Brew Ha Ha was this episode on September 16, 2021, when cuVer was just about to open their Windsor location to the public. Since then the brewery has won an important award and has seen an increase in orders for its award-winning brew. He learned brewing in his garage at home in Belgium and studied plant biology at university in Belgium. Now the family has this brewery in Windsor with a lot of others nearby.
Tara Nurin will call in from Minneapolis, Minnesota to report on the Craft Brewers Conference. They had the most entries they have ever had at this year's edition. Tara's call is posted separately on this podcast episode.
Hendrick and his extended family opened the brewery just over a year ago to make the Belgian styles that they missed. They had an opportunity to purchase a brewery and they have had a great first year. They are located off Bell Road in Windsor in the beverage district near Artisan Alley. Check the website for up-to-date hours. The Award-Winning Pepperwood Ale cuVer Brewery won the award for Best Session Beer for their signature recipe called Pepperwood Ale. It also won an award as a home brew at the California State Fair in 2018. He is especially proud of the fact that they won an award with a Belgian beer, in a category that is not strictly for Belgian beer. It was for any that are ABV 5% or less. It is made to be refreshing and relaxing and not too strong. Hendrick says "it's a farmworker's beer. I just went for local spices that I find in my backyard." The native California Bay Laurel is also called the Pepperwood tree. He also uses Meyer lemon peel, and finding enough of those can be a problem. But it also uses Saison yeast, which is a key ingredient. Belgian beers are fermentation-driven and a lot of the flavor comes form the yeast itself.
They are snacking on Herlinda's home-made frittes with the beer, which are a daily chow in Belgium. "It happens to be thee perfect beer pairing food," says Hendrick. Their orders have increased since they won. Lambic and Gueuze Styles He has also brought some other special Belgian beers for tasting. Lambics are a style of spontaneously fermented beer, made in the Bruxelles area. You don't add yeast to it. It is exposed in a shallow, flat vat called a cool ship. Russian River Brewing Co. has one and Shady Oak has a mobile one. It picks up yeast in the environment, then gets pumped into barrels, where it slowly starts to ferment. This bottle is a 2020 bottling, so it has been in the bottle for 2 years. A Lambic is a single brew and the Gueuze is a blend between 1, 2 and 3 year old brews. "It lives somewhere between beer, wine and kombucha." There is even a pellicule that is film floating on top where the microbes are growing. (Pellicule is Latin for "film" literally "little skin.")
On this episode of the Brew Ha Ha podcast, Tara Nurin calls in from Minneapolis, Minnesota, to report on the Craft Brewers Conference and Brew Expo America. She writes about the business of beverage and spirits for Forbes magazine. She has recently published a book, A Woman's Place Is In The Brewhouse, which Herlinda reports has surpassed 10,000 sales on that big website that people buy stuff from, and she is also thee most frequent guest ever to appear on Brew Ha Ha.
Tara Nurin tells the story starting with the great relief everyone felt, to be around friends and colleagues again. Natalie Cilurzo was the keynote speaker and people are coming away with a good feeling about it all. Herlinda mentions that Bart Watson, economist for the Brewer's Association, has published some data that looks good even after the pandemic. Tara tells of people who opened breweries in 2019 and 2020 who tell about surviving and growing their businesses. There were a lot of pessimistic predictions but in the end more breweries made it than they thought would, at first.
Tara is also working with NZ Hops, which means New Zealand-grown hops. Meagan Andersen was on last year on this episode, to talk about NZ Hops. Among the many types of hops they sell, they have one called Nectaron® that was developed after a 17-year R&D process. There was a poll of brewers who voted this the most popular hops that they would like to get. There are some proud and happy 5th generation farmers in New Zealand now. NZ Hops is also selling a new hop oil product that is very easy to ship and is also "super-sustainable." Instead of shipping a box of pellets, they ship a box of vials, which is much easier.
Longtime beer journalist John Holl is calling in to Brew Ha Ha to talk to Herlinda Heras and Harry Duke about the relaunch of All About Beer, a once-leading online magazine that covered the craft beer revolution. The magazine launched in 1979 when Mike and Bunny Bozak had an intuitive sense that something big was about to happen in the beer world. Now, John Holl and Andy Crouch are bringing the online magazine back.
Andy Crouch was the founding columnist at Beer Advocate Magazine. The founders sold the magazine to new owners who sold it to others in 2019 who ended up in bankruptcy, after which the magazine’s assets reverted to the earlier owners, Daniel and Julie. They wanted the 40-year-old brand to continue, as the publication of record for craft brewing.
The new All About Beer is online now. John Holl describes their hopes for it to take its place again as a leading journal for the business and for beer lovers. The online archives start in 2002 and there are print archives back into the ‘80s. But there are also new articles, since beer is constantly moving and they are covering it. All About Beer "has been around." They covered the launch of Russian River Brewing Co. in Santa Rosa. In issue n. 4 they teased a little brewery that was opening in Chico, California. Of course that means that they are older than the venerable Sierra Nevada.
Sandro Tamburin of Old Possum Brewing joins Herlinda Heras and Harry Duke on today's Brew Ha Ha.
Herlinda Heras was recently in Bologna, Milano and other parts of northern Italy to be a judge at the Italian national beer competition. She has brought some Peroni beer back, it is a popular lager. And since she was there at Easter, she brought back a “colomba pasquale” which is a kind of cake called an “Easter dove” which is a sweet egg bread similar to panettone (without the bits of candied fruit) shaped like a dove in flight. There were 2000 beers and 63 judges (75% of whom were Italian) at the Birra dell'Anno, the annual Italian national beer competition. On the first night, the Italians all brought something from their region. She tasted the best buffalo mozzarella, for example. The winners will be announced in Parma next week.
Herlinda describes an IGA, Italian Grape Ale, made with must, which is grape juice. (The word comes from the Italian word il mosto, for the unfermented grape juice which is intended for wine.) Then Sandro describes a Stout brew he made in collaboration with King Kong Brewery in Sacramento. It is Cabernet + Stout + co-fermented in whiskey barrels. Sandro thinks it tastes closer to a glass of wine. Herlinda tells about bringing some Pliny the Younger bottles to Italy, and everyone was very eager to taste it. Old Possum Brewery has extensive food choices. On Monday it's Smash Burger, Tues-Sat. their chef does Texas Cajun and Friday and Saturday, southern barbeque. Old Possum is located on the road just south of Hen House. They have a long bar and indoor seating, with a heated tented patio.
Trieste is Sandro’s hometown and it is very close to Slovenia, so they often drink Sovenian lagers when he’s at home. The Italian Pilsner style has become popular in the US. It is like the German but has a different yeast and a brighter refreshing flavor. This one is called Lupo, which is close to the word for hops (which is luppolo). Pond Farm Brewing in San Rafael produces it. They will be guests on Brew Ha Ha in an upcoming episode.
Timo Marshall from Spirit Works Distillery joins Harry Duke on Brew Ha Ha today in the KSRO studios. Spirit Works Distillery is coming into its tenth year. Based in the Barlow, they are a small family run operation, “grain to glass.” They have a Spirit Club too. They are perhaps best known for their Sloe Gin and their Bourbon has won several awards recently, including a "Best Of" from the North Bay Bohemian. In 2020 they won Distillery of the Year, which was “hugely flattering” but there was no celebration due to the pandemic. The award focusses on how the distillery operates and their general philosophy as well as quality of product. They received by a Zoom conference. For him and his wife Ashby, the head distiller, they felt like it was a real career milestone.
Timo was born in Britian and became interested in spirits early on. His grandmother taught him how to make sloe gin. He was fascinated by having to forage for Sloe berries and by learning the local traditions. He is proud to be making Sloe gin in the old traditional way. The Sloe berry grows on the blackthorn bush that was planted as a hedgerow in England for centuries because it’s thorny and protects the fields. In the late Autumn it produced very tart sour berries. Slider is Cider with Sloe berries. The British nation owes a debt to whoever first put Sloe berries into gin.
Their Sloe Gin is far less sugary than the English one. They wanted to create one that is “...very fruit forward, with sour tart plummy flavors, a cranberry, citrussy flavor, very special.” In the UK some people drink it neat after dinner, and in the US it is a cocktail ingredient, anywhere its flavor is desired, such as in a Manhattan. People can add a dash to some sparkling wine to make a kind of Sloe Royale. It’s also nice with ice.
The tasting room open Wednesday through Sunday in the Barlow in Sebastopol. Their tasting room staff is friendly and a visit is an educational experience. There is a window into the production space, for all to see. The still is a large copper structure that is beautiful to see. Part of making Sloe Gin is making regular gin, which in turn requires pure spirits so they do it all. Timo calls it a “grain to glass” facility. They bring in whole grain, wheat from the Sacramento area, which they mill and mash then distill.
They also make a Bourbon whiskey, called Four-Grain Straight Bourbon Whiskey. It is a true California made Bourbon. That has to be at least 51% corn, then wheat and rye and topped off with some malted barley. Then it is stored in American oak barrels. American White Oak is what gives the vanillas and butterscotch flavors to American whiskey. They use 53-gallon barrels, a normal standard size.
Herlinda Heras calls in from Italy, where it is 2:20 AM, and she is there to be a judge in the Italian national beer competition called Birra dell’Anno (“Beer of the Year”). Herlinda was in Italy two years ago just before the pandemic. She is visiting friends here and there, then she will go to Rimini, on the coast near Bologna, for the beer convention. She will be back soon with beers to share.
Regan Long of Local Brewing Company of San Francisco joins Harry Duke and Mark Carpenter today on Brew Ha Ha. They are celebrating their 7th anniversary in June. They are a 10-barrel brewery, they do about 20 kegs per batch. Since Covid they are packaging a lot of beer in cans too. Regan Long studied Physics and Astronomy and had an interesting career as a scientist in Oceanography and Engineering and tells the story of becoming a brewer. Mark Carpenter adds that a science background is ideal for going into brewing. Regan Long also taught Oceanography at San Francisco State, and did some scientific and business consulting across a wide variety of industries. They are known for a lot of their lager beers. Their Black Lager was their first award winning beer. They called it Bluxome Black from the street where they are located. They have won a handful of awards for this one.
Mark Carpenter is opening a Pilsner now. The first one they tasted is Vacation which is flavored with a particular strain of yeast that has a bit of pineapple notes. It is a 100% Pilsner malt. It is a flagship for them, and a unique beer. It is “bright and snappy, and nice in warm weather.” It is a yeast strain that a lot of brewers don’t want to work with because it takes 21 days at a relatively high temperature.
They are also making a new beer that they are making for the Giants’ stadium (Oracle Park) where they have a concession, at Gotham Club. They are only distributed locally, in the Bay Area. It was their choice to “slow roll that model…” as they develop the brand in their chosen home market.
During the Covid pandemic they did a lot of canning, including using different artists for their can labels. They do not have one standard look except for all having an innovative and modern vibe with Californian iconography. Their Pilsner that uses the Australian hops is a classic Pils that Mark Carpenter says has wonderful flavor. It is a Bohemian Pilsner malt with an Australian hop that plays different in a low-alcohol pilsner malt. Mark says that the lower alcohol, 4.0 percent, which means you can drink more of it.
Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras have two themes on Brew Ha Ha today. Paul Matlock and Dan Ferris from the 20/30 Club of Santa Rosa will talk about the Battle of the Brews and Tom Edwards, brewmaster from Old Caz Beer, is in the studio. Battle of the Brews takes place April 9, 2022 at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds. Dan is chairing the event this year. Battle of the Brews has been off for two years, but it has a twenty-five year history. They started back in the 1990s when gas was less than $2 a gallon. There are all kinds of breweries there, and people can taste them and vote for the people’s choice award. Voodoo Vultures and Rotten Tomatoes, two local bands, play live. There are 50 breweries and 12 BBQ teams also in competition. Once you come in, it’s all you can enjoy, one price for everything. It’s $110 this year, all included, even the bands. On the day of the event, there are nationally ranked judges who come in, including Herlinda Heras. Herlinda Heras actually ran the vaccine clinic in the same building. It's a nice big space.
Tom Edwards tells the story of Old Caz and how he became a brewmaster. He got into brewing through his uncle 10 years ago. He was home brewing with friends and Tom tasted a sample and it was “legitimately good and blew my mind.” After that, he wanted to dive in and learn all he could. He got into home brewing, went to the Beverage People and “went farther and farther down the rabbit hole.”
Many home brewers wonder if it is possible to make a go at it and become a business. He realized he needed to know about commercial brewing and operations. So you either need a brewing degree or work experience, to emerge with the knowledge and practice. He didn’t want to go back to school and he sent 100 applications. He worked briefly for Budweiser and learned about how the high volume productions work. But he was also accepted by Bear Republic and that is where learned as they expanded. He started in 2012 and was happy to to unglorious work to learn the craft. Speaking of scrubbing tanks, “it was magical, it was awesome.” He made it up to brewer. Now his company has bought equipment from Bear. He started his own brewery with a partner in 2018 and has been on a “total grind” since then. They have a Hazy IPA called Free Craigs which celebrates getting free stuff off Craigslist. They got multiple cold boxes, their grain mill, at least $300,000 worth of free stuff that works! He brought the beers that they will be pouring at Battle of the Brews. The beer is their Midas Blonde.
The 20/30 Club provides school supplies to young children in need and Old Caz is one of the breweries that is contributing to it. They also taste the Lavender Radler which has a great story from a friend who made lavender lemonade and they managed to make it blend with a beer. Harry Duke declares that it is one of the most unique flavors he has ever tasted. It tastes more of lemon and sour than lavender, which some people might associate with soap. “It’s fascinating. I did not expect that,” says Harry. It’s only 4.4% ABV, so very light.
Natalie Cilurzo is in today with Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras for the debut of Pliny the Younger, the incredibly popular and world-renowned beer from Russian River Brewing Company. They are also working on an international collaboration with a Ukrainian brewery, part of an international call to action, to breweries to brew this beer and donate the proceeds to Ukrainian refugee relief. RRBC is releasing theirs on April 1 along with a special brewing of their Defenestration beer. All of the proceeds are going to humanitarian efforts for Ukraine. The strong golden ale will be relatively low alcohol, and the other will be higher in alcohol and hoppier. This year they brewed Pliny the Younger but they had to hold it back due to public health concerns. The recipe it the same as last year’s edition, with a total of ten different varieties of hops. Elixir is a French hop, with a spicy, citrus-y berry note. They think it adds an interesting strawberry note to the beer this year. Otherwise, it has typical Russian River Brewing Co. characteristics, very dry with a balanced finish, deceptively smooth. Natalie says that this feels like “a typical Covid wedding” that has been postponed a few times but it is finally in motion. They have even been able to hire back a couple of tour guides and they also have a self-guided tour. The postponement has been a blessing in disguise since they are better prepared this time. “Cheers to resilience and perseverance, and to beer keeping the world going around and friendship through beer.” –Herlinda Heras Pliny the Younger is golden and has a nice white head and a dry finish. There are rules for the public serving of Pliny the Younger in the pub and they are almost the same as last time, except the time limit is two and a half hours, down from three hours, previously. They wanted to have a little more time to clean the places between guests, and also to keep the line moving. They also limit everyone to three 10-oz. pours.
Natalie recommends that if people are tasting other beers, they should have them first, and have some food, before trying Pliny the Younger. This is a seated food and beverage experience and Pliny is such a significant beer that you mustn’t expect your palette to be able to deal with other brews after tasting it. The only way to get bottles is to wait in line for your allotment. The dates are March 25 through April 7, daily at both pubs, 11am to 10pm. They are allocating a certain amount of beer for each day, based on their estimate of daily need. Only on rare occasions have they run out of either draft or bottles on a busy Saturday. Some folks are already on line now. They had trouble once in 2010 with counterfeit wristbands so now they have custom made ones that are more secure.
Herlinda Heras points out that this event is recognized as ann important driver for tourist activity in the area. The Sonoma County EDB (Economic Development Board) has estimated the total economic impact in 2020 of more than $5 million dollars. Natalie says that she and Vinny are most proud of that fact.
Tyler Lafferty from Third Street Aleworks and Steve Doty from Shady Oak Barrel House are our two guests on Brew Ha Ha today with Herlinda Heras and Harry Duke sitting in for Steve Jaxon.
The FeBREWary celebration is going on in Santa Rosa, sponsored by Visit Santa Rosa. Go to the website for information about how to participate in the 2022 Beer Passport. (SF Beer Week is also going on.) There are 14 craft brewers in the program this year. You pick up your passport at Wilibee’s and if you get 11 stamps, including three free ones, you can win a colorful medallion. There are not just Santa Rosa breweries in the Beer Passport program. Bear Republic and Old Caz in Rhonert Park and also Seismic in the Barlow in Sebastopol are also among the participating breweries.
Brew Ha Ha is sponsored by the Santa Rosa branch of Yoga Six located in Coddingtown Center.
Third Street Aleworks Tyler has been at Third Street Aleworks for 13 years, while other businesses in the neighborhood have come and gone. They opened 26 years ago this March. They got new owners a couple of years ago in the Spring 2019. He is the fourth brewmaster they have had. The last two years have been a challenge. They used to sell 90% of their beer over their own bar, now 80% goes out in cans and the rest in kegs to different places. It was hard to get food delivered so they partnered with some of their neighbors to deliver local produce. They did it until they were able to open indoor dining again. They have a new beer called PBR People’s Beer of Rosa. Blanca Molina, a local artist, designed its label.
Third St. Ale Works supplied food to the vaccination clinic that Herlinda set up with her friends, every Thursday. Tyler is proud that the owners care about supporting the community in these ways. Their menu is not as extensive as it once was, since they have had to become more agile, as a lot of other business have. They have done some remodelling. They also have “Tightwad Tuesday” with specially priced beers and bratwursts and a resident food truck, Tacos Tijuana, as well as others which are rotating on different days.
Brew Ha Ha is sponsored by Russian River Brewing Co.
Shady Oak Barrel House Harry Duke has known Steve Doty since before the pub was opened. 420 1st St. in Santa Rosa. Shady Oak Barrel House was a home brew project that grew into a business. He started just making sours in barrels and needed to expand to start an actual tap room. They also have Cosmo the brewery cat. They adopted him after one of the fires. Cats are good around a brewery to protected the grain from rats and mice. Cosmo was catnapped but later was returned.
Shady Oak Barrel House started with a focus on barrel aging and spontaneous and wild fermentation. Since they opened the taproom they also make other kinds, like a triple IPA that he brought. The Shady Oak Barrel House also has an arcade with pinball and old 80s-era video arcade games. They are also a dog friendly location. They have a spacious location that used to be an automobile dealership. The King Street Giants, formerly known as Dixie Giants, for Mardi Gras. They will also have the food vendor Bayou on the Bay whose chef comes from Louisiana and makes all authentic recipes from down there. They also have trivia night every Thursday.
Finally, these two breweries have produced a collaboration brew. Back in 2018, they brewed a Baltic Porter with a large amount of rye in it. They decided to age it in rye whiskey barrels. Due to the pandemic it has been in barrels for two years. It was a 7.5% multi-dark lager but now it is up to 10% alcohol. It has many layers of flavors. They are releasing it tomorrow.
Colin McDonald, brewmaster and co-founder of Hen House Brewing is in the studio with Herlinda Heras and Harry Duke on Brew Ha Ha today. They have Hen House’s special brew Big Chicken to taste. This year Hen House has Big Chicken in cans in the tasting rooms in Petaluma and Santa Rosa, and kegs for all their other bars and restaurants. This is their big celebration beer. Hen House has some distribution in Portland. Their Portland distributor is driving up tomorrow with kegs freshly filled to deliver there. This beer has a following of people who are eager to tap these kegs as soon as they can.
This is their 10th anniversary and 10th batch of Big Chicken. It is everything they learned about making hoppy beer during the year. The recipe changes every year as they learn new stuff. They are also doing some new beers with unique yeasts. They use some genetically modified yeast from Berkeley Labs, UC Berkeley’s yeast lab, which produces custom strains. They bring an enzyme that releases more of the inherent flavors in the beer. There are different types of hops in this year’s recipe, but with a “super tropical fermentation character” on it. Colin calls it “the best batch ever.” It is intense, fun and exciting. Herlinda says it is “extremely drinkable.”
Big Chicken will be available in cans at the tasting rooms until this weekend and may or may not make it into next week. They want people to experience it as super fresh. They were still a nano-brewery when they made the first Big Chicken.
Colin describes the brewing process as imperfect, and tells something he learned from Brian Hunt of Moonlight Brewing, who said that if you don’t have to dump some beer out every year, “your standards just aren’t high enough.”
Brew Ha Ha is sponsored by the Santa Rosa branch of Yoga Six located in Coddingtown Center. YogaSix has special signup promotions special workshops and Beer Yoga, so check out their website or their local studio’s facebook page. Call them at 707 527 6454 or visit their website at yogasix.com/santa-rosa
Hen House is opening in Fairfax. They took over the old Iron Springs location. Alex their chef is focussed on using local ingredients like the abundant locally harvested oysters and they are also making some food-centric beers.
Brew Ha Ha "Brews News with Herlinda" is sponsored by Russian River Brewing Co.
Gail Williams joins calls in to the studio to speak with Herlinda Heras, Harry Duke and Colin, about SF Beer Week. Gail describes how Omicron hit just as all the event programmers were in their important planning stages. Despite the difficulties, they are putting on the show and all the information you need is on that website, SF Beer Week dot org.
If you go to sfbeerweek.org, you can see what activities are available all over the Bay Area, including shipping options for beer delivery from lots of great craft breweries. Colin will be doing a live beer chat about a collaboration they are involved in called Prime 5. Gail describes the great array of events and games located all around the area, which are all listed on the SF Beer week website. "Whatever you want to do, you'll find something really fun," says Gail.
Harry Duke, Matt Carpenter and Herlinda Heras have two guests today on Brew Ha Ha, Natalie Cilurzo from Russian River Brewing Co. and Martin Voigt, the leading beer blogger from Austria are both here today. First, we welcome a new sponsor to Brew Ha Ha. Visit Santa Rosa is sponsoring Brew Ha Ha this month with the Santa Rosa Beer Passport initiative. There is a list of participating breweries at their website Visit Santa Rosa dot com. The Santa Rosa Beer Passport is your guide to explore the world-class craft beer scene in Santa Rosa.
Natalie Cilurzo from Russian River Brewing Co. joins us in the studio today because normally, today they would be gearing up for their 18th annual Pliny the Younger release. However they have decided to postpone that this year, because of the surge in Omicron cases. The new release dates are March 25 to April 7. Despite the fact that they were conceived to run simultaneously, the Pliny the Younger postponement will not affect the 2022 Santa Rosa Beer Passport program, which will continue as scheduled in the month of FeBREWary.
Martin Voigt is visiting again from Austria. He went to northern California to visit some breweries, including North Coast Brewing and Anderson Valley Brewing and there are others still to visit. Martin Voigt began writing about beer when he wrote about being a German who moved to Austria and got to know the beer there. People were interested in his writing, then a friend introduced him to video blogging, which he decided to do. It's the only video blog in Austria about beer.
Martin brought a Vienna lager, considered to be the first modern lager, first brewed in 1841. He says that Austria always had small local breweries that served their local communities. It is lightly hopped and has a dry clean finish.
Next they open a Russian River Row Two Hill 56 which is hopped with Simcoe hops, which tends to have citrus, pine and resiny flavors. The name is an address where the hops came from. These hops give the beer a fabulous aroma.
Then they taste a beer called Falco, from the only brewery in the Vienna city limits.
Brew Ha Ha is sponsored by the Santa Rosa branch of Yoga Six located in Coddingtown Center.
Falling Rock Tap House in Denver is closing its doors and going out of business. Chris Black, owner of Falling Rock Tap House in Denver is our first guest today on Brew Ha Ha, today with Herlinda Heras, with Harry Duke sitting in for Steve Jaxon. Sadly for the beer world Chris Black is on a farewell tour. Falling Rock Tap House has been the most popular tap house in the country for many years. Now he has a set of several four-foot-by-six-foot signs that depict the logos of beers they sold. A former bartender who worked for him painted them. Now, he is visiting the breweries to give them their signs. He just visited Lost Abbey in San Diego and now he is up in Northern Caifornia to deliver some others at Anchor, Lagunitas, Sierra Nevada and Deschutes.
Jeremy Cohen is on the phone from Schmaltz Brewing. Jeremy Cohen is wrapping up 25 years of brewing. He started at age 26 in 1996 in San Francisco. He grew the brand and sold beer all over the country. Now instead of trying to sell a regional brand, he is focussing on a new brand to serve just the New York City area with an exclusive wholesaler. He also has a new taproom in Troy, upstate New York. He is also doing consulting in the beer industry. He says he never thought it would get a far as it did.
Brew Ha Ha "Brews News with Herlinda" is sponsored by Russian River Brewing Co. and by The Beverage People / Fermenter's Warehouse.
Herlinda describes how Falling Rock was located near the Colorado Rockies stadium. During the World Beer Cup in Denver, Falling Rock was the place to go. He still has a beer truck with 22 taps that can go to events.
Bob Brewer is the legendary sales guy for Lagunitas. He met Chris Black a long time before Falling Rock. They met in Houston when Chris was a rep for a German brewery and Bob worked for Lagunitas. There was a tap house in Houston called The Ginger Man. Later he found that Chris had a taproom. Bob Brewer’s role at Lagunitas included troubleshooting taps, sales and marketing. He always had a table at Beerfest and would go to Falling Rock in the off hours.
Once there was an All-Star game at Coors Field and the rep from a large American brand put their signature product in every single bar, except for Falling Rock. They festooned the town with their logo, but only gave a case of beer to Chris, who proceeded to smash it with a large hammer, and then turned it into a sign outside the store saying something like “no crap on tap.”
Tara Nurin, author of A Woman's Place Is In The Brewhouse, joins Herlinda Heras and Harry Duke on Brew Ha Ha today. Mark Carpenter is away this week and Harry Duke is sitting in for Steve Jaxon. Tara Nurin is the Forbes magazine beer and spirits business writer. She has been working on this book for four years and she is finally on book tour!
She has a book signing event at Russian River Brewing Co. on December 16, 2021. Herlinda suggests she could do a special label beer for the occasion. Tara describes the book, the first to document the rich history of women in brewing. The book looks at economic, political and religious factors and there are interviews with all the prominent women in the brewing business over the last several decades, such as Natalie Cilurzo, CEO of Russian River Brewing Co.
Most people do not know the whole story about the first new ground-up craft brewery in the US after Prohibition, founded in 1976 in the town of Sonoma, called New Albion. There were two women who worked with the founder Jack McAuliffe, and they did the funding and the accounting. They were hard to get for interviews but Tara met one of them, Susie, and features her story in the book.
Tara Nurin will be at Russian River Brewing Co. on December 16, for a book signing of "A Woman's Place Is In The Brewhouse: A forgotten history of alewives, brewsters, witches and CEOs."
Brew Ha Ha is sponsored by the Santa Rosa branch of Yoga Six located in Coddingtown Center.
Stone Brewing brewer Steve Gonzales and Seismic Brewing Company brewer Andy Hooper are both on Brew HaHa Craft Beer Radio on the Drive today w/ Mark Carpenter and Herlinda Heras. Harry Duke is sitting in for Steve Jaxon. Steve Gonzales is up in Sonoma County from San Diego, since he also brews at the Napa Stone Brewery. Andy Hooper is the head brewer for Seismic, and also for Tremor, a brewer that won a Gold Medal at the Great American Beer Festival.
Brew Ha Ha is sponsored by the Santa Rosa branch of Yoga Six located in Coddingtown Center.
Herlinda attended the keg un-tapping of a special Seismic beer, that is the most local beer probably ever done in Sonoma County. Andy tells that Sonoma County grows barley and hops, and in a 12 mile radius there is also a malting facility. So they can do it all in Sonoma County. They brought their entire team to harvest the hops for this beer. It was a fun event in the taproom on Oct 1. They finished off a barrel of that beer.
Their hop harvesting machine at Scott Bice’s Capricopia, is an amazing machine. It’s imported and needs a converter to run on local power. The vines bite, they can give you a rash. There is a Sonoma County company that invented a hop harvester. The company moved to Yakima decades ago, following the growers.
Seismic is a relatively young company dedicated to local sustainably sourced ingredients and water conservation practices. They are the first place you see when you enter the Barlow in Sebastopol. They can’t operate a restaurant in their own facility, but people can order food from any restaurants right nearby, and have the food delivered right to the taproom.
Andy Hooper brought a taste of a limited edition beer. It uses fresh hops, but in order to optimize the flavoring process, instead of using them fresh, they froze them with liquid nitrogen, then shattered them, to break them up and get more surface area on the pieces, to get more of the flavor out. It also didn’t clog the equipment as whole hops can. Then they did half the maturation in Sauvignon Blanc barrels. It’s a beer they can only make once a year.
Herlinda just brought a Seismic beer into a restaurant in Napa, called Tremor. It’s all organic, made with California ingredients, it’s 120 calories a can and sells for $12.99 a 12-pack. It won a gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival.
To do an organic beer, you have to get the whole facility certified organic. It was 200 pages of application materials. They look into the origin of all ingredients. They used to make this beer just for themselves, not it is catching on. Tremor California Light Lager.
Stone Brewing’s beer cans are all upside down. Leave no Stone unturned! Stone has been around for 25 years. It has its origins in the music business. One founder was in a band, and was recording in the studio with one of the other founders. They took a class together and recognized each other from the music business. Their headquarters is in San Diego. They have the big brewery in Escondido in north San Diego County, the place in Napa and a brewery in Richmond, VA.
Stone and Seismic also have done a second collaboration. The second one is called Seismic Stone “Ain’t That A Kick In The Red” Red India Pale Lager. Stone makes lots of other beers, like Zubin Pils named after his friend Dan Zubin.
He also brought Enjoy By 10-31. It was supposed to be a one-off, when they had some extra hops. So they make a beer so hoppy that it would only last 35 days.
Tbe Napa Stone brewery is in an old stone mill house right on the river. It’s a BBQ themed restaurant. He also brought Hop Engineer, they are located near a train depot. This uses South African hops, called Southern Star. Southern Tropic and Southern Sublime are two other new ones that are "really awesome" and every time they use it, the brew is sold out in a few weeks. Bitterness used to be what hops were for, but now, aroma is king.
Collin McDonald joins Herlinda Heras and Harry Duke on Brew Ha Ha today with news that Hen House Brewing Co. is acquiring Iron Springs. The last time Collin was on the Brew Ha Ha show and podcast was this episode on August 22, 2019.
Collin McDonald, Hen House Brewing Co. CEO, says that Iron Springs has been an awesome institution for 17 years and their plans are to keep all the staff and continue to grow. Iron Springs was a leader in the development of craft beer, as well as demonstrating how a brewery can make a town stronger, be a good emplyer and be something that every community wants. It is Hen House’s first restaurant and they are making plans or food that matches the way they do beer, with fresh ingredients and seasonal rotations.
He takes the responsibility seriously to continue to have a brewery that is engaged with the community. Iron Springs is also known for music shows and they will continue that.
They will be brewing there, in a 10-barrel brewery, as opposed to their Santa Rosa brewery, a 30 barrel capacity. Mike and Anne, the founders who are selling Iron Springs, are going to keep the name Iron Springs, except for beer branding, although they may do some collaborations. They will do some rebranding over the holidays and expect to be open in January.
Brew Ha Ha is sponsored by the Santa Rosa branch of Yoga Six located in Coddingtown Center.
Ha Ha "Brews News with Herlinda" is sponsored by Russian River Brewing Co. and by The Beverage People / Fermenter's Warehouse.
Harry asks Collin to tell some of the back story of Hen House Brewing Company. He has brought a 3-day-old can of Double IPA with Citra, Simcoe and Wakatu hops.
Their graphic designer Josh Staples does their labels, which are a lot of fun. Look for some Easter eggs on their labels.
They are an investor and family owned business, and they include his parents, some local Rotarians, friends and family. That kind of community is supportive and also knowledgeable. They were a "nano brewery" at first, then they were renting time in another brew house. In 2016 they moved up to their current brew room in Santa Rosa. The Petaluma location opened in 2018. There they do their barrel aging and hopping, in Petaluma.
The Santa Rosa location is on Bellvue Ave. and Petaluma on North McDowell. They have food trucks come in to serve people to come for tasting. See their website for the food truck schedule. Opening a restaurant now in Fairfax will be a big job and his priority is to so that with the same attention to quality as their beers. Their beers are in tap rooms, at Oliver's market, and the tasting room. Collin says it's a tasting room, not a bar or a pub. The purpose is to taste beer in an educational atmosphere, so they serve mainly flights. Their servers are titled Flight Attendant.
Fresh Hops are front and center today on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Mark Carpenter, as we welcome Vinnie and Natalie Cilurzo from Russian River Brewing Company. Vinnie and Natalie are the co-owners of Russian River Brewing Co. and they have brought a pack of fresh hops into the studio today. Now is a busy time, the hops are being harvested and there are special hoppy beers being made and enjoyed.
The Russian River Brewing Co. Winds0r location and the Santa Rosa pub are both open. They have been using the parklette on 4th Street, which was done to allow social distancing for Covid precautions, and while they won't be there forever, they are using it and enjoying it for as long as possible. They also have some longer term construction plans to expand in Santa Rosa.
Vinnie says that RRBC has brought in a lot of fruit lately, peaches and grape pumice, Syrah and Sauvignon Blanc, which they use in various fruity beers with some sour tartness. They have one called Hop Time, which is on tap and in cans in their brew pubs only. It's the only way to get it. They made a double batch in Santa Rosa. It uses wet hops so it is a bulky job, using locally grown hops from the Crane ranch. RRBC has a sour beer club, only for fans of that style, no hoppy beers.
"Next year, we will make Hop Time with barley that Ron and Erica Crane have grown, also. So that will make it a complete local beer," says Vinnie.
Crooked Goat Brewing and Valley Ford Cheese make up the beer and food pairing on this week's podcast episode of Brew Ha Ha. Brew Ha Ha today features Karen Bianchi from Valley Ford Cheese Company and Paul Vianello of Crooked Goat Brewing, who both join Herlinda Heras and Harry Duke who is sitting in for Steve Jaxon. Curtis Bedford is also in the studio, staying through from the previous segment live on The Drive on KSRO. (This podcast episode, published Sept. 30, 2021, was recorded live on the air on Sept. 23, 2021.)
Vinnie and Natalie from Russian River Brewing Co. were just recently on a trip to Washington to choose hops for Russian River Brewing Company. Right now they are making two seasonal beers, Dribble Belt and Happy Hops. They will be in the studio next week with their fresh wet hopped beer and some fresh hops too.
Paul Vianello has brought a variety of beers from Crooked Goat Brewery. The beer is in massive 32-ounce cans, Vanilla Bean, Blackberry Ale and a honey beer. Blackberry Ale is popular on warm days. It’s a light easy-drinking beer with a hint of raspberry. Born to Run and uses hops from the Alexander Valley. They even ran into Vinnie from RRBC when they were up there hop hunting. “We survived the flood, we survived the pandemic, we survived the fires.” -Paul Vianello Their new brewer Ilya and assistant brewmaster Rich make a good team. They are hoping to open a second location in Petaluma by next year. Valley Ford Cheese & Creamery Karen Bianchi from Valley Ford Cheese has brought three cheeses: Highway One, Estero Gold extra aged, and some Gorgonzola, which is young and not piquant.
They have a new location, a marketplace and restaurant on Hwy 1, between Petaluma and Bodega, about 6 miles in from Bodega Bay. They opened their new space two years ago and managed to survive the pandemic.
Karen has brought in one of their signature sandwiches too. They also make their own home made potato chips, daily. They also make Pastrami, and the sandwich from it. The Honey Ale goes with the Rueben sandwich. Its sister beer is the Blackberry Beer, called Bramble. Crooked Goat has no kitchen of its own but offers access to food from various food vendors at the Barlow. There is a great core group of adjacent restaurants, so you can order food from any of them.
The Beet Beer is the beer for someone who doesn’t love IPA. It’s a honey ale. They add the honey during a boil in the brewing. The Blackberry is made by adding a puree of the fruit.
Brew Ha Ha "Brews News with Herlinda" is sponsored by Russian River Brewing Co. and by The Beverage People / Fermenter's Warehouse.
Brew Ha Ha is sponsored by the Santa Rosa branch of Yoga Six located in Coddingtown Center.
Beer and Yoga join forces today on Brew Ha Ha. Laura Letchinger from the new local branch of YogaSix joins Herlinda Heras and Harry Duke (sitting in for Steve Jaxon).
Today we welcome our new sponsor YogaSix, located at Coddingtown Center in Santa Rosa. Their six yoga classes range from introductory and restorative to more physically demanding ones.
YogaSix is partnering with some local breweries to promote relaxation and beer. However, the combination of beer and yoga is not completely new or unique. Some breweries have been offering yoga events. This local franchise of YogaSix will be doing some popup events in breweries and wineries.
There is plenty of free parking at Coddingtown Center, as well as other shops and amenities including a nearby ice cream shop. It is a brand new studio and they have installed a high-quality air filtration system. They are hosting a free hour-long class with a taste of some local brews. They also do events in wineries, such as one at Paradise Ridge, recently. She has also done events with Sandro at Old Possum.
Herlinda mentions that combining beer and yoga started in California and now it has spread to Colorado and other places. Lagunitas used to do it.
To contact the new local branch of YogaSix, call 707 527 6454, visit them online or visit them in the Coddingtown Center in Santa Rosa.
cuVer Brewery co-founders Hendrick Verspecht and Nico Silva have brought their new beers to Herlinda Heras and Mark Carpenter on Brew Ha Ha today. Harry Duke is sitting in for Steve Jaxon. cuVer Brewery is the first Belgian-style brewery in Sonoma County.
Building and opening the brewery has been a long process. Hendrick tells how his family moved here from Belgium in 2012. His father was used to drinking local craft Belgian beers and he wanted the same beers in California, so he started home brewing. The brewery is located at 7704 Bell Road in Windsor, near Tilted Shed and Barley and Vine (in the former St. Florian location) in the Windsor beverage district. They have a tap room coming on line, the grand opening is Oct. 2.
Hendrick studied Plant Biotechnology at the University of Ghent in Belgium at the university, after attending high school at Montgomery High School in Santa Rosa. Today's Tastings Herlinda has brought a beer from a monastery in Belgium and Nico and Hendrick have brought the entire cuVer lineup, for tasting. The first is Hoppy Don, an IPA. They are using Belgian yeasts to produce an IPA that is not overly hoppy. They brew with a hop extract with is a very efficient way to use hops for small breweries, because their flavor remains fresh longer at the brewery.
Nico Silva is the lead brewer at Cuver. He did the Culinary and Baking program at Santa Rosa JC. The CuVer beers in studio are the Dobbel, the Tripel and the Pepperwood, their Signature Saison Ale. It uses Meyer lemon peel and California Bay Laurel. They also have the Bell Road Pilsner, one of Nico’s recipes, and the first beer they brewed. Their first batch was made in May this year while Hendrick was still in Belgium finishing his university work. They had to keep in touch despite 9 hours of time difference. For Nico, as a brewer, it is important to know how to make different styles of beer, so he practiced with many different recipes other than IPA. As they taste the Tripel, Mark Carpenter says he can hardly taste the alcohol, even if it’s 8.2%. The yeast and malt profile covers the alcohol, as Nico says.
Currently they only have draft beer, at the brewery and in certan taprooms around the county. You can get a growler or a howler, a little dumbell of beer. He wanted to make the Tripel because he needed a good smooth Belgian style beer in his brewery.
Lost Coast Brewery's master brewer Jack Van Stone is our guest on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Mark Carpenter. Herlinda Heras is also in the studio today and Harry Duke is sitting in for Steve Jaxon. Lost Coast Brewery is located on the northern California coast, in a remote section that is directly served by neither Highway 1 nor Highway 101.
The CBC Craft Brewers Conference is this week in Denver, also the World Beer Cup is there. Herlinda will miss this event for the first time in years. Tara Nurin is there promoting her new book and she will report on the winner of the World Beer Cup and more, including local winners for us, in an upcoming episode.
Jack Van Stone has been a friend of Herlinda Heras for fifteen years. The Lost Coast brewery owner is in Tara Nurin’s book on the history of women and beer. On their website, Lost Coast Brewery claims to “not just another craft brewery” which comes from its unique status. The founders were two women who quit their professional jobs, went to Europe to learn brewing, and then came back to found Lost Coast Brewery in Eureka, California. Jack Van Stone tells the story of how they moved to larger spaces as they grew. For the last seven years they have been operating a gorgeous modern brewery in Eureka.
The artist who drew their artwork knew the founders because he would sit and drink beer and draw pictures. They liked his drawings and so they hired him to do their labels. He also has drawn murals all over Eureka.
They already had some Tangerine Wheat beer and now some Downtown Brown Ale. They actually use tangerine extract, added only after the wheat beer is done. It is now their flagship beer. It was seasonal at first.
Jack Van Stone mentions several breweries on a sort of Humboldt County beer trail, which, apart from Lost Coast Brewery, includes Eel River Brewing, Mad River Brewing, Six Rivers Brewery, Redwood Curtain Brewing Company and also Humboldt Cider Company.
Jack tells about what a nice place Humboldt County is to visit, and how you should stay at least one night to get the whole experience of such a remote place. Then he describes one more beer, an Imperial Stout aged in French oak barrels. It tastes like a stout but has some of the walnut character from the wood.
Anikó Lehtinen is our guest on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Mark Carpenter today. We will talk about Sahti, the ancient Finnish national home brew style with Herlinda Heras in studio and with Anikó Lehtinen on the phone from Helsinki.
But first, today’s show has a couple of Preludes.
Prelude No. 1: Chris DiMatteo has brought the audio of two old TV ads from the 1960s, for Italian Swiss Colony Wines, just to remind us of how awful the early tv commercials could be. There are plenty of cringe-worthy old beer ads too, and we will hear some of those soon.
Prelude No. 2 Steve Jaxon remembers Tom T. Hall, who passed away just a few days before this episode was recorded. He wrote the song “I Like Beer” one of our unofficial anthems on Brew Ha Ha, and he also wrote the hit song Harper Valley PTA.
Then at 6:46 the regular Brew Ha Ha episode starts.
Our guest on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Mark Carpenter is Anikó Lehtinen, whom Herlinda Heras visited on her recent trip to Finland and Estonia. Anikó can be found on these social media platforms, here is her LinkedIn page, her Twitter account and her Instagram page. We record Brew Ha Ha in the 5:00 PM hour California time, and Anikó is 10 hours ahead where the local time is past 3:00 AM.
Anikó Lehtinen is a journalist, radio producer and university lecturer who covers beer and other subjects. On her recent visit to Helsinki, Herlinda met Aniko, where they judged competitions together, visited breweries and met with brewers.
While waiting to get a connection with Helsinki, we discuss the Sahti. This bottle that we are tasting is pasteurized, but mostly it is not pasteurized when it is brewed and served at home in Finland. It is a dark amber-colored uncarbonated brew that is flavored with juniper berry branches, or more recently, other flavors like birch and lingonberries. Mark notices that it is hazy and has no carbonation, so it is sold in milk cartons in Finland, because the package does not need to support the pressure of carbonization.
Anikó describes how she got into the business of covering beer and the beverage business. She studied History at university and needed some work as a student, so she worked in some bars that served beer. Then she got an opportunity to build a training system at the biggest Finnish brewery. Here she got to know beer at all levels, including its styles and its history, and she finds it fascinating. Kipis! That's Cheers in Finnish.
They are drinking the Sahti that Herlinda brought back, made by their friend Pekka. There are more than 120 breweries in Finland, mostly micro breweries, for a population of about 5.6 million, so beer is popular. Pekka did important work to preserve the habit of making Sahti, which Anikó describes.
It's a busy show today, as Meagan Anderson and Tara Nurin both join Herlinda Heras, who is back from a three-week trip to Estonia and Finland. Tara Nurin writes about the business of beverages and spirits for Forbes magazine, from her home base in Camden, New Jersey. Meagan Anderson is the representative of New Zealand hops growers. Here is her Twitter page. Herlinda was in Finland judging the national beer competition and the national Sahti competition. She was the first American judge in either competition. Sahti is the Finnish national home brew.
Herlinda describes the Finnish habit of taking a sauna (which they pronounce “SOW-na” not “SAW-na” as English speakers tend to say) and then plunging into the cold lake and going back and forth between the sauna and the lake. Steve says, “No, thank you!” Herlinda says it got rid of her jet lag pretty quickly. It’s the cleanest country she has ever been to. They have free health care for everyone. Car registration and traffic fines are scaled by income. They have very clean water and their lager beers tasted clean and delicious and so were the Baltic Porters. Herlinda also visited Tallinn, the capital of Estonia.
New Zealand hops have a special reputation among beer fans. Her organization is a cooperative of twenty-seven growers. They have been growing hops in this reagion of New Zealand for 150 years. They grow some of the best hops in the world, such as Nelson Sauvin and Riwaka. Meagan is here to promote a new one, called Nectaron. Some of their hops have trademarked and registered names. See them all here at the NZ Hops website. Some have exotic names derived from other languages such as Moutere (which seems derived from French where it would be “moo-TER”). They say “MOO-ter-ee.” One is called Mouteka. Nectaron is named for Dr. Ron Bitzen, a botanist who worked on hops his entire career and who created Nectaron out of 12 years of R&D. Nelson Sauvin was created from their breeding program and released in 2000. It’s a very distinctive hop. They have limited supply, 1800 acres, and they are under 1% of the world supply, but they have special qualities.
Sahti is one of the oldest styles of alcoholic beverage in Europe, and does not use hops because when it was developed they did not use hops. They use juniper as a flavoring. Herlinda found that the Sahti brews she was judging were quite similar and she had to find a way to differentiate among them. Also, it is not carbonated. Next week she will bring some to this show, to taste with Mark Carpenter.
Tara Nurin has just published her book, A Woman’s Place Is In The Brewhouse: A forgotten history of alewives, witches, brewsters and CEOs. She has her first official book event Sunday at Urban Roots Brewery in Sacramento, California. She is planning another book signing with Russian River Brewing Co., probably for December.
Lagunitas Stereohopic IPA uses hop oil. I small bottle of hop oil can flavor a large batch and ultimately much more efficient use of water. Megan points out that the botanists spend a lot of time “chasing flavors” and she credits the impetus of the craft beer industry for pushing the demand for better more interesting hops.
Meagan Anderson’s first job in the beer market was at Samual Adams, as a beer salesperson and trainer, for ten years. She moved to Idaho to work for a hop company called Mill 95. There, she met some New Zealanders. She found a company in Kalamazoo, Michigan that makes a hop oil. Then she met Totally Natural Solutions, that produces a totally natural hop oil. Her dream job materialized with the New Zealand hop growers offered her a job. In New Zealand there are some 5th and 6th generations of children growing hops in the fields of their family farms. In 2010 she started a home brew club and one of the members was Jack McAuliffe, the founder of New Albion. It was the first new brewery founded here after Prohibition. They made the first American pale ale.
This week Brew Ha Ha is 2 parts. Mark Carpenter tells about his career with Anchor Brewing in San Francisco. Then Herlinda Heras is in Finland and calls us from Helsinki.
Mark Carpenter begins his story with his quest for a more interesting career as a young man in San Francisco in 1971, and proceeds through his first encounter with owner Fritz Maytag, his fortuitous hiring, a description of the facilities, their brewing process, the success of Anchor Steam Beer and several other cool stories from those years. It's a great 9=minute summary of a very interesting story.
At the 9-minute mark, Herlinda Heras joins Steve Jaxon and Mark Carpenter on the telephone from Helsinki, Finland.
As Herlinda Heras calls in from Helsinki, Finland, it is the late afternoon California time so it is the middle of the night in Helsinki. Herlinda is there to be a judge in the Finland national brewing competition and also the Sahti competition. (Sahti is the old-time Finnish style of home brew.) She is enthusiastic about Finland for many reasons, including their social system as well as their brews.
Russian River Brewing Co. is also open at both sites, in Santa Rosa on 4th Street and in Windsor. Herlinda brought a dry-hopped Pliny the Elder in a can, to Finland. She was at the Windsor location and a famous drag racer from NHRA was there with a race car for pictures.
Herlinda describes judging Sahti. It is the oldest brewing style in the world. Unfortunately Skype had glitches so the call is shortened.
Harry Duke and Mark Carpenter then discuss the trends in beverages, including hard seltzer. Mark Carpenter remembers Zima, he mentions Bartles & James wine coolers. "They come and go," says Mark. He's not a fan. Harry mentions that some companies have continued to make them because they are easy to make. The success of the product depends more on marketing because the product is rather plain. AB has stopped making theirs.
Mark Carpenter says that you never know what the next big thing will be. He suggests that lighter craft Pilsners may begin to appear. Possibly, part of the reason for that is that IPAs became such a contest in how much hop flavor you can put into the product. There would be a natural swing back in the other direction, from brewers that "... are all trying to out-hop each other." Liberty Ale and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, and Hen House, are excellent alternatives.
Mark's personal belief is that craft beer is here to stay. Once you drink those, you're not going back to the major brands. It's like getting into espresso coffee; you don't go back to regular coffee because there is too much flavor there. Mark would like to see the beers get down to about 5% alcohol. Beer drinkers like to drink volume but don't want to get inebriated. This is like English lagers, you can drink them and not get too intoxicated. Some brewers are also making non-alcoholic beers. Those are nice for people who like a refreshing beverage but don't want alcohol. Some of the "Daytime" beers (such as one by Lagunitas) are very popular. Harry points out that the flavor of the beer is what makes it, and domestic light beer have none. Once you get used to beer with a genuine flavor and body, you don't go back. This is why the major brewers are investing in craft beer. Mark Carpenter says that Coors' Blue Moon is an example of a good one, made by a major producer.
Eric Desmarais from CLS Farms in Yakima, Washington, is our guest today, with Herlinda Heras and Harry Duke, who is sitting in for Steve Jaxon, on this edition of Brew Ha Ha. Eric joins us on the telephone from Yakima, Washington, which is the world's largest hop growing area.
This Summer, the weather up there was rather hot and Herlinda asks what will happen to the hops with 113 degree weather. This was very unusual, as the previous record was 111 degrees, and the hottest weather usually comes in July and August, not in June, as happened this year. They might have had one day that hot in a season but this year there were 3 or 4 days in a row of it. Eric has been in the hops business for 30 years. He says that the appearance of the craft brewers about ten years ago really changed the market and revived the business by bringing more demand. Yakima is a unique place to grow hops. It is very dry and very far north, for a desert climate. They also have the Cascade Mountain range that blocks the wet weather coming from the west, and creates a watershed for irrigation. These conditions allow them to grow hops of the highest quality.
There are about 25 or 30 commercially grown varieties of hops. Some withstand the heat better than others. Two of the largest varieties of CLS Farms' crop that got affected were Citra, the No. 1 most popular variety, which took a hit, so did a variety called Cashmere. Hops do have an ability to recover because they are a fast growing plant. However the young plants are most sensitive to heat and those were the crops that took the most damage. They get damage from the flower stage to the cone stage, but they were not in the flower stage. They actually saw burning of the vines at the top portion. The plants were going into self-preservation mode. Hops are usually a very stable crop, with only about 2-3 percent of natural variation but there is about 5-15% lower yields. The heat slowed down their growth.
CLS Farms provides hops to many craft brewers, in particular to the California brewers, such as Sierra Nevada, Stone Brewing and Ballast and Urban Roots in Sacramento. Eric's daughter is their fifth generation in the hops business.
They are all drip irrigated, so they were able to take some really aggressive steps to help the plants through the heat. They also had to retrain some hop plants go grow higher. This is the key time in the growing season and they will still see how this year's crop comes out. Herlinda invites Eric back for a later episode to see how the crop turned out.
Eric and Austin, brewmaster and assistant brewmaster, of No Quarter Brewing, visit Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras today on Brew Ha Ha. Harry Duke is also in. This weekend they will celebrate their second anniversary. They had been open for about nine months before the pandemic hit.
Eric explains that they wanted to involve a Led Zeppelin song somehow, and they settled on this. The term “no quarter” means no mercy, or no consideration. They also enjoy Viking lore and there will be Vikings at the celebration. There is a group called the Vikings of Bjornsted, dressed in horned hats and full regalia.
Eric was a home brewer for many years before he decided to turn professional. He buys equipment in bulk now but he relied on The Beverage People for most of his grain, yeast and supplies. The Beverage People is beginning an agreement with No Quarter, whereby customers can order their supplies at The Beverage People’s website and pick up their material at No Quarter in Windsor. The Beverage People / Fermenters’ Warehouse has recipes from various local craft brewers that you can try to make at home. Austin describes a beer called “Communication Brewdown” that they made when they had extra stock of certain hops. Harry Duke says it’s a very smooth drink, Herlinda says it’s malty and smooth. They also taste Houses of the Hoppy, which is lighter, crisper and hoppier than the other. This beer uses Citra, Mosaic and Amarillo hops. Sometimes they start with the name and then make a beer around it, other times they will make a beer and name it after they taste it. They also do a Black IPA which is full of rye, they make an American Stout, a Blonde, and others.
The Vikings came in at their first Halloween party. They were all seated at a table, all dressed up. And now, the leader of the pack is in charge of their web page. “There’s no Viking food, just the best tri-tip you’re ever going to taste,” says Eric. They also have savory pies and journeyman sausages.
Harry Duke is in for Steve Jaxon today on Brew Ha Ha. Herlinda Heras is on the phone from Bear Republic Lakeside in Rohnert Park.
Herlinda Heras has been working as a volunteer Covid-19 vaccination coordinator in Sonoma County. She is speaking to Harry Duke today from a pop-up vaccine clinic being held at Bear Republic Lakeside, where people can come and have a vaccination, get a $50 gift card and enjoy some beer and victuals at Bear Republic. Those who receive a vaccination automatically participate in a drawing for one million dollars. They were doing another vaccination clinic yesterday at Russian River Brewing Company.
The Sonoma County Medical Association has information at their website, here. The Beverage People / Fermenters' Warehouse has everything you need to make beer, wine and many other fermented foods and beverages, at home. You can also go to myturn.ca.gov and put in your zip code to find a place to get a vaccination. Everyone 12 and older can get the J&J vaccine, and 18 and over can get that or the Pfizer. Everyone needs to get vaccinated, so if you still have not done it, now’s the time.
Herlinda reminds us that we are very fortunate in this country that we have vaccines available.
Steve Jaxon begins by mentioning this article in vinepair dot com, entitled, “As Allegations of Harassment and Abuse Send Shock Waves Through the Craft Beer Industry, Will Workers Take Action?” There are two guests on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha today. First is Melissa Myers who is the owner of the Good Hop Bottle Shop in Oakland, Calif. Later, Tara Nurin will join Steve and Herlinda by phone. Both will discuss recent developments on the subject of sexual harassment in craft brewing.
Melissa Myers tells about a growing number of reports of women in the craft beer industry who have suffered harassment. The industry is going through a me too moment, beginning with one question about harassment in the brewing industry and there have been over a thousand stories. And they are naming names of companies where the culture is unhealthy for women. Change needs to be persistent. Some brewery owners have been accused of complacency when it comes to addressing this issue.
The Good Hop Bottle Shop recently hosted an evening where women in craft brewing could come and tell about their experiences with sexual harassment. Melissa Myers tells about how the women had a wonderful meeting to tell their stories, and came from as far away as Washington and Hawaii to tell their stories. The next morning, she found their windows smashed the next morning, and it's pretty hard to think it was not targeted and related to the event. Some men in the Bay Area beer industry got named. Melissa Myers says that the only way to make change happen is to tell these stories.
Tara Nurin calls in from New Jersey. Tara covers craft brewing and other adult beverage industries for Forbes magazine. Tara wrote an article for Forbes magazine in March of 2020 entitled, "The #MeToo Movement Is Coming To Craft Beer ... Will It Arrive Before All The Women Leave?" The article describes sexual harassment in the craft beer industry, coming from within the breweries, even among some bosses. Craft brewing is such a small, collegial industry, that the damage done by vengeful people can be devastating. She cites the same report on Instagram that Melissa Myers described of one woman asking one question and getting a flood of replies. Tara is covering this story describing the shocking impact it is having in many places.
Tara Nurin is writing a history of women in beer, which dates back to the earliest records of brewing in Sumerian civilization. Women have been the principal brewers in many civilizations, which she will describe in her book. It usually starts as a domestic chore, and in every civilization, brewing has been taken over by men when a profit can be made.
Fal Allen from Anderson Valley Brewing Company is back on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras. Kevin McGhee, President and CEO of the brewery, is also in. Brew Ha Ha is brought to you by Russian River Brewing Co. and The Beverage People / Fermenter's Warehouse. Fal Allen started with a brewpup in a town of 500 people but they have grown into a brew park on 28 acres with a production brewery. They took the time during the pandemic to actually hire people and do some development work. Kevin tells about how his family bought into the business in January of 2019, just before the pandemic hit. They decided they would not do any layoffs or furloughs and no salaries or benefits were cut. They even added a few people to their staff.
Kevin was a gang prosecutor in San Mateo County, then worked in a law firm, then worked for Jess Jackson, who helped him go to Stanford Business School. He also opened a brewery in his garage, Healdsburg Beer Company.
The Beverage People have partnered with Anderson Valley Brewing to provide ingredients and tools to make their Gose beer. Kevin used their services when he was starting his early home brewing operation.
Anderson Valley Brewing Co. has expanded their license to their tasting room to the fence line of their property, so the entire property is actually available now. It is dog and family friendly and they put in a large sodded lawn. They launched some unusual flavors like a hazy sour ale with passion fruit, guava and coriander, which is their #2 nationwide seller, behind their #1 Boont Amber Ale. There is a salted caramel porter.
Fal Allen has written two books about beer, one is about Barley Wine and another about Gose, an old German style. Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Windsor and Santa Rosa, check their website for the exact up-to-date hours, beers and menus, or call 707 545 BEER. Fal Allen has brought a few cans of his salted caramel porter. “It’s a lot like candy,” says Fal. Fal also has some boubon barrel aged beers. It is sweet but very flavorful. It’s a really nice dessert beer. It’s 9.5% alcohol.
They also taste the Healdsburg porter. Kevin started this beer in his garage, then scaled it up for production. The best place to get information on the beer park would be on the Anderson Valley Brewing face book page.
While they are gearing up to expand, with a massive pergola and a pizza oven, Hop Monk’s food truck will be there starting tomorrow, Friday, Saturday and Sunday for the foreseeable future. Also, Bill De Carli from Hop Monk is helping them book music now, too. They also have just started hosting the local farmers’ market on Fridays, from 3-7pm.
Ron Lindenbusch is back on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon, Mark Carpenter and Herlinda Heras. He was one of the co-founders of Lagunitas and now he operates Hopland Tap in Hopland, California.
He was with Lagunitas since the beginning, for more than twenty years. Now he operates Hopland Tap. The sign says “Welcome to Hopland. We’ll take care of the rest.” Steve Jaxon’s band used to play at the Hopland Brewery years ago. They used to make Red Tail Ale and they are finally serving it again now.
Hopland Tap’s building was built in 1880, it was called the Hop Vine Saloon. They have been open for two and a half years. They opened just before the pandemic. “I can’t think of a worse time to open a restaurant.” Ron is working on his ventilation system and looks forward to full capacity. There is an outdoor area for about 100 people.
The Beverage People The Beverage People proudly sponsors Brew Ha Ha. They have new products and gift ideas for any occasion. Their teach you how to make, wine, beer, cheese, olives, mead, kombucha, cider, and more. Mark Carpenter says that they, “make making beer easy for you.”
Brew Ha Ha sponsor The Beverage People are Sonoma County's Fermentation Headquarters. Visit The Beverage People for more.
Hopland Tap has a full menu now, including newly added peel-and-eat shrimp and some turkey receipes. He was looking for menu items that are easy to handle. They make burgers with ground chuck and with onions grilled into them, simple is the best way. They will also do some St. Louis style ribs. Their beers come and go, so there is always something new. They are happy to start playing live music since it’s a good place to do that. They will be starting a blues invitational jam on Wednesdays, starting probably in June. They found an old blue upright piano that they are getting fixed up. They are open noon to 8 Wed. through Sunday. They are located on the 101 in Hopland. They have a Facebook page for news about menus and events.
The first dry hopped ale to be released in America was Anchor’s Liberty Ale, using all Cascade hops. It is a 6.5% alcohol pale ale. By today’s standards it is light but when it first came out, it was considered very hoppy. They will work on getting kegs of it for Hopland Tap.
They are planning a big public event to be called Destination Hopland, a street party, to be held in October.
Natalie Cilurzo from Russian River Brewing Co. in the studio with Herlinda Heras and Steve Jaxon on Brew Ha Ha today.
Everyone is happy to see each other again after a year apart due to Coronovirus restrictions. Natalie says their Santa Rosa location is still using their park space out in front and they are open daily from 11am to 9:30pm, and Windsor is open Wednesday through Sunday from 11am to 8pm.
The Windsor beer garden is back in action since the meal requirement has been removed. Steve says that if you’ve never been to the Windsor location, you have to see it. There are beautiful pictures of it on the website that Natalie shot herself. After having to lay off staff, they are happy to have been able to call many of them back.
During the pandemic Vinnie Cilurzo was experimenting with recipes and started a beer club. She brought a sour peach beer. Natalie tells the story of how they were able to buy 2000 pounds of peaches after the Wallridge fire. They got hit hard and evacuated. The fruit already-harvested fruit would otherwise have gone to farmers’ markets and restaurants which were all closed, and they needed to evacuate. They were happy to buy them and they used them to make this amazing beer. She made this Peach Ale, Pêche means peach in French, and that is how this style is known in Belgium.
They also made a beer to commemorate George Segal who lived in Sonoma County and passed away recently in Santa Rosa at the age of 87. He lived in Graton half of each year, his son owns two local restaurants, Underwood and Willow Wood. George Segal’s father was a hop broker in New York long ago. He sold Sonoma County cluster hops to big brewers. They still raise hops on Segal ranch in Grand View, Washington. John Sr. was selling hops to Anchor since the ‘70s. Mark Carpenter could tell about that but his first grandchild, a daughter, was born today so Mark is with his family today. Congratulations, Mark.
The Segal beer did not pass their QC test yesterday, so they are not releasing it today, but they are brewing it again tomorrow and in two weeks they will have it again, and she’ll bring it in to let Mark talk about it. It’s called Segal Select, a pale ale made with 100% Segal Ranch hops, Cascade, Chinook, Centennial and Comet.
Herlinda mentions that today is Earth Day and asks Natalie about sustainability practices at RRBC. These practices are easier to install at first in something new. It was a Greenfield project, which means you purchase a piece of property that has had nothing on it. It was a horse ranch. They have 4 acres of protected wetlands on the property. All the water that runs off the property goes into the wetlands. There are no storm drains on the property. They also have a wastewater treatment plant where they treat all their brewing effluent. They also do reverse osmosis and use the water not for drinking but for any other purposes like washsdowns of tanks. They recapture about 75% of brewing effluent. They have “purple pipe” treated wastewater. Their plumbing is set up to convert to purple pipe as soon as the supply is available.
Justin Green, head brewer at Steele and Hops is our guest on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Mark Carpenter. Herlinda Heras is also in the studio today. Mark Carpenter was head brewer for Anchor Brewing in San Francisco which started in 1896. Next month is the 84th anniversary of KSRO, the home station of Brew Ha Ha. Anchor made a beer called "Steam" which is a type of beer which was brewed as a type of beer that they could make, since they could not make lager because they did not have refrigeration. The beer had a lot of foam and got the nickname Steam from that. After refrigeration, Steam beer went out of fashion but it survived in San Francisco because the climate was cool enough to allow it. Fritz Maytag, son of the washer and dryer family, bought the brewery in the late 60s when it was in distress and Fritz made it successful. Mark stayed there for his whole career. Fritz has vineyards in St. Helena and another million projects.
Justin Green joins Steve, Herlinda and Mark on the phone. Justin tells how he became the head brewer at Steele and Hops. He started as a corporate restaurant manager, then worked for Jupiter, where he did brewing while also being a manager. He got to make beers but on a small scale, 3 barrels, then he worked for another brewer ten times larger. Then he started at Steele and Hops which was already operating as a restaurant and was adding the brewery. Herlinda mentions a beer labeled "F**k Cancer" and Justin tells the story. He and a fellow brewer each had a cancer scare, Justin's was caught early but his friend had to go through treatment. So Justin wanted this beer to help raise awareness for early detection. The beer has sold out from the Sonoma Springs location but they have some left at Steele and Hops. It's also in other brewpubs throughout the Bay Area.
Sandro Tamburin, brewer at Old Possum Brewing Co. and Scott Bice from Redwood Hill Farms are both are back on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon today. Sandro Tamburin comes from Trieste, Italy, and spent time in Dallas Texas in the restaurant business before coming to California to study at Davis and to make beer and wine. Scott Bice's family operates Redwood Hill Farms, a great producer of goat cheese and other products of goat's milk. They also have started growing hops and since this is hops season the wet hopped beers are appearing.
To make wet hopped beer, you have to get the fresh hops into the vat as soon as possible. Russian River is making their Hop Time Harvest beer, a wet hopped beer. "Every time you buy from a small business, the owner does a little dance." - Sandro Tamburin Sandro says that their aged goat cheese reminds him of Grana Padano. They taste some goat cheeses with the wet hopped beer. Sandro describes the brewing process. The Old Possum beers are available at many local shops and restaurants.
Natalie Cilurzo also joins us on the phone, for an update on Russian River Brewing Company's operations during and within Coronavirus restrictions, from their Santa Rosa and Windsor locations. She also describes picking hops today at Crane Ranch and Redwood Hill Farms. They got some fresh hops to add wet hops to the kettle in the Santa Rosa brewery. It's called Hop Time Harvest Ale, it's 100% wet hopped.
The downtown pub is open daily from 11-8 for pick-up orders. Visit the website for the menu and call (707) 545-BEER to order for delivery in and around Santa Rosa. They are all wearing masks, keeping distance and sanitizing everything so they have a safe environment. They are able to ship beer directly to customers but only inside California.
The Earle Baum Center of the Blind and Dr. Hoby Wedler visit Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon today. Herlinda Heras introduced Hoby Wedler, who is a PhD in organic chemistry and a sensory expert who has been blind since birth. He is a tasting expert and founder of Senspoint Design. He will tell how to taste a unique brew. Plus, the tasting is all for charity to support the Earle Baum Center and its work.
Hoby explains that the Earle Baum Center was important to him because they taught him the skills he needed to be successful in college. He met with the CEO to put together an in-person tasting for staff and a few donors in August 2018 and the idea is to do it again. With Covid, they have decided to turn it virtual in order to make it happen this time around. They invite people to connect this Sunday at 4pm. Hoby will be talking about the Balletto wines being tasted and there will be a chef there too. Francis Ford Coppola asked him to do a truly blind taste test once, which was his first. He uses blindfolds as a way to "take away the visual tension and talk about what they feel."
They will be tasting three Balletto wines, a 2019 Rosé of Pinot Noir, a 2016 Russian River Valley Chardonnay and an award-winning 2018 Russian River Valley Pinot Noir. Each will be paired with delicious dishes. Search Tasting in the Dark on eventbrite. The event is free but if you buy your wine and use the code EBC "Echo Bravo Charlie" you will get a discount on the wine and a percentage of the proceeds will go to support the Earle Baum Center.
Herlinda points out that Dr. Hoby Wedler can organize tastings like these for beer and also for mead, cider and spirits as well as wine. In fact Hoby at home and Steve and Herlinda in studio all have a pink guava cider from Ace Cider at their different locations. Brazilian Pink Guava is the fruit that gives it great tropical fruit flavors.
The Beverage People has been Sonoma County's fermentation experts since 1980. They have everything you need for home brewing, winemaking, and also for making cider, mead, kombucha, kefir, cheese, olives, yogurt and more. Their friendly and knowledgeable staff will advise you about what you want to do and how to use the equipment. (Under normal circumstances they hold classes but not right now due to the Coronavirus.)
Open Tuesday through Saturday pre-order curbside hours are 10 am - 6:30pm, walk-up hours are shorter, noon to 4pm.
1845 Piner Rd., suite D, Santa Rosa CA 95403
Russian River Brewing Company is open in its Windsor and Santa Rosa locations. Check the website for up-to-the-minute opening hours, menus and Coronavirus precautionary rules.
Jan and Marsh from Gray Whale Gin join Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha today. This show was recorded live on May 7 of this year. The regularly scheduled live Brew Ha Ha is preempted today for ongoing coverage of the Lightning Complex fires in Sonoma and Napa counties.
Gray Whale Gin is made with ingredients that are foraged and harvested all along the west coast of Mexico and California, the range of the Pacific Gray Whale. There is lime harvested in Baja California, juniper and mint from the central California coast, and more. He invites bartenders to submit recipes for cocktails that highlight their flavors and in return for the promotion they will send a bottle of their gin.
Jan explains how she and Marsh thought there was a need for more craft spirits from California that used local ingredients and that highlighted the region. Marsh tells how the Gray Whales have the longest known migration in the world, 12,000 miles from the Arctic to the Gulf of California. "We couldn't think of a more fitting way to say, 'California, we love you.'"
Also, as seen on the back of their bottle, they contribute to conservation through Oceana and 1% for the Planet.
They are a small company but they still can do a lot to support bartenders, such as their live Instagram features with bartenders. They are proud to be able to pay the bartenders for those contributions.
Palooza Brewery & Gastropub co-founder Jeff Tyler visits with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras on this edition of the Brew Ha Ha podcast. Palooza is located on Sonoma Highway in Kenwood. Jeff Tyler has brought food and beer from Palooza, to show some beer and food pairings.
Jeff Tyler was working in construction in 2008 when the economy went bust. He started a hot dog stand, that grew into a catering business, then he opened this restaurant that has been open for six years. They have a lot of space on six patios and the scenery around there is beautiful. They actually do also ferment beer on site. Palooza also does pick-up up to about 8 or 9 o'clock.
They are drinking what Jeff Tyler calls the Porch Pounder, a 4.5% alcohol pilsner. They also have "The Mask Dropper" which is an IPA much stronger. It's 6.8 or 6.9% alcohol. Herlinda notes that the bitterness in an IPA goes well with spicy food.
Palooza is located near Kunde Winery and others in Kenwood. They can seat 155 people, in clusters of up to ten, in ways that respect social distancing rules. There is tape on the ground to set borders and everyone must wear a mask. You place your order at the counter and you get a buzzer that tells you when your food is ready. Then they will serve further drinks at your table. There is lots of free parking and also lots of shade. If there are people there, they will stay open.
Jeff Tyler attended Herlinda Heras' beer appreciation class at Sonoma State University extension.
The Beverage People has been Sonoma County's fermentation experts since 1980. They have everything you need for home brewing, winemaking, and also for making cider, mead, kombucha, kefir, cheese, olives, yogurt and more. Their friendly and knowledgeable staff will advise you about what you want to do and how to use the equipment. (Under normal circumstances they hold classes but not right now due to the Coronavirus.)
Open Tuesday through Saturday pre-order curbside hours are 10 am - 6:30pm, walk-up hours are shorter, noon to 4pm.
1845 Piner Rd., suite D, Santa Rosa CA 95403
Taylor Lane, Russian River Brewing Company's head lab tech, joins Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras on the Brew Ha Ha podcast today. She was in graduate school in Microbiology at Cal Poly Pomona, working as a lab technician and manager and researching her thesis subject of probiotic bacteria, when she found that they had a culinary program. She thought there could be good professional opportunities for her in the brewing field. She worked for Ritual Brewing company while in school and then for Innovation Brew Works, where she set up their entire lab operation. Three years ago the joined Russian River Brewing Company as head lab tech.
The lab is at the center of the production process, as Taylor Lane describes it. Day to day, they test the tanks that are in process and perform various analytics. They look for sugar, color, turbidity or haze, or bitterness, all the variables that brewers care about. They check to see that their yeast is healthy and that there is no unwanted or wild yeast getting in. They also are involved in tasting the final product.
Herlinda Heras asks Taylor Lane about the big room at RRBC's Windsor location with the cool ship. She describes how surprised some people are about the science required to run a good brewery. Yeast counts and yeast types are important to maintaining a consistent product.
Herlinda asks, why is sour beer good for you? It's different in this way. It is first fermented as a normal beer, then another sour yeast is added, with other ingredients, to produce the sour beer. Some of the bacteria in their sour stock are bacteria that are also found in our microbiome. That is a relatively new term for the community of bacteria and viruses that live inside us and on us.
The Beverage People have everything for home brewing, winemaking, also cider, mead, kombucha, kefir, cheese, olives, yogurt and more. Their friendly and knowledgeable staff are available to advise you about using their stuff. (Normally they hold lots of classes but that's off for now due to Coronavirus precautions.)
Open Tuesday through Saturday pre-order curbside hours are 10 am - 6:30pm, walk-up hours are shorter, noon to 4pm.
1845 Piner Rd., suite D, Santa Rosa CA 95403 Phone: (707) 544-2520 Pre-Order Curbside Pickup Hours: Tues. - Sat., 10 am - 6:30 pm Front Door Walk-up Ordering Hrs: Tues. - Sat., 12 noon - 4:00 pm
Michelle Marquez is filling in for Steve Jaxon today on the Brew Ha Ha podcast, Herlinda Heras has brought guests from Wolf House Brewing in Cloverdale, Kevin Lovett and Dwayne Moran. Kevin Lovett grew up around craft beer. His father was one of the founders of Mendocino Brewing Co. He and Don Barkley took the equipment from New Albion and started Hopland which became Mendocino. When Barkley founded Napa Smith, Kevin asked for a job and started on the bottling line. Then Brian Hunt, who also worked at New Albion, gave him a job at Moonlight Brewing Co. After that he was head brewer at Stumptown, and then master brewer at Cloverdale Ale. Now he is running Wolf House with his partner Dwayne. He describes the challenges of opening a brewery and brewpub in these times. They were open for about three weeks before precautions. They are open, though.
They are drinking Burning Daylight Pilsner. It's 4.6% alcohol. He calls it a Cloverdale Pilsner because he does not treat the water so the local water is what is being used. Most Pilsner makers try to match the pH of the Pilsen River, but he says he thought he could do better.
He still has some New Albion swag. He also uses a recipe from the old Eye of the Hawk, for a beer he calls One Eye Select Ale.
Sipsong Spirits founder Tara Jasper joins Michelle Marquez (sitting in for Steve Jaxon) and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha today. Sipsong Spirits has recently won a double gold medal at the San Francisco World's Fair for its Indira Gin.
Tara Jasper says she never thought she would be distilling gin. She began her career working for other people and then heard the wisdom that people should do what they love. So she enrolled at Santa Rosa Junior College in the culinary program. She experimented with making flavored liqueurs. In order to make liqueurs better, she had to become a distiller. Indira Gin also supports a good cause. Tara is a breast cancer survivor and she supports "Fight like a Girl" which is a breast cancer support community.
Herlinda has made a cocktail with Sipsong Spirits' Indira Gin (using a shaker that we hear at 5:51).
You can order from their website and if you live in Sonoma County, shipping is free. They also have a line of teas. Their products are available at Bottle Barn and Oliver's markets.
Sipsong Spirits has not entered very many competitions. Tara first entered a contest in Singapore, since she thought her gin, being not a common one, might not be as well understood here at home. When she won a Silver medal there, in a big competition with only a few winners, she felt more confident. She made a couple of edits to her recipe, "I pulled back a little bit on the cumin," and she also describes how she changed the spirit base. The modified recipe is what won in San Francisco. She describes how her husband helps her and participates in the business.
Fal Allen from Anderson Valley Brewing Co. and Gabe Jackson from The Beverage People are both on Brew Ha Ha to talk to Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras. Fal Allen was on this show two years ago, in August of 2018, talking about his Gose beer.
The Beverage People sells kits for brewing specific types of beer, including one that uses Anderson Valley Brewing’s recipe for Gose style beer. This is a German style that AVB has been making and now its recipe is available to home brewers.
The Beverage People has been supplying Sonoma County home brewers since 1980 with equipment, ingredients and expertise, for making beer and wine at home but also mead, kombucha, cheese, olives, and more. During the pandemic a lot of people have started baking bread, and they all agree that these folks should also try brewing beer.
Gose is a German sour wheat beer that is one of the oldest beer recipes still in use, even if it is very unusual even for a German beer. It was popular in the 1300s then later in the 1700s and 1800s in Leipzig it became popular. Then it became popular in the 1980s in Germany. Fal Allen has actually written a book about Gose style beer. It is 4.2% alcohol. It’s a new trend in craft beer to have less alcohol. Herlinda says that in England there is an extra tax on beer over 4.5% alcohol, which goes to transportation services.
Gabe Jackson talks about the importance of having pleasant and productive activities during the pandemic “mayhem” as Steve Jaxon calls it. Herlinda mentions that they are always available to give personal advice to their customers about how to use their equipment, and that this is nicer and more productive than just looking things up on line by yourself.
Fal Allen mentions that the next recipe that Anderson Valley Brewing Company will provide to The Beverage People may be their very popular Boont Amber Ale.
They remember the late Byron Birch, who founded The Beverage People. Gabe Jackson calls him their “spirit guy” and says that beer was like his religion. When Byron started the store, there were almost no books about home brewing, but that he had written one. Fal Allen started in beer as a home brewer, using Byron’s book and remembers him as an important mentor.
The Anderson Valley Brewing Company brewpub is closed right now and Fal Allen says they are renovating it during the closure to turn the entire 23 acres into a German-style beer garden. There is camping space for over 4000 people, between the brewery and a nearby park. In 2021 they hope to return to their usual late-April date for the beer festival and also possibly Oktoberfest. They also have an 18-hole disc golf course.
Herlinda mentions Russian River Brewing Co. is also promoting Pliny for President 2020 and their Black is Beautiful beer. The outside patio is open at RRBC and the bottle shop is open. You can sit outside at their 4th street Santa Rosa location.
The Beverage People's staff are always available to give advice about using their stuff. Visit the Beverage People dot com. They have all you need to make beer, cider, wine, cheese, kombucha, olives and more. You can order anything and pick it up in person at their store on Piner Road, or have it delivered to you.
Spirit Works Distillery's co-owners Ashby and Timo Marshall are our guests today on the Brew Ha Ha podcast with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras. They have just been named the 2020 American Distillery of the Year. Gabe from the Beverage People and Fal Allen from Anderson Valley Brewing are also in.
Herlinda has just fixed up a cocktail with some of their Bourbon and Sloe Gin, Campari and orange bitters from Bitter Girl.
They founded the distillery in 2013. His family has made Sloe Gin for a long time, in England. They wanted to bring their traditional recipe to California. They have a retail location in The Barlow, they are open Wednesday through Sunday 10-4. They can also ship within California.
They have been awarded Best Distillery in the USA by the American Distillers Institute, which they are very proud of, Timo says it's the biggest thing that has happened to them since their founding.
Gabe Jackson from the Beverage People is also in today. Their staff are available to give you advice about what you will be doing with their equipment. Visit the Beverage People dot com. They have equipment for beer, cider, wine, cheese, kombucha, olives and more. You can order anything you need and pick it up at the store or have it delivered.
Black is Beautiful is the cooperative fund raising recipe from Marcus Baskerville of Weathered Soul Brewing in Austin, Texas. Natalie Cilurzo calls in to talk to Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras today on Brew Ha Ha. Black is Beautiful now has over 1000 participants and they will taste and describe Russian River Brewing Co.'s version of it today.
Natalie describes how the city of Santa Rosa has closed five blocks of 4th Street downtown, from now until October 15, so that restaurants, including the Russian River Brewing Co. downtown Santa Rosa location, can provide additional outdoor seating with social distancing. There is a little parklet in front of their place. Bayside Church donated their time and materials to build parklets for the restaurants that wanted them. Natalie really appreciates that effort.
In Windsor, Russian River Brewing Co. is closed for dining and open for beer and food take-out. They do have tables and chairs out in front so people can bring their take-out outside and have it there, but the beer garden is closed for the time being.
Their third batch of Pliny for President 2020 has been released. Herlinda gave some to John O'Hurley, the famous actor who played Peterman on Seinfeld, there in the studio.
As they taste the Black is Beautiful ale, Natalie describes it as thick and rich, an Imperial Stout that is "definitely not for the faint of heart." Russian River Brewing Co. has also released their edition of the Black is Beautiful project. That's the recipe that Marcus Baskerville of Weathered Soul Brewing has launched. Marcus was on Brew Ha Ha a few weeks ago, on June 11, to describe it. He invites brewers to use the beer to raise money for their choice of local causes. Russian River Brewing Co. has chosen to support Legal Aid of Sonoma County and The California Innocence Project.
Pliny runs for President every four years on the Keg Party ticket, this is his fourth campaign. They thought it would be a beer they could use to celebrate reopening, but since reopening is postponed, it's for shelter in place now and they are releasing it in cans now. California customers can order it or get it at the breweries. It is a double dry hop. It has a bright, fruity citrussy beer. She gets grapefruit and citronella. It's based on Pliny the Elder but "even better."
Gabe Jackson from the Beverage People was going to come in but is busy. Herlinda will be curing olives this Fall, with help from The Beverage People. Herlinda says Gabe wanted the audience to know that they are available to give you advice about what you will be doing with their equipment. Visit the Beverage People dot com. Of course we're going into apple and wine season and they have equipment for cider and winemaking. You can order anything you need and pick it up at the store or have it delivered.
Ace Cider's brand ambassador Ed McGrath and founder Jeffery House join Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras today on the Brew Ha Ha podcast. Ed McGrath says he became a cider ambassador by loving cider. He started drinking cider when there was a beer strike in Canada, many years ago. His family had a little vineyard in St. Helena and he felt more comfortable working with cider than in the wine business. Jeffery House is on his way to the studio and will join the show soon.
In England, cider is a drink for every social class. It is also very popular in Normandy, France, the north-west region. Cider is the number one drink in that region of France and there are many brands and small local productions. This one they are drinking comes from Isigney-sur-Mer, which is reputed to be the town that Walt Disney's family came from.
Herlinda tells about how the locals would reward the American soldiers with bottles of locally produced cider after the troops landed, in the D-Day Normandy invasion.
Generally the French ciders are lower in alcohol, 4-6 precent, than others.
Next they sample an Ace Cider. Ed McGrath is the brand ambassador for Ace Cider, founded by the House family. Ace Cider is the oldest premiere cider producer in the US. Ace Cider is a Sebastopol company that sells in 48 states of the US.
They have a bottle of Ace Black Jack cider made from Sonoma County Gravensteins. The Gravenstein apple is an heirloom apple that is excellent for cider making. The Gravenstein has enough tannins and tartness to make really good cider. Grocery store apples are bred for thick skins and less bruising, and they don't have the tartness needed for cider. Apple cider is made from cider apples but when Prohibition came, the trees were destroyed. There is great cider being made now in places like New York and Michigan.
Ace Cider also makes cider with guavas, pears (called "perry"), pineapples and others. At the cider conference last January, Herlinda also saw cider made with Habanero peppers.
You can rent an apple press from The Beverage People as well as all the production and bottling equipment you need. They also provide information, books, courses and will help you use their equipment. Visit the Beverage People's website to learn about it all.
[12:48] Jeffery House is in the house! The founder of Ace Cider joins Steve Jaxon, Herlinda Heras and Ed McGrath in the studio.
He has brought a Mango Cider from Ace Cider, their latest line addition. It is being test-marketed in Oregon and in Los Angeles. His Guava cider is the fastest-growing cider brand in the US. He has started canning cider this year, which is selling very well. His keg business has dried up due to Coronavirus closures. The business was deemed essential so he was able to stay open. His sons help run the company, Simon is the national sales manager, in Los Angeles. They led the company to start its canning operation.
Ace Cider started in Marin in 1993 and moved to Sonoma County with they found apples and a producer in Sebastopol, then they thought they could do their own. They started in Graton, It was called Ace in the Hole. and then he met Warren Dutton, a big apple grower and grape grower. They became partners. Ace Cider is now the 3rd largest cidery in the US.
Today's beer market is the subject of today's Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon. He and Herlinda Heras talk with Tara Nurin, Forbes magazine correspondent who writes about the beverage and spirits markets. Her June 30 article in Forbes magazine is called "Alcohol Sales Are Not Spiking or Even Stabilizing, Here's Why the Misconception Matters. She says she has heard reports in the media saying that alcohol sales are supposedly booming during the Coronavirus crisis, but she knows well, that is not the case, which her article explains in great detail.
People have been buying more from liquor stores, but overall sales are down. So much revenue comes from public sales in restaurants and lots of other public locations, which have been closed. The retail sales increase does not make up for the losses. Alcohol sales have only spiked in to-go sales, like everything from supermarkets to liquor stores and convenience stores.
Breweries that were only selling draft were in the most trouble, and those that were able to start canning or who had recently added canning lines, had an easier time. Our guest two weeks ago, Brian Hunt of Moonlight Brewing Co., is an example. It is especially hard for restaurants that were closed, then some were allowed to open but now are closing again. This puts strain on management, finance and personnel. Herlinda also reports that the National Brewers Association had to lay off some staff.
Russian River Brewing Company is open in its Windsor and Santa Rosa locations. Check the website for up-to-the-minute opening hours, menus and Coronavirus precautionary rules.
Gabe Jackson from The Beverage People is also in today. The Beverage People, since 1980, has provided the Sonoma County community with everything anyone needs to make beer and wine at home, as well as many other kinds of fermented beverages and foods, such as cider, cheese, olives, kombucha and more. Gabe Jackson was also a guest on Brew Ha Ha was last summer, on July 18, 2019. The Beverage People also holds classes; they are not active right now, but they hope to resume them soon. Gabe assures us that they can still give personal advice about anything to their customers.
Our guests from the Earle Baum Center of the Blind this week we are Bob Sonnenberg and Dr. Hoby Wedler, who join Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras.
Dr. Hoby Wedler has been on Brew Ha Ha twice before. The first time was in September of 2018, when he brought blindfolds and they conducted a truly blind taste test. The second time was in May of 2019.
Bob Sonnenberg and Dr. Hoby Wedler are both members of the board of directors of the Earle Baum Center of the Blind, which is a non-profit regional community center in Santa Rosa serving people with sight loss in Sonoma, Napa, Mendocino and Lake Counties. Hoby Wedler grew up in Petaluma and attended UC Davis for undergraduate and got his PhD in Chemistry in 2016.
Hoby Wedler is a co-founder of Senspoint Design, a creative strategy firm that designs and builds brand strategies. Hoby is calling in from home to minimize the risk of damage to his sense of smell, which is a known effect of Covid-19. Since he relies on his sense of smell so much, it is best to minimize his risk. Hoby says, "...I like to talk about eyesight loss instead of vision loss, because I think all of us have vision, some of us might not have eyesight."
Bob explains how they are there to help anyone with vision loss, including personal and social support and finding specialized care. The Earle Baum Center used to run a concert series. Bob explains that everything has a shelf life, and they ran the "Earle Fest" for about 10 years. But it was a lot of work and not really connected to the mission of the center. So they had to focus more on their mission.
During the pandemic, the Earle Baum Center has not lost a step. They are conducting their classes and support groups all online. O&M means Orientation and Mobility, which is the name of the collection of skills that they teach to people with vision impairment.
During the conversation, Herlinda mentions they are drinking a Happy Hops beer, from our sponsor, Russian River Brewing Company.
There is a Donate button on the Earle Baum Center of the Blind website.
Brian Hunt, founder of Moonlight Brewing Co is back on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon. Herlinda Heras in also in the studio today. Steve asks how Brian is surviving the Coronavirus challenges and he says it has pushed them to put more beer in cans and less in kegs, because kegs to to restaurants which are all closed and so beer drinking has shifted to cans. He opened Moonlight Brewing in 1992 producing beer on a small scale, putting it in kegs and distributing it around the Bay Area. In 2002 he moved near Graton then in about 2012 moved to Coffey Ln in Santa Rosa. They make different styles of beer. They are drinking a Moonlight Brewing Reality Check, which is a Pilsner.
They only started canning since December 2019. They have bought a canning line. Previously they used a mobile canning line. Now their canning line comes from the Codi Canning Company in Colorado. Andrew Ferguson, from Codi Canning, is on the phone with Steve Jaxon.
Codi Canning is offering free canning services to brewers who are stuck with inventory in tanks in the brewery and who can't put it into kegs because the restaurant business has dropped out and nobody is taking kegs right now. They have extra equipment and he saw the need to get the beer out of tanks and into something that would be sellable so the breweries can have some chance to sell their beer instead of having to dump it. Here is an article in Food & Wine online magazine about Codi Canning's initiative.
Moonlight Brewing was producing maybe as much as 95% draft beer before they got the canning equipment. Now they are "basically zero percent draft beer" and it's almost all in cans. They are doing take-out and shipping but the real news for the business is that they are selling beer to places like Oliver's (the gourmet markets) and any other place you can buy good beer in cans.
Selling beer in cans to the public instead of in kegs to restaurant distributors means finding the buyers in different places, in different ways. So Herlinda notes that since the canning line installation, she has never seen so much of Brian Hunt on Moonlight Brewing's Instagram page.
Herlinda takes a moment to mourn the recent passing of Roseanne Finkel, who with her husband Charles Finkel, ran The Pike Brewing Company in Seattle., which was originally called the Pike Place Brewery in 1989. They were the first large scale importer of many important beers from Belgium, Germany and England, thirty years ago when there was no other way to get that kind of beer here. For this reason they were hugely influential. "It was a beer desert before them," says Brian.
Brian explains that it is important to have beer from the small producers who are the only ones who can produce beer made with that kind of care. The large industrial brewers are working on economies of scale so they are not able to take the same kind of care with the beer.
Marcus Baskerville, co-founder of Weathered Souls Brewing Company, joins Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras today on the Brew Ha Ha podcast. Marcus Baskerville's project "Black" is Beautiful is featured in this article in Forbes Magazine. entitled "Weathered Souls’ Black Is Beautiful Campaign Shows Racial Solidarity In Craft Beer."
Weathered Souls Brewing Company will celebrate its fourth anniversary this November. They are located in San Antonio, TX. Marcus grew up in northern California. They have been the #1 brewer in San Antonio for the last couple of years. They are known for their Stout beer and they have a lot of local support. There are less than 30 black-owned breweries in America and Weathered Souls Brewing Co. is one of them.
They toast with Pliny for President 2020 from Russian River Brewing.
The Black is Beautiful collaboration is up to almost 600 participating breweries around the world. He has created a recipe for a Stout beer, his specialty. Breweries can download the recipe and either follow it carefully or adapt it. The plan is for breweries to donate the profits locally to organizations supporting police reform and social justice. The idea is for this project to start conversations and projects on a local basis in as many places as possible.
Marcus says that he has found the brewing industry to be inclusive and welcoming. Beer can be, "...the first step in creating change." He remembers being inspired by Annie Johnson winning Home Brewer of the Year.
Visit the Russian River Brewing Co. for updated opening hours and to see the menu. (707) 545-BEER.
J Nikol Jackson-Beckham is our guest today on the Brew Ha Ha podcast, with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras. She is a scholar, writer and equity and inclusion strategist for the craft beer industry. She is also the newly-appointed Diversity Ambassador for the Brewers Association. She is based in Richmond, VA. She was an undergraduate at Virginia Tech in the late 90s and had a job in a bar that served many different kinds of beer. They offered her some to taste and she would select the most expensive ones, and got to know the best beers that way. Jump-cut to today, and in her professional role as head of beer diversity, she helps organization become more inclusive, equitable and to reach more people in the community.
Dr. J Nicol Jackson-Beckham was recently named Imbibe Magazine's 2020 Beer Person of the Year and has appeared in the press and online many times to share her expertise. Dr. J also has her own consulting business called Craft Beer For All (dot com). In a recent article called "Feeling Helpless? 15 Things You Can Do To Fight Racism and Work For Social Justice" she describes one perspective and suggests some answers to the question, "What can I do?" Dr. J describes hearing many people wonder what they could do to improve the situation. When the issues involved are so big, our individual opinion can feel puny and powerless. But she wants to shift the way we think about activism and social change. While protest creates urgency, if there is no policy behind the protest, nothing will happen. So people can get involved in sustaining efforts to make change, including organizing voting to elect representation. Also, there are ways to contribute which draw on a wide variety of profession skills as much as financial support. There are many ways to lend skills and craft to a sustained public effort. There is not one correct way to be an activist. She remembers working on her PhD thesis and mentions the importance of limiting your scope. She discovered a lot of fascinating cultural issues around beer while she was writing her dissertation about economic value, not cultural issues. What started as a set of side issues became her professional focus as it was picked up by some brewers. Colin at Hen House contacted her about this in 2016 because they had read a blog article she had written.
Natalie Cilurzo and Ron Lindenbusch join Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras today on the Brew Ha Ha podcast. Natalie is co-owner of Russian River Brewing Company, with her husband Vinny Cilurzo. Ron Lindenbusch was one of the key people working with Tony Magee at Lagunitas Brewing Co.
Russian River Brewing Co. is open for take-out food and beverage service. Their 4th Street Santa Rosa Brewpub is open and they are also continuing this service at their Windsor location. Since the Coronavirus restrictions are still in place, although less strict than before. They can operate 11:30am to 7:30pm in Windsor and 11am to 8pm on 4th Street. You can visit their website then call (707) 545-BEER to place your order.
Herlinda introduces the Pliny The Elder for President 2020 beer, in cans. Natalie says this is a Pliny with a twist, it's hoppier. They just canned it for the very first time the other day. They will release it on June 15 and they plan to have it throughout the election cycle. They sold out on line in 45 minutes and within a few hours at the brewpub. Pliny runs for President every 4 years on the Keg Party ticket. The Windsor location is open every day now.
"At this point in time, like the last few months, I've realized, that what I really want to do is just hang out in a bar." -Ron Lindenbusch
Ron Lindenbusch is back on Brew Ha Ha. He has Hopland Tap in Hopland, CA, which is a dream come true. Ron is emphatic about the imperative right now. "Listen to your health officer. Read the news. Read what's going on and do it."
They were just able to open their beer garden last weekend. They are lucky, they have a lot of space and they can keep people 6 feet apart. People are happy to get out again and he is doing everything he can to stay safe. "It's just a weird time." Herlinda was there last Sunday and it was so nice to be outside and have some Frickles, fried pickle chips. There are many different beers and they will be doing music soon.
Ron is involved in the return of Red Tail Ale. "It set the tone for the whole damned thing. (...) Red Tail was first." Wolf House Brewing in Cloverdale is brewing it. Hopland Tap is open Thursday through Sunday from 12 noon to 7pm, for now, at first. Check the Hopland Tap website for updated hours. Ron tells about how he met Tony Magee at the beginning and they had a great partnership, working for him for 25 years at Lagunitas. Steve Jaxon remembers the old Hopland Brewery and now Hopland Tap is its reincarnation. There will be some live music there as soon as possible. He has great musicians who are eager to get out and play.
Today's Brew Ha Ha podcast is an interview with English food historian Marc Meltonville, on the telephone from England, talking with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras. Marc is the consulting food and drink historian for the historic royal palaces in the UK. So he knows a lot about what people were brewing and eating and drinking in different periods of history.
Marc Meltonville jokes that being a Consulting Food Historian doesn't feel like a real job. He entered the field when he was working in a museum and was approached for a Tudor food project. He mentions that during the 1918 flu pandemic, they did not shut the pubs, even when they closed over venues. The British pub licensing laws close the pubs from 3pm to 6pm and they close again at 10pm.
Herlinda mentions that a lot of our familiar alcoholic beverages actually began as medicinal cures. Marc agrees, that a lot of recipes were in the "physic" i.e. medicine books, not the cooking books.Distillation was reserved for tonics. Around the early 17th century the digestive drink after dinner became popular. Gin and tonic is an example. Marc tells about how king William, who came from Holland,
Hampton Court and Kew Gardens both have extensive kitchen which have been recently explored, discovered and put back into use to demonstrate techniques and recipes from the past. Marc was also recently at Newland Grist Mill in Pennsylvania, outside Philadelphia, where there is a mill that can make its own malt, so they have built a colonial brewery with period equipment. "Two guys with a stick and a bukcket." He has also worked at Williamsburg and at Mt. Vernon where they produce George Washington whiskey without modern equipment.
He is currently involved in two brewing projects, looking at brewing processes in the 1700s. He also designed an event based on recipes of Stonehenge, 4500 years ago. He used a mass spectrometer to study the residue of old containers to understand how they had been used. He calls it a "backwards recipe" where he reverse engineered the brew based on the residue. Yeast is from fruit skins, grapes in southern Europe or apples in the north, he realized that by mixing barley, cut apples, honey and water, he got a drink, that he calls, "a drinky thing. "He made a "pre-beer beer" like they did 4500 years ago before malting of barley or extraction of yeasts. It tasted like hard cider. Herlinda says it reminds her of braggot, which is a form of mead made with barley malt and honey.
In the past, the luxury of choice was a feature of food for wealthy classes, wherever you look, whether in colonial America or Europe. This was true with regard to food and drink, across the centuries.
Russian River Brewing Company has special takeout offers for customers during Coronavirus confinement and Natalie Cilurzo is on the phone to tell Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras about it all, on the Brew Ha Ha podcast today.
The downtown pub is open daily from 11-8 for pick-up orders. Visit the website for the menu and call (707) 545-BEER to order for delivery in and around Santa Rosa. They are all wearing masks, keeping distance and sanitizing everything so they have a safe environment. They are able to ship beer directly to customers but only inside California. They are also shipping bottles to supermarkets and grocery stores, so business is still down but not by as much as they feared at first.
Steve Jaxon reads the report that Pliny the Younger brought in a record 5.1 million dollars to the local economy in February 2020, according to the headline. Here is the news in a May 14, 2020 article in the Press Democrat. Natalie was reluctant to inquire about this year's results due to the extraordinary situation. She expresses her gratitude to the fans. She also says they hope to keep the experience smooth running so that people don't have to wait so much.
The Windsor location made it possible to put Pliny the Younger with its superior equipment.
Is it too early to plan 2021 Pliny the Younger? Yes, although whatever happens it will be different. Natalie says, "I can't imaging having large gatherings not only approved, but appropriate. We are worried about the safety of our customers... As time goes on I'm sure we'll come up with some creative things to do."
Asked about the prospects for reopening, Natalie says that the brewery is required to serve food with alcohol, their license is not to serve alcohol alone. So if the rules restrict restaurants, that will have to adjust to make that practical.
Ken Grossman from Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. is today's guest on the Brew Ha Ha podcast with Steve Jaxon and Mark Carpenter, with Herlinda Heras also on the line. Steve asks Ken to describe how Coronavirus has affected them.
Ken explains that they shuttered their restaurants, tours, gift stores and events operations. They are trying to remake their business by doing take-out food in their restaurants and they are doing other things to keep their people on staff. They are selling beer online at their website.
They are also trying to help in the local community. Two weeks ago the local hospital reached out saying they were having trouble finding a PCR machine for Covid-19 testing. They have a sophisticated laboratory and do PCR sampling daily on their beer as part of their QC, to look for wild yeast or bacteria or other potential contaminants in their beer. When he found that one of his instruments could be useful to the hospital they were ready to ship it, but at the last minute they didn't need to. However they did find a need to test culture mediums that their highly specialized lab staff could contribute. They got a procedure from the CDC and have made more than 10,000 vials of solution so far. Ken has learned about the science from having to approve expenses for Sierra Nevada's testing lab, over the years. They have had requests from many quarters for assistance.
Mark Carpenter calls in from Petaluma, where he has been staying during Coronavirus confinement. He has been riding horses and staying away from people. Mark doesn't keep a lot of beer around since he prefers it fresh. He wanted some yeast to do some baking, and yeast was out in the stores. So he asked a brewer friend for some yeast and he tried to make English muffins.
Neil Witte from Cicerone Certification Program joins Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras today on the Brew Ha Ha podcast. He trains people to become what is commonly known as a Beer Sommelier. Herlinda holds the first degree certificate.
Neil Witte started as a home brewer and got his first brewery job in 1997 in Kansas City, then for another larger brewer in the same city. He worked for three years as a brewer then as a quality control manager visiting bars and restaurants making sure the beer was top quality. He took beer certification programs and did a lot of private study. Now he works for the Cicerone Certification Program as the chief trainer. Etymology, Definitions and Pronunciation of Cicerone Cicerone means "guide" in Italian. (1) It commonly refers to an Italian tour guide. "Cicerone" is Italian for the Latin name Cicero. Marcus Tullius Cicero was a great scholar, lawyer and writer of the first century BCE. His surname is still synonymous with eloquence in the Italian language. In Italian, the term Cicerone is first noted in the mid-1500s to mean a local guide capable of narrating a tour, for a fee, through the numerous monuments, museums and historic scenery of Italy.
The word "cicerone" has been well established in the English language since the early 1700s, with the same meaning it has in Italian. In both languages, ever since it first appeared, it is just as easily invoked ironically or derisively, in reference to the overly florid or affected language of the worst of them. By extension, in Italian and also in English, cicerone is a common word for an expert guide to anything.
As for its pronunciation, it depends on the language. In Italian it is "chee-chair-ÓH-neh" (using English phonetic lettering to render Italian sounds) with the accent on the third of four syllables. English has adopted the word with its own sound, so in British or American pronunciation, people say "SIS-er-own" in three syllables. In any flavor of English either one is correct. Online Offerings Herlinda describes how they are doing classes online in order to keep busy during confinement. They have several free introductory classes and tastings. This is a great way for people who like beer or work with beer to add to their knowledge.
Their highest degree, the Master cicerone, is a two-day exam, with written and oral questions as well as tastings. He majored in Philosophy and found that the Master exam was the hardest he ever had. They also have a YouTube channel.
(1) Here is the definition of "Cicerone" in the online Treccani dictionary of the Italian language. http://www.treccani.it/vocabolario/cicerone/
(This episode was originally recorded on 5-14-20 and placed in the podcast queue for the 4-23-20 edition due to lack of new shows owing to Coronavirus inconveniences. We apologize for the interruption of the time-space continuum. Cheers.)
Gregg Schaffer is our guest today on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras. Gregg Schaffer and his brother Jeff are the creators of Brews Brothers, a new comedy series starring Alan Aisenberg and Mike Castle, that debuts on Netflix this coming April 10. The show is about a couple of brothers who own a craft beer taproom. Here is all the information about the show and the official trailer, on the Netflix site. You can also check out the Brews Brothers trailer on YouTube, here.
There are 8 episodes coming out all at once, on April 10. Herlinda tells how Gregg and Jeff really are brothers who love beer and who have a long pedigree in the TV business. Gregg did research up the west coast, visiting places like Lagunitas and Anderson Valley. Jeff has been a writer on numerous successful TV shows. Brews Brothers is a funny show and they will be doing promotions in a fun way.
Gregg Schaffer joins the conversation on the phone. "I've been doing research all my life," as he states his credentials for a show about beer. The show is about two estranged brothers who get together to open a brewery. Each is a different kind of beer genius. They know lots about beer and "absolutely nothing about anything else." Gregg tells that there are plenty of goofy personalities around brewing to inspire the script, including themselves. The field is ripe for comedy. One brother, Will, loves any type of beer but is horrible with business. The other brother is the beer snob. Steve adds that he has interviewed practically everyone in brewing in northern California and speaks from experience, "they're funny."
The 8 episodes of the first season of Brews Brothers premiers on Netflix on Friday, April 10.
Anne Marie Roberts of Teeling Whiskey in Dublin, Ireland is our guest today on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Mark Carpenter. She is the California Brand Ambassador, based in Oakland. Herlinda Heras is also in the studio today.
Teeling Whiskey is the first new distillery to open in Dublin, Ireland, in 125 years. They opened about 5 years ago and the founders come from a very old whiskey-making family. “We represent a new generation of distillers, focussed on innovation and cask maturation and leading with flavor,” she explains.
Their casks are made of at least seven types of wood and this is what gives most of the flavor to the whiskey, and over 100 cask types. Today they will taste four whiskeys from Teeling:
a grain whiskey made of corn, a small batch blend of corn and malted barley, a single malt made from 100% malted barley and A single pot still whiskey, the first one produced since the 1970s.
Mark Carpenter started the distillery at Anchor in 1973, it was the only pot still in America. All the big distillers use continuous stills, where you feed your mash in the bottom and the whiskey comes out the top. Pot stills are done in batches. The Irish distillers are the only ones who use the single pot still technique.
The single grain in a corn whiskey but spends its 5 years of maturation in Cabernet barrels from Napa Valley.
Irish whiskey must be three years plus one day old (one day older than the Scotch requirement). Also, Scotch and American whiskeys are required to be aged only in oak, while Irish whiskey calls for “wood like oak,” so they have more freedom.
Tara Nurin calls in from Seattle, Washington, where she is continuing her research travels for her book about women in the brewing business. Today’s date is March 12, which is just as the Covid-19 crisis is starting to appear so she may cut the trip short. She describes the copper tanks at the New Albion brewery there, which are like the ones at Anchor in San Francisco.
Teeling Whiskey is a fairly young company and they are building their brand and their distribution. They have won more then 200 awards around the world for their whiskey in the last five years.
They were the first Irish whiskey to win the single-malt category at the World Whiskey Awards, for their 24-year. The single malt they are tasting today spends 9 to 23 years in different wine casks. There are many types of wine casks used, all of which lend flavor to the whiskey. “It’s a beautiful whiskey,” says Mark Carpenter. Anne Marie describes the flavors in each one.
Teeling Whiskey's prices range from about $28 to $60, but there are some single casks and 34 or 35 year-old whiskeys which may sell in the thousands. The 24-year-old was the first Irish whiskey to win the worldwide single-malt award.
Tara Nurin is back on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon today, along with Herlinda Heras, to talk about her latest article in Forbes magazine and her upcoming book about women in craft brewing. Mark Carpenter is traveling this week. Tara Nurin writes about all aspects of the brewing and spirits business for Forbes magazine. You can follow Tara on Twitter here.
Tara's latest article in Forbes is "The #MeToo Movement Is Coming To Craft Beer... Will It Arrive Before All The Women Leave?"
Tara is also writing a book, "Don't Worry, Honey, I Didn't Burn the Beer," about women in the brewing business, which is due to be published in the Spring of 2021. She is visiting Sonoma County to interview several women in the brewing business, for her book. The #MeToo Movement and the Craft Brewing Industry Describing her current Forbes article, Tara says that many women she has interviewed who have suffered sexual harassment in the brewing business say that they could leave the industry if things don't change. She goes on to tell how the reputation of the craft brewing industry has been about how people are nice and support each other, and while that is true, there is another side to the story that is only being told now. Thanks to the #MeToo movement and to her research and reporting, the rest of story is beginning to be told. In particular, she tells the story of Natalie Phillips, who worked for a brewery in Columbus, Ohio where she was allegedly raped. "Everyone knew but nobody talked about it," until she went to the press a year ago and has now talked to Tara about the story. Since this story came out, many other women have also complained about the same person, yet the detective investigating the case has not interviewed the others. Tara Nurin's California Adventure Tara's visit to California includes a distillery tour organized by Hotaling & Co. distillers. They were spun off from Anchor Brewing after Mark Carpenter started their distilling branch, which was eventually separated from the brewing company after a series of ownership changes. She will have a tour of Anchor Brewing and they will also visit with Judy Ashworth, the pioneering Bay Area publican (who was featured here on Brew Ha Ha last December.) Finally they are going to visit Hopland Tap, which Ron Lindenbush has reopened on the site of the old Mendocino Brewing Co., for a taste of the new Red Tail Ale with Don Barkley. Tara lived in San Francisco in 1997 and remembers liking Red Tail Ale. There was also a beer called Red Nectar.
Tara also belongs to a group called Barley's Angels, a women's home brewing club. This rolls in nicely with our sponsor The Beverage People, who since 1980 have been helping folks with home brewing, winemaking, and any and all other kinds of fermented foods, like yogurt, olives, mead, and much more.
Andy Hooper, brew master at Seismic Brewing Company, is our guest today on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Mark Carpenter. Karen Bianchi is also in, representing the 14th annual California Artisan Cheese Festival and also the Valley Ford Cheese & Creamery. Herlinda Heras is back to tell about her latest European trip.
The Artisan Cheese Festival has a full schedule of seminars and practical exhibits in different locations, plus "Bites & Booze" which will be held in an airplane hangar. March 27, 28 & 29, the full schedule is at their website, here: https://www.artisancheesefestival.com/event. It has grown in size and this year the tours are happening on Friday and there are seminars at the Flamingo in Santa Rosa. Sunday is the big marketplace, starting with Bubbles & Brunch. Chef John Ash is going to be paired with Valley Ford Cheese & Creamery.
Seismic Brewing sold their first keg in the Summer of 2017. They are located at 6700 Sebastopol Ave, in Sebastopol, in the Barlow. They brought several Seismic beers, mostly in cans. Shattercone IPA is the first beer tasted. A shattercone is formed when a meteor hits the ground, leaving a shattered cone shape. It uses hops from Idaho, Washington and from Germany.
Visit our sponsor The Beverage People on 1845 Piner Road in Santa Rosa, for the best equipment, supplies and instructions for all your home brew and fermented food projects.
Herlinda has brought back some beverages from her trip to Italy and Switzerland including a beer flavored liqueur.
Karen Bianchi tells how Valley Ford Cheese & Creamery is now open on Hwy 1 in Valley Ford. They make three types of cheese, each one based on a traditional Italian type, so there is one based on Montasio (from the north-east Friuli region), one based on Fontina (from Piedmont, the north-west) and one that is like a Gorgonzola, which comes originally from a town called Gorgonzola in the middle of Lombardia, in north-central Italy. (It's the third-to-last stop on the green metro line, outside Milan.) She also brought an aged Estero Gold that is a lot like a Parmigiano, which literally means "from Parma" in Italian. Their Gorgonzola won 3rd place in the US Cheese Championships last Spring, and the plaque arrived the day that they opened their new shop.
Finally, Herlinda tells a bit about her travels, she was just in Italy judging their national beer competition. Since the Coronavirus covid-19 has been spreading in Italy, she had some issues getting through airports but she made it.
Bob Brewer visits Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Mark Carpenter this week, plus Steve speaks with Herlinda Heras who is in Rimini, Italy, again this year, to judge the Italian "Beer of the Year" competition, called "Birra dell'anno" in Italian. Mark Carpenter worked with Bob Brewer at Anchor Brewing in San Francisco for many years.
First, Steve Jaxon talks to Herlinda Heras who is in Rimini, Italy, for the second straight year, where she is a judge in this year's national competition. There are 108 judges from 15 different countries. They are judging only Italian beers. Italy is known for wine, but also for flavor, and their craft beer scene is very well developed.
Mark Carpenter tells how there were no breweries in California at the time of the Gold Rush, which attracted people from everywhere, including northern Europe. They wanted to make Lager beer but they had no ice, so they made a hybrid style of beer that took the nickname of Steam. Of all the origin stories, this is the one that seems most likely to Mark: because they were trying to make a lager beer, they were making it carbonated. To do that they would go through a Krausening process (a traditional German method for carbonating beer by adding actively fermenting malt wort). The beer would be pretty well carbonated and was served in places that were cool, but not refrigerated. When they tried to tap the kegs, they would get a lot of foam. They had to pour a little then let it settle. The foam that would come out would escape like steam. At the time, lager beer was taking over the world and the steam beers died out. Anchor was the only steam beer producer to survive prohibition. San Francisco is cool enough in the summer to brew that way.
Bob Brewer remembers when kegs were scarce and he had to reorganize his schedule to maximize his access to empty kegs. He also modified some taps to control the foaming with the steam beer. Mark says that Sapporo which owns Anchor now, is in it for the long haul. Fritz Maytag sold it about 8 or 9 years ago to buyers who then sold it to Sapporo.
The Beverage People is Sonoma County's fermentation experts since 1980. They have all the equipment, supplies and instructions for making home brewed beer, and also wine, cheese, olives, mead and any kind of fermented food or beverage.
Today on Brew Ha Ha, Natalie Cilurzo is here from Russian River Brewing Co., with some bottles of this year’s Pliny the Younger, one day before the public release, which is tomorrow, Friday February 7, 2020. Brew Ha Ha and The Drive are pleased to host the Pliny the Younger unveiling again as we did last year at this time.
This is the first year that this beer will be put in bottles. Pliny the Younger is their rarest and most sought-after beer. They decided that this was the year to put it in bottles, although they will only be sold in the brewpubs and none for distribution. There is only a certain amount every day.
People came last year from 40 different states and 17 different countries, for the Pliny the Younger release. Customers can only get two bottles per person per day. Their new Windsor facility is larger and has ample parking, for those who are planning a trip.
Herlinda asks Natalie to recap what is Pliny the Younger. It is a triple IPA, this is its 16th year. Vinny Cilurzo wanted to take their Pliny the Elder recipe, their flagship double IPA, and increase the malt, alcohol and hops.
She is pouring this beer from their Windsor facility, made with open top fermentation, which creates softer beers. This is 10.25% alcohol. Steve and Mark agree that you wouldn’t think it is that strong, because of its great flavor. There are 8 different hop varieties, such as Simcoe and Amarillo. This year they added two new ones, Mosaic and Nelson Sauvin. It is very dry, and Natalie notes that this is a characteristic of Russian River beers. Mark Carpenter agrees that it's a fabulous beer, well-balanced, you can taste the alcohol but it's not overpowering, nor are the hops. When the World Discovered Pliny the Younger Russian River Brewing Company has several other beers, including a couple that are also being released today. This particular beer started as a February release in 2005. In 2010, the day that Vinny came to the brewery to open the doors at 7am, there was a line of people outside the brewpub, which there had never seen before. They were there before 7am for a noon opening, for Pliny the Younger, and told Vinny that Joe Tucker of RateBeer.com had rated it the best beer in the world.
This was the very beginning of social media networking intersecting with craft brewing. Suddenly, there was a pilgrimage to their brewery. She remembers the day vividly. Every single person bought their limit. They sold all the beer in 8 hours. (A growler is a half gallon bottle.) They never pushed it, it just got recognized. She doesn't buy advertising and it's really consumer-driven.
They are making this recipe in both of their locations and the two batches are slightly different. Mark Carpenter agrees that it is difficult to get exactly the same results from a beer recipe made in different locations. The downtown pub is open from 11am to midnight every day. The Windsor location is open from 11am to 10pm during the week (Sunday through Thursday) and until 11pm on Friday and Saturday. Natalie also mentions that they reclaim 75% of the water they use and they use reclaimed water for their landscaping.
Our guests on Brew Ha Ha today are from Shaker and Spoon, a monthly cocktail subscription service based in Brooklyn, NY. Anna, Mike and Amy have just come from the airport after their flight from JFK. They will visit The Science of Cocktails, a show at the Exploratorium in San Francisco (which used to be held at the Palace of Fine Arts). Herlinda has brought some cocktail tools from home and they will make some cocktails today.
Herlinda’s friend Erin from Petaluma, who produces Bitter Girl Bitters, told Herlinda about Shaker and Spoon. (Erin was on Brew Ha Ha back in May of 2018.) Bitter Girl Bitters is one of their ingredient suppliers.
Shaker and Spoon is a monthly subscription box that comes with everything you need to make 12 cocktails, except for the alcohol. You can make four servings each from three different original recipes. The recipes come from several famous bartenders and mixologists.
Mike tells about how he wants to help people make amazing cocktails, such as recipes from the best bartenders in the world who work in New York and whose recipes they use. He also wants to “pull the curtain back” a little on cocktails. Anna tells that she and Mike have backgrounds in design, not as bartenders. A fine demonstration of their design sense is their “Tidy Martini” box which is for making the opposite of the dirty Martini.
The Science of Cocktails at the Exploratorium takes place Friday, February 7, from 9 to midnight (that’s tomorrow, as this show is recorded and its podcast is posted online). Cheers!
Jim Woods, founder of Woods Brewing Company is our guest today. Michelle Marques is sitting in for Steve Jaxon, with Herlinda Heras and Mark Carpenter. They will talk about Woods Beer & Wine Co. and also about SF Beer Week. Jim is a friend of Mark's daughter, they went to school together in San Diego.
Years ago, Jim asked Mark about making beer with Yerba Mate and Mark admits he didn't think it would have success. Woods Brewing makes several kinds of unusual beers which do not follow the traditional beer ingredients. Using processes and ingredients like grapefruit zest and bourbon barrel aging, brings people in to tasting craft beer. "We try to take a unique approach to everything we do," says Jim Woods. Jim talks about making a mess at home when he first tried to make beer at home, while he was a high-school student. His mom covered for him and helped him clean up, but his dad discovered it. He was upset at first, but Jim just asked him to taste it, which he did, and then he let him continue. From home brewing to commercial production. Jim believes that home brewing is the life-blood of the craft brewing movement. His first commercial idea was to make a Yerba Mate beer. Eventually they opened a production brewery on Treasure Island, which is open on Saturdays. They have five locations as Woods Beer & Wine. Jim Woods is also on the board of the California Craft Brewers Association. They add the Yerba Mate to the mash, in the brewing process.
A new law in California allows for more co-mingling of beer, wine and distilling, where they can have production and storage in the same location now. With real estate at a premium, it's good to be able to concentrate product lines in a single location.
They make wines with "natural winemaking" organic principles. When their wine is 80-90% done, they combine beer and wine in the production of Divine Origins ales. The wine has wild yeast, which is not one of the two types of yeast usually in beer. But some Belgian brewers embraced the wild yeasts, including a lot of the lambic breweries. Michelle says it is complex, with little sour notes, and very refreshing. Mark Carpenter tells about how Anchor wanted recognition for beers other than Steam Beer, so their first variety was a Porter. They did a few German styles but not many Belgians.
Next they taste another "eno-beer" wine-beer hybrid from the Divine Origins line. But that's not the most unusual beverage they make; there is also a line of beer flavors inspired by Girl Scout Cookies, that they make once a year. SF Beer Week Feb. 7-16, 2020 SF Beer week is coming soon, February 7-16. Visit S F BEER WEEK DOT ORG for more.
There are also concurrent events in Sonoma County and Woods Wine & Beer Co. is participating, also at their locations. People travel from all over the country to taste the amazing variety of beer available in the Bay Area. Mark Carpenter says, this golden age of brewing. American brewers used to travel the world to learn brewing, now the rest of the world comes to us.
Judy Ashworth joins Steve Jaxon, Mark Carpenter and Herlinda Heras today on Brew Ha Ha. She was a legendary and influential Bay Area publican for many years and has known Mark Carpenter since the 1970s. A publican is a person who owns and operates a pub or bar. The term is more in use in Britain but it is also American. Mark tells about how Judy took over a little bar in Sinole, California, that served the major brewers but she also began bringing in beer from all the micro-brewers in the area. Unfortunately it burned down, which made the news because there were a lot of local reporters who drank beer there. Nevertheless she persisted! She rebuilt with plenty of help from friends and the rest is glorious history. Clever Promotions When people asked her what is her favorite beer, she has been answering "I hope it hasn't been brewed yet." She is very proud and excited about the beer Renaissance in America and especially in the Bay Area. Today, where she lives, there are at least five pubs near her that serve craft beer. Judy also organized promotional events like a brewer's fashion show. Mark Carpenter and a friend went to the show decked out in costumes they bought in the Mission district in San Francisco (imagine something hippie and funky, we're sorry we have no pictures). They used to also put on a Crawfish party once a year.
All the people in the brewing community at the time knew each other and would see each other socially at Judy's events. Her Christmas Ale was also the centerpiece of her December holiday parties.
Judy says that being a publican means knowing how to shoot pool and play darts. But when she started in the business she was a single mom who had no experience in beer. She says she was in the right place at the right time, after working in various other jobs, she didn't like the corporate world. She decided to build a business for herself at the age of 37. Judy never worked for anyone else after that. She did it in order to be able to spend more time with her children. Her business partner sold it to her and she paid it off over some time. "I was forty when my whole life changed." She learned about beer from the brewers, including every detail, like temperature, type of glass, how to pour, etc. She was explaining to people how to enjoy beer. The Beverage People The Beverage People is a Santa Rosa company that has provided home brewers with everything they need since 1981. They have materials and advice for making beer, wine, cheese, olives and much more, at home.
In the early years, says Judy, many women would say they didn't like beer, but she thought it could be because all they ever tasted was a bit of warm Bud from a friend's glass. She would introduce women to other beers, such as dark beers, which are easier to drink than lagers. Once, she served a beer to Fritz Maytag, which he liked, and he didn't realize it was Liberty Ale. Then he said, this is the reason why he started brewing it.
When her place burned down, right before Christmas in 1987, people assembled there to mourn, and Mark and his friend brought beer over. She didn't have fire insurance and had to rebuild the business with help from a fund-raiser. All the micro-breweries knew they had to support her because she was the only one teaching people about beer. She had a lot of music at her pub and all the musicians donated their time. All the breweries brought special beers. Someone brought a grundy (which is an old brew kettle). It raised a lot of money and got her back in business. Her brother was a woodworker who rebuilt the whole bar in the old fashioned style, in mahogany from Honduras.
Today Judy Ashworth feels like a proud grandma of the beer business. She has even taught on beer education cruises in Europe. She has been a national beer judge and was on the board of directors of the Great American Beer Festival.
Zane Lamprey joins Steve Jaxon, Mark Carpenter and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha this week. He is a writer and performer who has done shows about drinking culture around the world and in the US, as well as other subjects. He also runs a company that produces outdoor gear, called Adv3nture.
Mark Carpenter is back this week. He has been traveling for two months, mainly in Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia. He went to the world’s oldest winery located in a cave in Armenia and has come back with lots of travel stories to tell.
Zane Lamprey tells the story of how he was called to audition for the show that ended up becoming Three Sheets, a show where he talks about drinking customs with his guests.
(The term Three Sheets is a reference to an old American expression for being drunk, “three sheets to the wind” in which sheets means sails on a sailboat, as if someone has drunk enough to be “sailing on the high seas” under the full power of three sails. This expression was first documented in H.L. Mencken’s The American Language.)
He is launching his first collaboration beer with Fog Belt Brewing. It is a benefit for charity, for every four-pack that they produce they will plant a tree, through Green Forest Work. They take areas of Appalachia which have been strip-mined, and plant trees to help the land recover. At Fog Belt, they name all of their beers after trees.
Fog Belt Brewing Co. is located in Santa Rosa Vintner's Square, close to D'Argenzio Winery.
Rob Lightner from East Brother Beer Co. joins Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras today on Brew Ha Ha. Mark Carpenter is away this week.
East Brother Brewing Co. is named after an island in San Francisco Bay called East Brother Island, near their home city of Richmond, California. They are located in the old shipyards where they built 747 ships during WWII.
Rob Lightner and his friend Chris Coomber founded the brewery three years ago. They are also neighbors in Richmond. The brewery has a tap room in Richmond, near where the old Pixar offices were. They have food trucks that come to the tap room. For entertainment and competition they have darts, bocce and ping-pong. Rob is glad that people come there to play and talk with each other, not to stare at their own phones the whole time.
Their beer styles are simple, with five core beers: a Bohemian Pilsner, a Lager, the Oatmeal Stout, and two IPAs. They also do a few others in rotation. They are distributed in kegs and cans all around the Bay Area.
Sean Paxton, The Home Brew Chef, is back on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras today. Mark Carpenter is away on vacation. Sean has several turkey recipes on his website. Each recipe highlights a different set of flavors but they are all for beer brined turkeys. The alcohol in the beer helps tenderize the meat. You can use all kinds of beer. He also suggests tangerines or other types of citrus. Last year he used Bear Republic's Racer 5 IPA and blood oranges in one recipe. Beers that have rich malts which have a little more sugars in them, work very well too.
You can cook it in the oven, or other ways like sous vide, smoking, on the grill, or deep fried. Herlinda Heras mentions that you must follow precautions if you're deep frying a turkey, and Sean has all that information on his site with the recipes. There are dozens of recipes that use beer, including all parts of a menu, savory or sweet, even cookies and pies.
Sean explains that they use a combination of water and beer. You will need from 6 to 12 bottles depending on your turkey. Sean teaches a wet brine, rather than a dry brine. The bath is flavored with vegetables and herbs. You can use a giant plastic zip-lock bag. Herlinda also mentions that you need to watch the temperature. First you warm the brine to mix the flavors, then you cool it with ice. Sean Paxton also has stuffing recipes, and even a Turduckin recipe (the famous Turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken).
Sean Paxton is also featured in the award-winning documentary Beers of Joy on Hulu and Amazon and elsewhere.
Due to holiday season travel schedules, there is no new Brew Ha Ha show today, so here is a repeat of a favorite show from last August featuring Ramon Tamayo, brewer at Russian River Brewing Co, and Mike Gilmore, Paris-based micro-brew shop owner.
Brew Ha Ha today welcomes Ramon Tamayo and Mike Gilmore. Ramon Tamayo is the brewer at Russian River Brewing, working for Vinny Cilurzo. He used to work for Mark Carpenter at Anchor Brewing. Mike Gilmore is a brewer in Paris, France. He runs Brew Unique Paris, a shop in Paris where customers come for home brew classes and learn to make beer. He grew up in the American northeast but has lived in Paris for 20 years.
Mike says that there are some good new breweries in and around Paris. He has friends who organize guided tours to Belgian and French breweries. He worked for Boulder Brewery in Boulder, Colorado, starting in 1991. Two professors from CU Boulder started it in 1979. Mark Carpenter remembers that Boulder had a hazy beer, back then, called “The Ugly Beer” that they used to serve as a joke in a paper bag.
Herlinda just judged at California Craft Beer Summit competition. She judged hazy beers, and double and triple IPAs. Some hazy beers were really good and some really bad, nothing in the middle.
Mark tells about when Ramon worked for him at Anchor in San Francisco. Ramon started in the bottling house and worked his way up into the brew house. Anchor has a classic copper brew house from a German brewery. It is all operated by hand. Some people were surprised that they had no computers in the brew process. Mike teaches people how to brew at his shop in Paris, by making 5 gallon batches. His customers do everything by hand.
The Beverage People, the home brew shop that has equipment and classes for home brew, wine, cheese and cider, is a new sponsor of Brew Ha Ha. Their work is similar to Mike Gilmore’s work in Paris, catering to home brewers. Some clients are individuals, they also have groups such as corporate team building and weddings. It’s a four-hour course. They also give you a recipe from HenHouse to attempt.
Mike says that there are a lot of nanobreweries in Paris and some are making the transition successfully from that to a larger scale functioning business. There aren’t too many in Paris but in the suburbs there are a lot.
The American Brewing History Initiative at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History is the subjcet of this week's Brew Ha Ha podcast. Steve Jaxon talks to Herlinda Heras, on the telephone from Washington DC. She is attending the Smithsonian's grand opening of the exhibition.
The exhibition is a celebration of the most recent generation of American brewers. They are bestowing honors on Anchor Brewing, Sierra Nevada and New Albion. New Albion was the first brewery in America after Prohibition, located in Sonoma.
The American History Museum is hosting this exhibit. Fritz Maytag is there and so is New Albion founder Jack McAuliffe, as well as Ken Grossman of Sierra Nevada. Herlinda learned that Jack McAuliffe was stationed at Alameda with the Navy before founding New Albion. There are food events, tastings and talks to celebrate the exhibit.
According to the exhibit's website, "The American Brewing History Initiative at the National Museum of American History will document and collect the story of beer and brewing in America, with a special focus on home brewing and craft beer. Made possible by a gift from the Brewers Association, the initiative will build an archive of American brewing history for the benefit of scholars and the public."
Our guests on Brew Ha Ha this week talk about how the people of Sonoma County have rallied to help each other through the fires and their aftermath. Please consider making a donation to the Red Cross which has done so much to help Sonoma County again this year. Amy Levin of St. Florian's Brewery is our guest on Brew Ha Ha this week with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras, while Mark Carpenter is still traveling. St. Florian is the patron saint of firefighters. Amy's husband Aron is a firefighter and they are the owners of St. Florian's Brewery. Also in the studio today is Natalie Cilurzo from Russian River Brewing Co. St. Florian's Brewery and Russian River Brewing Co. are neighbors in Windsor.
The Levins founded the brewery about seven years ago and they have always donated 5% of their profits to fire-related and community-based organizations.
There are a lot of news crews in the area covering the fires and many of them are hanging out at Russian River Brewing in Windsor. Once the evacuations were lifted, they needed a day to clean up the place. This has been a rough week in Sonoma County.
The first beer they make after they get back up and running will be a special edition of Sonoma Pride beer. They won't be licensing it as they did in 2017. This beer will be bottled and available at their two breweries. From that they will make a large donation to a charity that Amy and Aron will help them choose. Amy expresses gratitude for the family of first responders. There is some damage to St. Florian's Brewery and Amy has been working on it herself, since her husband Aron is still busy fighting fires, so Natalie offers some workers from her brewery to help Amy's. Russian River has a generator so they had their own power and did not lose any beer.
Due to the Kincade Fire in Sonoma County, there is no live Brew Ha Ha show on KSRO today. For this podcast episode, here is a repeat of our July, 2018 visit with Brian Hunt, founder of Moonlight Brewing Co. Please consider making a donation to the Red Cross which has done so much to help Sonoma County again during the fires this year.) Brian Hunt, Moonlight Brewing founder and brewmaster and Shannon Thomas, tasting room and social media manager, are in today with Herlinda Heras and Steve Jaxon. Mark Carpenter is away this week.
Brian Hunt started Moonlight Brewing in 1992. He jokes that he needed to support his beer habit and he actually stared home brewing in his bedroom when he was in high school. He had some German friends who helped him too. He graduated from UC Davis brew school in 1980, where Michael Lewis was his brewing instructor. There were 43 brewing companies in the United States then. There are more than that number now in just Sonoma County. He worked for a while at Schlitz in Milwaukee. The guy who had bought Schlitz said, “It don’t matter what I put in the can as long as it has Schlitz on the label.” He was only interested in money and he was fired. Then they hired a brew master and they decided to make good beer again. But the brand was in decline and when they closed Milwaukee Stroh’s bought them. Then Pabst bought them.
Moonlight Brewing will celebrate their 26th anniversary at an event in September 2018. They are the closest brewery to Coffey Park in Santa Rosa, which burned in the October 2017 fires.
They have a new taproom that holds almost 50 people. They built a bar out of reclaimed redwood, furniture from Bergamot Alley and old school chairs, making a very comfortable place.
Moonlight Brewing is known for a beer they produce called Death and Taxes.
They are snacking on some popcorn called Hippie Dust, which has Nutritional Yeast on it, which is tasty and very nutritious.
Herlinda Heras tells about how spent grain from brewing is being used by bakers, such as one in Forestville, and that bread is available on Saturdays.
They have a taproom open Thursday and Friday at 4 and Saturday and Sunday at 1. It’s the third location that they have had. They also make Bloody Mary popcorn and Maple Syrup popcorn.
Their beer called Death and Taxes is one of the first beers he made at Moonlight. It’s a San Francisco style black lager. He has found that in Europe, people are used to there being local versions of beer named for cities or regions, while here, people act surprised at the idea.
Shannon says everyone remembers where they were when they first taste Death and Taxes. Brian says that because it’s clean and crisp, it’s great for California.
Brian describes the Lagunitas Beer Circus in London from his point of view. He gets to serve beer to people who like beer, but there are trapeze artists, burlesque, bikes, and a crazy goofy atmosphere. “See things you can’t unsee” is their slogan.
As for his hop philosophy, he also likes to make beer without hops. He says hops are just a spice, but that you can put other things in beer to flavor it. He just really loves a drinkable beer.
Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon today features Don Barkley and Kevin Lovett. Mark Carpenter and Herlinda Heras are both traveling. Don was last on Brew Ha Ha back in March of this year. Don Barkley tells the story of how he was there the day that Kevin was born, on the 4th of July. Kevin's dad Michael and Don Barkley have been friends for a long time. They worked together at the New Albion Brewery then they moved to Hopland at the same time to start the Mendocino Brewing Co. and the Hopland Brewery and Kevin Lovett was born soon after that. Kevin was one of Don's first employees at the Napa Smith Brewery, where he worked for about five years. Then he got an offer from Brian Hunt who owns and operates Moonlight Brewing Co., which also happens to be where Don's son works. Kevin says, "I got to work for two of the godfathers in this industry, Don and Brian." Then after Moonlight, Kevin was the head brewer at Stumptown for two years, then became the Master Brewer at Cloverdale Ale Company. He has now bought the brewery, just three weeks ago, and is going to reopen it at the beginning of the year, as the Wolf House Brewery. He is opening two spots at the same time, one in Glen Ellen, the Jack London Historical Village, on the south side, right up against the Jack London Park. Both places will be a full brew pub, but their main production facility will be in Cloverdale. Glen Ellen is known as a wine town but there are few breweries and no tasting rooms, except for Cloverdale.
We get a phone call from Herlinda Heras who is visiting Belgium, where it is 2:29 AM the next day. She began the trip in Amsterdam. Everywhere she goes there are separate containers for recycling glass and plastic. She also visited two breweries in windmills.
Kevin's business partner and bro-in-law is a chef who also runs a food truck called Got Balls Meatball Factory. that specializes in meatballs and he will manage the food provisions there. The Glen Ellen location is being rebuilt from scratch, including all the local permits.
Herlinda describes a Belgian monastery where the beer that the brothers produce was for a while the number one rated beer on RateBeer.com. When crowds of beer lovers showed up there, the monks were unhappy with the interruption to their life, which includes a vow not to earn more money than they need to run their monastery. Herlinda describes going to some Trappist breweries there.
Herlinda is touring breweries on Bon Beer Voyage Beer Tours. They have rooms on flat-bottomed canal barges that go through the canals in the Netherlands and Belgium. They visited Antwerp, which is gorgeous. She will also attend the Smithsonian ceremony on November 8 in Washington DC, for the opening of the Beer History Museum, where some famous American brewers like New Albion, Anchor Brewing Sierra Nevada and Dogfish Head will be inducted. Fritz Maytag and Ken Grossman will be there. Herlinda wonders why Dogfish Head is in such company.
Today we have a home brew expert panel on Brew Ha Ha with Pete Foppiano sitting in for Steve Jaxon, Mark Carpenter and Herlinda Heras. They have several guests, all are experts in home brewing. They are tasting some home brews which Mark says are delicious. There is a dark and a light, they are very dry, nice and thirst quenching. Scott Cradde is a co-producer of the Mendocino Home Brewers' Festival in Ukaiah in November. (The power is out in the studio today, due to fire danger, so there is no air conditioning and no wi-fi.)
There are other things to do around the event, with a farmers' market before it in the morning and an outdoor fashion show with local boutiques, afterwards. They have a top prize "The Brewer's Pick" gets to spend a day at Anderson Valley Brewing and brew the winning recipe. There is a people's choice award and a judge's award. There is also a prize for the best beer that uses local ingredients, whether hops or fruit used for flavoring. Wild yeast would qualify for the local ingredient too.
Two brewers that have won the event have gone pro and opened a new brewery. The judging is done all there that day. Mark asks if the judges and the people's choice have coincided. Not yet, they say. This year's results are on the Festival website, here. Apparently, the judges and the people did agree this year and both awarded first prize to Sempervirens DIPA by Matt Brown.
Scott Bice from Redwood Hill Farms joins Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha today. Redwood Hill Farms is known for its fine goat cheese and yogurt and now they are also growing hops, under the name Capracopia. Adriana Basurto works at Lagunitas and is also the Secretary for the NorCal Hop Growers Alliance. There are 15 hop growers in Sonoma County with over 10 acres planted to hops. Shone Farms (at Santa Rosa Junior College) is also planting hops. Adriana was a student in the brewing program at Santa Rosa Junior College where the faculty sponsored the opening of the Shone Farms hop field. They are putting on an event on Oct. 20 to teach about growing hops, at the 4th annual Hop Education Seminar. It is a great place to connect to brewers and learn about growing hops, including zoning regulations. Capracopia: Farm Life and Artisan Food at Redwood Hill Farm: https://redwoodhillfarm.org/ Redwood Hill Farm, artisan goat milk dairy: https://redwoodhill.com/ They are drinking an Oast House Ale made with their Columbus hops. Matt Fritz the brewer supports the local hop farmers. They can pick hops and make wet hop beers, which requires the hops to get from the field to the brewery in an hour. An Oast house was where they used to dry the hops. Brewers generally use dry hops and they are lucky to live near fields and brewers that make wet hopped beer possible.
Mark Carpenter is not in the studio today but texts in to ask how many kinds of hops are grown here. There are probably about 20 hop varieties being grown in the area.
The hop farms in the US are mostly up in Yakima Valley in Washington state, which is at a higher latitude, more like the latitude of the original European hop farms.
Some hops are proprietary strains but several good ones are "public varieties" which anyone can grow.
[The Brew Ha Ha live show of Sept. 26 is not available due to technical difficulties. This podcast episode was recorded on Oct. 3.]
Tara Nurin calls in on today’s Brew Ha Ha. Tara Nurin is the Forbes magazine beer and spirits contributor, a friend and colleague of Herlinda Heras and a frequent guest on Brew Ha Ha. She speaks with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda about threatened tariffs on imported European products like beer, wine, spirits and other consumer goods.
European leaders and merchants today (10-3) slammed the Trump administration’s threats to levy import tariffs on European goods. This includes French wines, cheese, whiskey, Scotch whiskey, and more. It seems that the administration is targeting unique specialty foods from Europe for 25% tarrifs. Tara and Herlinda explain that when products are unique to their place of origin, there is no substitute product for it. For example, Champagne and Bordeaux are also protected names, so there is no replacing those products when a consumer wants the original authentic merchandise.
Tariffs on imported goods are a customs tax that the importing country levies on the importer at the time of the goods’ entry. The exporting country does not pay the tax. Parties inside the importing country pay the tax, specifically, the importer who conducts the transaction at the point of importation. They then pass the additional cost on to wholesalers and distributors. By the time that consumers in the importing country make a retail purchase, that item's price has been inflated by the import tax. The tariffs raise the cost of imported goods, which puts pressure on consumption of the targeted imported goods by making them more expensive to consumers. So consumers end up paying the price of punishing importing countries when an importing country choses this policy.
Wet hop beer is the subject and our guests are from Old Possum Brewery, Scott Weiss from Redwood Hill Farm (where they produce great local goat cheese) and now Redwood Hill Hop Farm, and Sandro from Old Possum Brewery. Herlinda Heras and Mark Carpenter are also in today. Old Possum Tap Room and Kitchen is located in Santa Rosa (off Standish at Sutton) and have been open for a year and a half. The got started by transporting wort to local breweries. Later they decided to start producing too.
They try to up-cycle whatever they can, their tasting room was built with all used equipment. Sandro is from Trieste in northeastern Italy. He worked in wine, with D'Argenzio in Sonoma County and other places. He still makes wine but he has moved into beer too.
There are fresh hops in the studio, see the pictures of the Cashmere hops. This is their third year selling hops to Sonoma County brewers and also to Richmond, San Rafel and Napa. They also have produced goat cheese for 50 years and have brought some of that.
They also brought the Fog Belt Wet Hop Beer (pictured), which uses their hops. Since there are so many breweries in Sonoma County now, and so many new hop growers, there are a lot of wet hopped beers. They have to use the fresh hops quickly so their proximity is an advantage. They appreciate the grassy taste and compare it to using dried or fresh basil in a recipe. They have brought Cashmere and Common hops. These are new public varieties. Some varieties are proprietary where the breeders have the rights for as few years. They grow 7 different varieties on about 1.5 acres, and they are expanding. They use the organic matter "goat berries" from the goats to help fertilize the hops. Deer and gophers don't like hops so that's fortunate. The hop shoots can be cooked and eaten as a vegetable, or also pickled. Mark says they're not that good but they're seasonal and people like them.
They taste the Old Possum IPA and Mark says he likes the name. Possums are cool animals and they show up at night at his house to eat grapes. They also eat ticks, which is nice. They produce about 500 barrels for the tap room and they are developing their wholesale accounts. They have canning on the horizon.
Sandro worked with Dr. Charlie Bamforth at UC Davis. They are located at 357 Sutton Place, off Standish, exit Todd Road, in Santa Rosa. Exit Todd Road, go west, turn right on Standish and left on Sutton They are open Wed-Sun noon-8 or 9 on weekends. They will also be at the Freshtival on October 12. Sandro will make a special IPA for the festival.
Sandro is also a winemaker, working for his father in law, Ray D’Argenzio at D’Argenzio Wines. They make Italian varieties Dolcetto, Sangiovese, Barbera, and they even found some Montepulciano in Kenwood this year.
Redwood Hill Farms has a herd of goats and the farm is open for visits in the Spring, which is fun when the young goats are running around. His parents started the farm in 1968. Their cheese is famous because it’s so good and Herlinda says it goes fantastically with the Wet Hop Beer.
The website is redwood hill dot org
Mark reminds us that Hopland was named after the many hop farms that used to be in Sonoma County. They need a lot of hours of light, so more northerly locations are advantageous. There are many in Yakima Valley which is at a similar latitude to hop growing regions in Europe. Hops are coming back and there are 15 growers in the NorCal Hop Growing Alliance.
This episode was originally recorded on August 3, 2017. There is no new BHH episode this week due to other programming on home station KSRO.
Kim Lentjes & Jeroen Hobert are our guests on Brew Ha Ha today. Kim Lentjes founded the Dutch Beer Academy in 2015 and it is still going strong. She organizes training courses for restaurant staff, tastings and Kim is also active as a judge in beer competitions.
Steve first mentions that Sapporo of Japan has just bought Anchor Brewing, which was news back then in 2017, when this show was recorded live. Mark’s opinion is that it is great because today, a successful brewery will have to have its own bars, like Gordon Biersch. If Anchor wants to continue to sell in New York and Chicago, they need bars there and Sapporo can do that. There are no changes in management planned and they plan to keep the brewery as it is. Mark thinks they realize what a great brewery it is and how closely it is associated with San Francisco. Fritz Maytag speaks Japanese and was always happy to visit with the Japanese brewers who would often visit his brewery.
Steve mentions that Anchor Brewing is credited with sparking the craft brewing business in the US when Fritz Maytag bought it in 1965. Mark Carpenter started there in 1971.
Herlinda knows a lot of people in the beer business worldwide and when they come to visit San Francisco, they want to visit Anchor Brewing.
Kim explains that they train people who work with beer, what it is, how to taste it, how to sell beer and even how to get more people to drink more beer.
Herlinda mentions that Lagunitas is a Dutch company now since Heineken has purchased it from the founders. Kim sees that the craft beer movement is very strong here in America. Mark says they should be happy that the breweries like Anchor and Lagunitas will continue to operate the same way.
Marshall Dawson is our guest on Brew Ha Ha today, with Steve Jaxon, Mark Carpenter and Herlinda Heras all in studio. Marshall Dawson is one of the founders and owners of Jardesca low-alcohol spirits, which is located in Sonoma. With Jardesca, Marshall Dawson’s company had started a trend with lower alcohol drinks, which have nice flavor “…but you don’t have to get schnookered,” says Marshall.
Jardesca makes Californian alternatives to European aperitifs. Both their white and red blends have a blend of three kinds of Californian wine with eau de vie (which is French for Grappa) some botanicals. Marshall and his business partner have both lived in England, where there is an aperitif culture, which begins daily at around 5pm. When he moved to wine country in 2006 he wanted to create something from California that was appropriate for aperitifs. He thought that if it’s Californian it should be based on wine and other flavors that grow here. An aperitif is a light drink that prepares your palette for a nice meal. It’s a common practice throughout Europe.
The heart of the white wine blend is a Viogner and the heart of the red wine blend is a Zinfandel. Marshall used to run global marketing for Bombay Sapphire and Grey Goose. The principal botanical ingredients in the white aperitif are pink grapefruit, pink peppercorn and bay leaf. It lends itself to any kind of blending and mixing. “You can’t break it,” says Marshall. The recipes are on their website. Jardesca.com Get 15% off with promo code THEDRIVEBREWHAHA for the next 15 days.
They are in all the local retailers including Bottle Barn. Jardesca is 17% alcohol so when mixed, it is equivalent to a wine cocktail. The key botanicals in the red aperitif are ginger, tangerine and cardamom.
Brew Ha Ha today welcomes Ramon Tamayo and Mike Gilmore. Ramon Tamayo is the brewer at Russian River Brewing, working for Vinny Cilurzo. He used to work for Mark Carpenter at Anchor Brewing. Mike Gilmore is a brewer in Paris, France. He runs Brew Unique Paris, a shop in Paris where customers come for home brew classes and learn to make beer. He grew up in the American northeast but has lived in Paris for 20 years.
Mike says that there are some good new breweries in and around Paris. He has friends who organize guided tours to Belgian and French breweries. He worked for Boulder Brewery in Boulder, Colorado, starting in 1991. Two professors from CU Boulder started it in 1979. Mark Carpenter remembers that Boulder had a hazy beer, back then, called “The Ugly Beer” that they used to serve as a joke in a paper bag.
Herlinda just judged at California Craft Beer Summit competition. She judged hazy beers, and double and triple IPAs. Some hazy beers were really good and some really bad, nothing in the middle.
Mark tells about when Ramon worked for him at Anchor in San Francisco. Ramon started in the bottling house and worked his way up into the brew house. Anchor has a classic copper brew house from a German brewery. It is all operated by hand. Some people were surprised that they had no computers in the brew process. Mike teaches people how to brew at his shop in Paris, by making 5 gallon batches. His customers do everything by hand.
The Beverage People, the home brew shop that has equipment and classes for home brew, wine, cheese and cider, is a new sponsor of Brew Ha Ha. Their work is similar to Mike Gilmore’s work in Paris, catering to home brewers. Some clients are individuals, they also have groups such as corporate team building and weddings. It’s a four-hour course. They also give you a recipe from HenHouse to attempt.
Mike says that there are a lot of nanobreweries in Paris and some are making the transition successfully from that to a larger scale functioning business. There aren’t too many in Paris but in the suburbs there are a lot.
Colin from Hen House Brewing Company is our guest today on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon, Mark Carpenter and Herlinda Heras.
We welcome our new sponsor, The Beverage People, Sonoma County’s fermentation headquarters since 1980. They invite beer geeks and home brewers alike to join their Fermenter’s Community Membership Program. It offers the best deals and high level support from their staff, store credit, discounts and a lot more. Visit beveragepeople.com for more details.
They have all the materials for making beer, cider, cheese and many others. Colin points out that they will also give you a recipe for a Hen House brew that you can make at home and then compare to their product. Colin tells about how Hen House has grown over the last couple of years. They are tasting a new Hen House beer called Mattress Mafia. They came up with the name this way. It seems to him that there are too many mattress stores. So he wondered why there are so many of them. It is a fresh IPA, canned four days ago. They put a lot of effort into freshness.
In October they will put on the Freshtival, where many brewers will bring beer that is less than 7 days old. It will be at Sonoma Mountain Village in Rhonert Park, on Saturday, October 12. There will be several famous and less well known brewers and all of it will be less than seven days old. They will also have some of the most popular local bands performing. They will write some new music so they will have fresh music to match the beer.
Mark Carpenter says that Hen House is justly famous because they make good beer, in addition to their interesting labels. Colin tells how everybody pulls for beer quality. “Beer only matters when someone drinks it.” Everybody in production, sales, etc, knows that it is their job to make beer delicious.
They may also have some fresh hop and wet hop beers, provided that they are less than 7 days old. This is the first year of the festival and they are focussed on beer. But in the future they may branch out into other foods.
Hen House also has a brewery and distribution hub in Santa Rosa with a tasting room. They also have a barrel aging room in Petaluma, across from Lagunitas. This is only about a year old but it is growing.
Colin tells about another Hen House beer, called Phantom Time, which alludes to the Council of Nicea with Pope Sylvester and the Byzantine Emperor Constantine
Today on Brew Ha Ha, brewing legend Don Barkley is sitting in for Mark Carpenter and Herlinda Heras is also in, to celebrate Sonoma County Cider Week. Our guests are Ellen Cavalli from cider maker Tilted Shed and Derek Trowbridge from Trowbridge Cider Old World Winery.
Derek Trowbridge was a winemaker first, then he learned to make cider and fell in love with it. His family has been growing apples near Sebastopol for a long time. They do barrel aged cider, as they do in some places in Spain and France. Herlinda notes that cider is more like wine than beer, in the production process. There are yeast lees at the bottom of the bottle of cider just like in certain bers.
Don Barkley created Red Tail Ale and Eye of the Hawk, and he also founded the Mendocino Brewing Co. He has opened Hopland Tap, a wonderful venue. He brought a growler of Red Tail Ale today. It has a distinctive flavor. Hopland is the place to get some.
Ellen Cavalli says this month marks the eighth anniversary of Tilted Shed Cider. The Gravenstein Apple Fair is this weekend, kicking off the second annual Sonoma County Cider Week. There will be 18 producers total.
They made a special cider to commemorate the fair, that you can only taste there. They also have a lot of events, with cider makers, including orchard tours, cidering tours, tap takeovers, cider dinners, etc. You can get tickets at Oliver’s or at the gate.
When Tilted Shed launched its cider in 2011, they were one of two producers and now there are over twenty.
Ellen describes a special cider, they only made 30 cases, of 2018 pressing of organic dry farmed Gravensteins, with a few other varieties for balance. The alcohol is about 8%, which is like most ciders. It is dry but still tastes like apples. There are also stone fruit flavors.
Derek Trowbridge tells about his cider. It is a method called “col fondo” which comes from the Italian language, where it means “with sediment” since “col” means “with the” and “fondo” literally means the bottom, as the bottom of a bottle where the yeast settles. There is a fine layer of yeast at the bottom of the bottle.
(There is no new Brew Ha Ha show this week, due to an NFL pre-season game being broadcast on our home station KSRO, today. So here is a repeat of a show that originally ran last February, featuring the great Charlie Bamforth, professor at UC Davis.)
Prof. Charlie Bamforth, an English scientist who specializes in malting and brewing, is our guest on Brew Ha Ha today with Steve Jaxon, Mark Carpenter and Herlinda Heras. Charlie has been a professor at UC Davis since 1999, and has 40 years in the brewing industry. When he was a biochemist working on enzymes, as a post-doc student at the University of Sheffield, he found a job in his field. He has also written about the English soccer league for the English press. He is a fan of Wolverhapton Wanderers.
Herlinda Heras is the coordinator of the craft beer program at Sonoma State University. Charlie Bamforth is a professor at UC Davis. He runs a summer abroad program, teaching brewing science in the UK, for college credit. They did it in 2014 and 1016 and again this year. It is based in Nottingham. They go on a lot of field trips to malt houses, breweries and hop yards. What is Isinglass? Herlinda asks about isinglass, which is a kind of gelatin that comes from fish. It is used to make beer clear. Mark says it is still used in England to make clear beer. Charlie says it is a protien, actually a collagen.
The course takes place in the UK where the legal drinking age is 18 and a university student has to be in good standing. He says that the craft brewing industry today is based on English brewing practices.
Herlinda mentions that she will be judging the English Pie competition in England. These pies are savory and go with beer. Charlie says that the people of Wigan are called “pie eaters” since they like it so much. They are a staple of the British diet. Steve mentions that British food gets a bum rap here in the US, but there are so many tasty recipies and Charlie agrees.
Charlie tells that they’ve been teaching brewing at UC Davis since 1958. It used to be the only university beer program in the US but there is also one at Oregon State. Charlie tells that the first brewing equipment was donated in 1958 by the Lucky Lager company in San Francisco.
Mark is drinking a “fresh squeezed” beer. Earlier he had a Belgian beer, Abbé du Roc.
Charlie Bamforth says that if there is one country in the world where they have real reverence for beer, it is Belgium. Herlinda mentions that he used to work at Bass, in 1983. Charlie says that their red triangle is the oldest registered trademark in the world.
Mark Legree from Stumptown Brewery is today's featured guest on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon, Mark Carpenter and Herlinda Heras. Fridge is also here from Hen House Brewing Company. He also moonlights a bit for Stumptown, promoting the festival.
We will talk about the 17th annual Stumptown Beer Revival in Petaluma which also has a barbeque cookout. This is Mark Legree's 17th year of running the festival.
They are tasting a Sumptown beer called Hedge Maze. The BBQ is competition-level. Herlinda actually competed for nine years in the ribs contest. There are ribs and wings contests. There are judges who give awards and also a popularity contest.
Mark Carpenter asks if the judges and the public usually agree on their winners and Mark Legree says they actually often to not.
The event is August 17th. All the money they raise goes to the local senior center. It always sells out so look at Stumptown dot com and click on Beer Revival. General Admission is $75 and VIP admission is $100. There are many Sonoma County breweries there and as Mark notes, this is one of the best brewing areas in the world. It's also a great meeting point for the brewing community.
They are tasting the Ale for ALS from Russian River Brewing and it's delicious.
In the studio they also have wings, pulled pork sandwiches, tri-tip and other delights from Fog Belt Brewery.
The NorCal Brew Fest is coming up the day after tomorrow, Aug. 3. It is a part of the Sonoma County Fair.
Rich "Ricardo" Norgrove Jr., CEO and Founding Brewmaster, Peter Kruger, COO and Jeremy Grenert, the Marketing Director are here from Bear Republic Brewing Company. Rich and his father started Bear Republic 25 years ago in Rohnert Park. Now his father is retiring and Rich will become the CEO. Rich loves customization and thinks of his role as CEO as facilitating that energy among his staff, who can do the job "better than me now." They call their Rohnert Park taproom Bear Republic Lakeside and it is near Sonoma State University. Herlinda asks Rich what they have learned from the students there. Rich says that freshness and quality are important.
Rich met Mark before he got into beer. He was working at a mountain bike manufacturer and Mark came in to ask if they could make some motorcycle parts. Mark's card said, "Brewmaster, Anchor" and he asked Mark about getting into the business. Mark has been a mentor to Rich ever since.
Jeremy Grenert oversees marketing for the brewery. They prefer that the beer do the talking but they know that they have deep roots in Sonoma County and they enjoy keeping up strong relationships. The largest change, he says, is how beer is getting to the consumer. There is more pouring and serving with self-distribution, instead of just shipping cans and bottles. The growth of craft brewing has created competition which feeds innovation. For example, they are tasting a cucumber Göse beer. Rich explains how it is brewed, without using too much cucumber or salt. They do strain out the seeds.
Racer 5 IPA is their biggest seller that represents west coast style. It has won many awards. It's always one of the top two or three west coast IPAs. They export to several countries and Japan is one of their largest export markets. They do special labels, for example for the UK. Their license was in the first 500 breweries and there are now 6500 or 7000 of them. The industry is that young and they just happened to come along early.
Rich says that one of their most important jobs is the buying of hops. Two or three times a year in the Fall they have to go to Yakima, Washington to test the hops and get their supplies. They use about 500 acres of hops every year for Racer 5 so it is a "fun challenge" to keep the product consistent and high quality. Mark Carpenter describes a process he used to test the flavor of hops, by putting some fresh hops into a glass of a light beer, to let it steep, then he could taste the hops in the beer. It's another way of tasting them, other than rubbing them in your hands to heat them up and warm them.
Gabe Jackson from The Beverage People is here today with Steve Jaxon, Mark Carpenter and Herlinda Heras. Plus, later in the show we have a phone call from Tara Nurin, from New Orleans.
The Beverage People is a retailer that has all the supplies, ingredients, equipment and instruction for home brewing and for making other foods at home, including wine, cider, mead, cheese, olive oil. Home brewing was legalized in 1979. The company started in San Rafael, as Great Fermentations then created a second location in Santa Rosa in 1980. They changed the name to The Beverage People in the mid 1980s.
They have classes on brewing, winemaking, cider making, cheesemaking, etc. They sell a beer kit for a 5-gallon batch of home brewed beer. They have brought the brewing tank to the studio, and also some hops and cold live yeast. They sell small amounts of ingredients and they pack yeast especially for 5-gallon batches. There are short and long classes all the time on all their subjects.
If you have an olive tree you can harvest the fruit and process the olives at home. You can do Greek style (the dry salt method, -ed.) or with lye. (There is also a brine process.)
Tara Nurin calls in from New Orleans, at Tales of the Cocktail. It is the biggest cocktail party and bartender convention in the world. There are seminars and parties and tastings, all for the community of people who work in the beverage business. They are actually talking about preventing sexual harassment, inclusivity, mental health and wellness in the restaurant community.
Dave McLean and Martin Voigt are back on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Mark Carpenter this week to talk about the Outside Lands festival which will be going on August 9, 10 & 11 in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. Dave is a partner in Admiral Maltings which produces malt for Bay Area brewers. Herlinda Heras has judged beer in various competitions with Martin Voigt who was on the show last September. He is a beer blogger from Austria and had extended his California trip to attend the festival.
This is the 12th year of the Outside Lands festival and the 8th year of Beerlands. There is no beer competition, it’s just three days of great beer, wine and restaurants doing a “Taste of the Bay Area” showcase. There are 30 breweries in Brewlands, including Anchor. There is Ace Cider and Bear Republic and Lost Coast, Sierra Nevada, Speakeasy and Seismic, among others. There is also Winelands, which has been on every year, with a VIP area.
The Gastromatic Stage may be the most interesting place in the festival, including butchery going on with live music on the same stage. Oxbow Market from Napa is now curating Cheese Lands, too. There will be different kinds of beer. Dave McLean tells how it's hard for it not to become an IPA festival but there are other varieties there too.
Martin Voigt says that there are good reasons why the American brewers are winning awards for their Pilsner beers, over the German producers.
Mark is tasting an IPA from the Freewheeling Brewing Company in Redwood City, which uses Admiral Malting's malt.
Dave McLean's Admiral Malting also has a taproom, in a beautiful old redwood timber building. They have a little restaurant and Herlinda says the food is really good! You can see the malting floor from the dining room. It is located on the old Navy base in Alameda. They serve only beers that use their malt.
Martin Voigt points out the importance of malt in beer. Dave McLean says you build your recipe starting from the malt and you achieve the flavor of the beer on top of that foundation.
This special Tuesday edition of Brew Ha Ha features Christopher Jackson, from Seismic Brewing. His family owns Jackson Family Wines. He felt brewing and winemaking are closely related that he wanted to make world-class beer in an environmentally sustainable way. He and his partners started planning four years ago and started producing two years ago.
Now Seismic Brewing has a new home of its own. They are opening a new taproom in Sebastopol. Its first day is tomorrow, July 3. It is right on Sebastopol Avenue, Hwy 12 turns into Sebastopol Ave. just as you enter the town. They have about 30,000 cars per day that pass by.
They will not make their own food but Kendra from Farmer’s Wife will provide sandwiches and Sebastopol Cookie Co. cookies and Volo Chocolate from Windsor, just some choice local food products from the community.
They will have as many as 12 or 15 beers at one time, with 13 to start with. Herlinda has sampled every one and Christohper has brought the Steinstrasse and Danger Zone brews. Danger Zone won a Silver Medal. It is very tart and if you like that style, it’s great. “If you like light American lagers, or if you like heavy-handed IPAs, we’ve got something for everyone.”
Christopher is proud that his brewery was built with sustainable practices including water efficiency and is close to carbon neutrality. He credits Ken Grossman for helping him by sharing his wisdom and experience. He has spoken to all the prominent local brewers to learn about their best practices.
Next week, Dave McLean from Admiral Malting will be in the studio talking about Outside Lands, the beer and music festival set for next August.
Steve Gonzalez from Stone Brewing in Napa is our guest on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon, Mark Carpenter and Herlinda Heras. Check out the Stone Brewing blog too, here.
Stone Brewing is based at Stone Brewing World Gardens & Bistro, a big facility located in Escondido, near San Diego. They also have a brewery in Richmond, Virginia and Shanghai, China. They opened their Napa location in May. It is in an 1877 stone building. It has been a warehouse and a dance hall at different times. There is a restaurant there that gets rave reviews. They have an outdoor smoker for brisket and ribs. They also have a lot of vegetarian choices on the menu.
Their co-founders, Steve Wagner and and Greg Cook, met each other in Los Angeles in the music business and then they met again in a brewing class at UC Davis. They recognized each other and became friends.
They are drinking a Hoppy Lager, 5.8% alcohol, that used three hops, including one that Mark had not heard about. It's Stone Tropic Thunder Lager (second from the left in the picture above). It's called Cashmere.
They opened a brewery in Europe to supply their export market. Now they have sold the Berlin brewery to Brew Dogs which has had their UK distribution already for a long time. The Stone IPA is about half of their volume. Arrogant Bastard is one of their most famous brew brands too. They also have a location in Shanghai, China. Mark notes that there are many beer brands that have opened locations like that as a way of asserting their brand. They are tasting Hoppy Beans IPA and comparing it to some Belgian chocolate that Herlinda brought in. There is coffee in this beer. The coffee comes from a local roaster who has very innovative coffee techniques, which they describe.
Herlinda Heras and Mark Carpenter have guests from The Sonoma-Marin Fair, with food and beer pairings to discover. The second day of the Sonoma-Marin fair in Petaluma is today. It's a great little fair with a hometown feel. Since Petaluma is known for beer, they have a homebrew competition. Cristy from the Sonoma-Marin Fair has brought fair food for some pairings of beer with fair food. It starts with corn dogs and ends with funnel cakes, with everything in between, like pulled pork, tri-tip, chicken kebob and all the fixins. They are all from concessionaires at the fair.
Bob Peek is in, he used to own The Beverage People. He probably either taught all the home brewers or they took his class or bought equipment from him.
Lagunitas is a major sponsor of the fair. Herlinda mentions that Golden State Cider is also there, also Ace Cider. Cider and BBQ go very well together.
A sweet tropical stout beer goes well with spicy food. The Kiwanas Club is a sponsor that takes care of beer and wine. Herlinda finds that the Lagunitas IPA goes well with a corn dog. "We are selflessly devoting ourselves to this research for the benefit of the community. I hope you all appreciate that, as we are sitting here eating and drinking and enjoying ourselves, we're doing it for you!" --Pete Foppiano Mark remembers Santa Rosa Brewing Company and its brewer Tim O'Day. He came from Britain and worked there for five years. They opened in 1993 and worked until 1998 and they won a gold medal during that time.
The Chicken Kebob comes from Jim's Smokehouse Barbeque. It has peppers and onions and it's huge.
This may not be the largest fair on the map but the people like it because it's a nice size and has one admission ticket for unlimited rides. This is great for families with small children who like to take rides over and over again.
Funnel Express Funnel Cakes will donate their wares for the funnel cake eating contest. Herlinda has one with Nutella, strawberry and vanilla custard, with some Lagunitas Little Sumpin' on the side.
The Sonoma-Marin Fair Homebrew Contest attracts a lot of entrants and attention from beer fans all over. Mark tells how Copper was a metal that brewers could work with, before the age of stainless steel. Anchor Brewing had its original copper kettles but copper wears out so instead of replacing with stainless steel they kept it in copper.
Mark mentions the animals at the fair, rabbits, chickens, sheep, pigs, etc. Sarah mentions that they also have extensive educational materials on display with big screens. The 4H and FFA kids take great care with their animals and caring for them. They also have a petting zoo and a humane society cuddle station where you can also adopt a pet.
Today Herlinda Heras tells about La Chouffe Beer from Normandy, which she discovered recently. Pete Foppiano is sitting in for Steve Jaxon today, on a special abbreviated edition of Brew Ha Ha (cut short for the last time this season for an NBA basketball game on home station KSRO). Herlinda and her father, a Navy veteran, are just back from France where they attended the 75th annual commemoration of the Allied landing in Normandy on D-Day.
Herlinda was in charge of finding the good places to find food and beer on the trip through, France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. In one place, you got a tab card, and you could swipe the card to pay for your selection from among 200 taps.
At one point, they were in Wallonia, the French part of Belgium. Herlinda met the founder of La Chouffe beer, who knows Mark Carpenter. He may visit California to see Mark and other friends in the beer business like Pete Schlosberg.
Herlinda calls in from Normandy, France, where she is attending the ceremony for the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion. She is a few miles from Omaha Beach where the troops landed on June 6, 1944. She attended the memorial ceremony at the American Cemetery. Herlinda will be back next week with some Cider and Calvados from Normandy and some French wine for Steve.
Sarah-Jane Wiseman, Michelle Novacel from Lagunitas and Adriana D’Aubuisson from the Sonoma County Public Library are here to tell about Books and Brews, an event to raise money for the Sonoma Public Library that is happening this Saturday June 8 from 7-9 pm at the Central Library in Santa Rosa. Adriana works for the non-profit foundation that raises funds to support the libraries in the county. This is the first Books and Brews event which they plan to make into an annual event.
The Community Giving Department of Lagunitas has been working with thousands of non-profits in the community for a long time. Sarah-Jane has been a “beer fairy” for the eight years she has worked for Lagunitas. 60% of their donations go to non-profits inside Sonoma county. Last year they donated to 6500 events. They try to donate in every state where they legally can. They have an easy application on their website for non-profits to ask for help with their events.
This event will also include other breweries, not just Lagunitas. The other partners are also local, like Bear Republic, Henhouse, Russian River, Golden State ciders, in addition to non-alcoholic beverages.
Adriana tells about the 3D printer and the piano that they have available there. The library also has a lot of programs to promote literacy and reading.
Mark comments on the Lagunitas Summer Lager, a clean crisp beer. He also likes Lagunitas Daytime, which is only 4% alcohol, so it’s light that way but has a lot of flavor.
Rebecca Newman is our first guest today on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Mark Carpenter. Rebecca is the Director of Global Quality for Lagunitas Brewing.
We also have Dr. Hoby Wedler back on the show. He holds a PhD in Chemistry from UC Davis, is blind, and is a renowned expert on perception science. He will talk about some of his work later in the show.
Rebecca Newman has been doing this job for three decades for different companies. She was recruited by Anheuser-Busch after she graduated from UC Davis. She worked there with some Japanese colleagues and learned how to make Sake, how to taste and understand it. Then she met the folks at Sierra Nevada and ended up working there. At UC Davis she majored in Food Science & Technology with a minor in Nutrition and Fermentation Science. In quality control, they want to measure “the magic” to make sure the product is consistent. They help the brewers to achieve their goals.
It is all focussed on flavor and human experience. Mark Carpenter, who was a brewer, says that smart brewers love to have people like Rebecca around, because even the educated brewers don’t’ know enough and they have to concentrate on the acdtual brewing. It’s valuable to have someone to explain what’s happening in the brewing process who can help fix problems or help brewers focus on the results they really want. She uses both scientific measurements and articulation of the sensory side. They to lots of tasting testing at Lagunitas for quality control.
When they taste beer, unlike wine tasting, they swallow the beer because they need the whole mouth feel and need “the whole trigeminal” nerve, where the jaw and the cheek meet. Dr. Hoby Wedler Dr. Hoby Wedler is a renowned PhD Chemist with a degree from UC Davis, who does original research into taste perception. He is blind and his focus has been on full sensory design and the science of human perception through the senses.
He tells about his work with beer, wine and spirits. He is co-founder of Senspoint Design, where they use full sensory design to test products, to study human perception and to record perceptions of beer, wine and spirits. They are in the midst of launching a spirits line so they are doing a lot of sensory research into that product.
They do a beer tasting in the dark, where they actually blindfold people to taste beer. “The blind tastings give us the chance to think differently about beer.” When we are not distracted by the vision of beer, we lose the 85 or 90 percent of the perception that we normally get from sight.
He is based in Petaluma and works with the Petaluma Educational Foundation. This week’s show is short because there is a live Golden State Warriors playoff game coming up on home station KSRO in Santa Rosa, so Hoby Wexler and Rebecca Newman will be back on the show. Phase Change Before the end, Rebecca Newman talks about a beer from Lagunitas called Phase Change which is a wet hopped beer in the spring
They loved the fresh hops and to use them out of season, they “slurried up” whole cone hops from 2018 put them under nitrogen co2 to freeze them, topped with nitrogen and flash frozen. The Lagunitas website describes it thusly: Hops are good, fresh hops are better, wet hops are best. We say 'wet hops' because they have not been dried after harvest. We say 'better' because they possess the fullest expression of hop flavor; vine-fresh.
Lost Coast Brewery and Oysterpalooza are both featured on Brew Ha Ha today. Brandon from Rocker Oysterfeller's is here to promote Oysterpalooza and Jack Van Stone from Lost Coast Brewery has brought several of their beers. Lost Coast Brewery Lost Coast Brewery is located in downtown Eureka, California, on the northern California coast before you reach Oregon. The brewery started in 1989 so this is their 30th anniversary. People call the area the Lost Coast since it is not served by the 1 or the 101. The 1 joins the 101 at Leggett, 80 miles south of Eureka, leaving about 85 miles of the coast not served by a major highway. That makes it hard to reach but has kept it uncrowded. It is also pristine and gorgeous.
Lost Coast Brewery's owners Barbara Groom and Wendy Pound were a Pharmacist and Family Therapist, respectively. They travelled northern Europe and learned brewing, then built this great enormous brewery. They also make cider now.
Mark has known Lost Coast as one of the early independent craft brewers, since they started in 1989. Lost Coast Brewery makes a beer called Great White, which is their number one product. It’s very crisp, clean and drinkable, says Mark.Today, Lost Coast has added some IPAs to their production, because of their popularity.
Mark knows a lot of the old brewers because a lot of them came by Anchor to visit Mark and see what they were doing there, back when there were only a few other brewers around.
They taste a beer called Peanut Butter Chocolate Milk Stout. Herlinda says it’s not super sweet, Mark says because the sugars get fermented away. Steve finds it delicious but can only have a few sips. It’s genius but “not something I want to pound down,” says Mark. They did beer flavored like cupcakes, brownies and someone wants to do cheesecake. Steve asks, what’s the point? It’s definitely more of a niche. Herlinda remembers that “Belching Beaver Peanut Butter Milk Stout” was one of the original beers off this type.
Jack says that the Summer is a great time to visit Eureka, the weather and the coast are spectacular. Lost Coast is available at Bottle Barn. Rocker Oysterfeller’s and Oysterpalooza Rocker Oysterfeller’s is located at 14415 Hwy One, Valley Ford, CA. They are putting on the annual Oysterpalooza, a music and food festival on Memorial Day weekend, in a few days. There will be music from The Texas II (who sound like Willie Nelson or Hank Williams), Black Sheep Brass Band and Arann Harris coming out of retirement just for Oysterpalooza. They also have a band called Van Goat that plays Swing Punk.It’s very energetic swing music with a lot of horns.
Oysters of course are the primary focus. Herlinda describes it as being “...like an old fashioned fair, you can sit on hay bales, there is great music, there is space to roam around and meet people, the food is great and the scenery is beautiful."
Speaking of big concert festivals, Bottlerock is also this weekend, in Napa. In addition to Rocker Oysterfeller's, they also have a Mexican restaurant called Tortilla Flats, named after the John Steinbeck book. They will make all the carnitas and salsa. They’ll also be doing deep fried oysters, which can be done in sandwiches or lettuce wraps.
They taste an Oyster Stout, an old style. Mark explains that in England, before they really knew about the chemistry of beer, they tried putting oysters in the beer, which probably added nutrition for the yeast and would affect the taste too. Henhouse still makes an oyster stout. They had a beer called Indica Pale Ale before the TTB so the name is grandfathered in.
Rocker Oysterfeller's has been open for 13 years. It is an antique hotel and the rooms are comfortable and homey. The restaurant is southern influenced and since they are in Valley Ford they are surrounded by oyster farms and dairy farms, so they use the local production on their menu.
Pete Foppiano is sitting in for Steve Jaxon today on Brew Ha Ha, Mark Carpenter and Herlinda Heras are also in, and Fal Allen is back, the head brewer from Anderson Valley Brewing up in Boontville. Don Winkle is also here, he is a local attorney and expert in alcohol law. He prefers the term “cold beer attorney.” Fal Allen was last on Brew Ha Ha in August of 2018, here is the podcast page of that episode.
Fal Allen has brought his new Brut IPA, the Boonville Gold, a super light easy-drinking beer, and for extreme contrast, the Treble Kern, which is their triple wort fermented brew with a house mixed culture, which is then soured and they add currants to it. It takes about 18 months to make and is barrel fermented. It is available year-round.
There are over 7000 breweries in America now, which provide demand for services like Don Winkle’s because the liquor laws are complex. Herlinda asked Don to come on the show to discuss some legal issues. For example, Herlinda sometimes has to try to get beer for charity events. There are a lot of laws that non-profits or anyone needs to be aware of if you are selling beer at a fund-raiser. There are a lot of these events throughout the coming Summer season.
Don Winkle says you should think of a non-profit as a vendor and a brewer can only sell to a licensed retailer or wholesaler. If a non-profit is pouring beer they become a retail licensee for that day. This allows the manufacturer to donate or sell beer to them. There are a lot of details and obligations to get the documentation right.
Thribble is a Boontling word. Fal Allen tells about Bootling, the local Mendocino dialect that was invented among the residents there. Thribble means three times.
Fal Allen heard about the Brut IPA style and he liked it, so he decided to make one too. He got all the information from all the people who were developing it. He didn’t have to do a lot of experimentation himself. It uses an enzyme that breaks down a lot of the more complex sugars into simpler ones, so the yeast consumes more of it, making a dryer beer that features the hops more than other beers. It is very dry, accessible and drinkable. It is about 7% alcohol. Mark hears that they do late-addition hopping.
Herlinda mentions Boston Beer Company, makers of Sam Adams, and Dogfish Head Brewers, have announced a very surprising merger. Fal Allen thinks it is a good merger, since Dogfish has strengths in marketing and Sam Adams is strong in distribution. Now with 7000 breweries in America, shelf space is at a premium.
Norman Greenbaum is our guest on Brew Ha Ha today, joining Steve Jaxon, Mark Carpenter and Herlinda Heras. Norman wrote and performed the iconic 1969 song "Spirit in the Sky." Herlinda Heras is back from her trip to Portugal and has brought three Portuguese beers to taste.
Norman Greenbaum is a longtime Sonoma County resident. Steve asks Norman if he is still surprised at the success of his song. It has been in movies and commercials and continues to have its own life. Any band or singer wants to have a hit record, and he was lucky to have a hit on the charts. He says he may have been a one-hit wonder but it has been in over 60 movies and a couple dozen commercials. It was in an ad for Audi in the last Super Bowl.
Spirit in the Sky was in the Budweiser Discovery Reserve American Red Lager beer advertisement. The beer was brewed to commemorate the 1969 moon landing. The song was recorded in San Francisco.
Herlinda asks Norman to tell the story of the song and he remembers various scenes and themes from old Western films. The Stovall Sisters were his backup singers, they were from Oakland where they also sang in church. Mark Carpenter remembers the environment of the late 1960s and remembers the song as a really big hit.
Herlinda Heras has brought beers from Portugal, including an "APA" which they call an American Pale Ale. Praxis Brewery is in Coimbra which is famous for having really good water. The Praxis family younger generation has revived the brewery and Mark says it's a great example of Europeans doing an American style. It is 6% alcohol which is reasonable. There is also an 8/5% double Bock from Vaida Brewery outside of Aveiro which is south of Porto. Herlinda has also brought a beer with a woman on the label.
Norman Greenbaum remembers that New York was a center of music recording but he was not fond of the city. He had heard that Hollywood was the other center of that business so he went to LA and started Dr. West's Medicine Show and Junk Band and got signed immediately. The Eggplant that Ate Chicago was their first hit.
Now his songs have been in countless commercials and movies. Norman does say he is flabbergasted and thanks "the Spirit in the Sky for taking such good care of me." He never gets tired of hearing it even if he wrote it. It still sends shivers up his spine.
Norman has brought a special guitar today which is from Portugal. He bought it at the flea market in Petaluma for $25, 40 years ago and brought it to a luthier for repairs. It disappeared and 42 years later, the guy contacted him saying it was fixed! It is called a Viola de Terra made of birds-eye maple.
Today on Brew Ha Ha Steve Jaxon gets the whole story from Mark Carpenter about Anchor Brewing, its history and historical context, its production and its role in American brewing. (We were expecting guests from San Francisco’s Fort Point Beer Co. but they are stuck in traffic and will reschedule.)
Mark Carpenter started working at Anchor Brewing in 1971 after he met its owner Fritz Maytag. Mark was looking for a more interesting and rewarding line of work and found that at Anchor. Mark retired a few years ago and Anchor's new brewmaster is Ramon Tamayo, who was also on the show recently.
Right now, Mark is tasting a Shadow of a Doubt Imperial Porter from Russian River Brewing Co. It’s warm but it’s fine, Mark says that if a beer is good it should be good at room temperature too.
"In warm countries they drink cold beer, in cold countries they drink warm beer." The beer is named after the Alfred Hitchcock film Shadow of a Doubt which was filmed in Santa Rosa in 1943.
Mark talks about the Fort Point, an interesting brewery, says Mark. They do a Kölsch. All over Germany, the towns had their own styles of beer. Then Lager beer was invented and they all switched to that. But Kolsch is a surviving local beer from the city of Cologne (called Köln in German). An Imperial Porter means it's a black beer. Compared to a Stout, a Porter is sweeter. It also has nice flavors. "Imperial" means it is higher in alcohol, this is 10%.
So without our expected guests, Steve invites Mark to tell the whole Anchor Brewing story which starts with what a city San Francisco was in the last 1960s. They were protesting the Vietnam War and there was an abundance of great music at venues like the Fillmore. Mark remembers the background of the city where people were looking for ways to do something more inspiring than his "normal" job.
Mark would visit any American city and visit its breweries. He visited Coors in Colorado and Pabst in Wisconsin and took brewery tours. Steve is from Detroit and asks if Mark visited Stroh's there, but he hasn't. Stroh's called itself "fire brewed" which was a common European process in the late 1800s where beer was heated in copper kettles heated by fire, not steam. Mark says that steam applies less heat than a gas flame which gives some caramel color and flavor that steam does not. Stroh's was the only beer in America that was fire brewed. Stroh's today is owned by Pabst but it's not the same and is not fire brewed anymore.
Mark always says he was lucky to get the job at Anchor. It was the smallest brewery in America at the time. They worked hard to build their reputation. Before they had volume sales, they only brewed once a month but sales steadily increased. Mark gives Fritz Maytag credit for having great business vision for the brewery, from the time he acquired it in 1965. Fritz had heard that the brewery would be closing and he went to visit it. He saw magic and potential and wound up buying it. He would say that he paid "less than you pay for a good car."
It was a nineteenth century brewery. There was no refrigeration. It was a very crude little brewery and Fritz invested money into it. Fritz wanted to make sure that Anchor was known not just for Anchor Steam Beer. At first they had Anchor Steam Dark which simply had caramel coloring added. Fritz wanted to develop the Porter to replace that to do it right. They even started distilling in 1993.
Herlinda Heras opens the show with a live phone call from Aveiro, Portugal, where she is a judge in the Ibeerian Beer Awards (Ibeerian spelled with two EEs). Portugal and Spain have a great emerging craft beer market. Portugal in the past didn’t attract so many American tourists but Herlinda saw many fellow Americans in Lisbon on this trip. Aveiro is a beautiful old town with canals and is known as the Venice of Portugal. The Ibeerian Beer Awards have judges from 13 countries.
Steve Jaxon and Mark Carpenter welcome Kevin Verstrepen, a yeast expert from Belgium, and Vinny Cilurzo from Russian River Brewing Co.
Vinny Cilurzo has brought Kevin to the show because there is a big convention in Rhonert Park, right here in Sonoma County, this week, all about the yeast in beer and wine. The American Society of Brewing Chemists and The American Society for Enology and Viticulture held the Joint Yeast Symposium (April 24-26, 2019).
Mark tells about how the author Michael Pollan has said that yeast are smarter than people because they have gotten people to propagate them and grow them all around the world. Kevin says humans have domesticated yeast the same as we have done with dogs and cats.
Pasteur proved that yeast cells were the engine of beer brewing, without it you don’t get alcohol or carbon dioxide. It’s not like yeast has its own flavors, but it also makes other products in much lower quantities that produce taste. Some are similar to the substances that give fruit its flavors.
Mark notes that you can also get flavors you don’t want, so you have to make sure you control time and temperature so you don’t get that.
Yeast is a fantastic microscopic world. Kevin describes lots of different kinds of yeast that may be very different from one to the other. There is a family tree of yeast. Vinny notes that some wineries use native natural yeast.
Vinny describes the right side of their menu board as the Belgian-inspired side. Many of those beers use different yeasts that they have to be careful to keep apart. Those are the more yeast-driven beers that they do, with wild yeast or Belgian yeast. Belgian white beer uses a special kind of yeast.
VIB, where Kevin works, is a university lab. They work with yeast to develop products also for science and industry. Sometimes they work for yeast companies or big breweries that need special characteristics.
Many great breakthroughs in Medicine have come through yeast cells. Kevin says they are similar to human cells, but simpler, and they lend themselves to research to unravel the basic secrets of life.
Today we meet the 420 Waldos, the guys who started the term "420" back when they were in high school in Marin County in the 1970s.
They tell the story of how they invented the name Waldos at San Rafael High School in 1971. They go by "Waldo Dave" and "Waldo Steve" and Herlinda has also invited Sam from Lagunitas. Herlinda met them at a Lagunitas limited-release party a few years ago.
Steve and Dave tell about being high school students who hung out and kept themselves amused with interesting things they discovered. They took trips looking for inspiration. They heard about some hologram inventors in Palo Alto. He brought his friends the next week and Dave named these trips a "Safari" which meant it was like a scouts trip, but they were high.
They called themselves the Waldos because they would hang out on a wall, cracking jokes. One of them sais his brother was in the Coast Guard and rumor had it there was a secret pot garden that some of them had started. They had a map so they decided to meet at 4:20 PM in front of the statue of Louis Pasteur to get high before they went out looking for the patch. They would say "420 Louis" then just "420" and they liked that they could talk about pot without others understanding. When they went away to college, others picked up the expression. One of their brothers was good friends with the bass player of the Grateful Dead. He worked as a roadie and ticket collector for the band. They had a lot of fun and spread the term among the Deadheads that attended the shows. It seeped into their lexicon.
They can't trademark the term "420" because it is too much in common usage. But they do have trademarks on "420 Waldos" and "1971 420 Waldos."
They taste the Waldo Special Ale which is 11.7% alcohol. About eight years ago Ron Lindenbusch had done some other tribute beers with Frank Zappa and his family, and others. They had tons of barrels with different hops. They chose the hops that smelled the most like marijuana and used them to brew the beer. It's a big hoppy triple IPA. Some Columbus, Citrus, Mosaic hops, which all together resemble the flavors of marijuana.
The Waldos hung out on a wall in between classes, not while smoking, but they make jokes there and 420 was only the tip of the iceberg of their whole Waldo culture of inside jokes and wisecracks.
Mark Carpenter also talks about the Lagunitas Daytime beer that he is drinking today, which is only about 4% alcohol.
Herlinda mentions HR 420, a bill in Congress to take Marijuana off Schedule One, a list that includes hard drugs.
In the late 90s, High Times magazine met with them and wrote an article about them. Then in the early 2000s, the term spread on the Internet. There was a celebration on Hippie Hill in San Francisco and they took care to clean up the trash that was being left. They still remind people to pick up their trash.
For the rest of the show they tell story after story about the Waldos and their hilarious history.
Adam Spiegel from Sonoma Distilling Company is back with Steve Jaxon, Mark Carpenter and Herlinda Heras today. Adam tells how they started with a 700 square foot distillery, then into a 6000 square foot facility for the last five years, and now they have a new 12,000 square foot facility with a 9000 square foot barrel room. Now he can make more whiskey and better whiskey.
He started making beer and wine, then grappa, then whiskey. He explains what grappa is, which is a distilled product made from the pumice, the leftover crushed grapes and other material that is left over after wine is made. They “rehydrate” the material then distill it. The pots distillation method will produce a lower alcohol, more full bodied whiskey, with more viscosity and esters and mouth feel. This is what he wants in a premium product and he will continue to do it.
Mark helped start the distilling program at Anchor Brewing and they had licenses to do distilling, wine and beer. Each one had to be a separate operation, but you could have all three. The winery was actually across the street. Adam says that Mark paved the way for him. Anchor was one of the first 40 distilleries in the US. Adam was one of the first 200 American distillers in 2010 and now there are over 1800. Even in Sonoma County there are about 25.
He describes their year-round Rye and Bourbon whiskeys and their seasonal cherrywood rye and cherrywood smoked bourbon. He uses the flavored whiskeys to make reduction sauces.
Herlinda mentions that Adam was just on the cover of Whiskey International magazine.
They have pot stills instead of column stills. Columns stills are good at a single pass, distilling a product over and over again and they are very efficient. Pot stills are a lot more work but produce “...highly viscous, super-ester-driven really full-bodied whiskies.” Adam says this is the California ethos of whiskey production. They use new char American oak. They use some 30 gallon barrels for more rapid aging, which allowed him to sell his product sooner. Mark agrees that the new charred barrels make the whiskey come to life much quicker.
In part two, Herlinda Heras welcomes two representatives of the Pink Boots Society, an international organization for women who are involved in any way in the beer business. Mark thinks it’s great that there are women working in breweries now. Sarah Gibbons from the Stone Brewery Restaurant and Taproom in downtown Napa and Katie Green who works at Grav South Brewery in Cotati.
The Pink Boots Society was created for women in brewing to have a community. Teri Fahrendorf founded it with Laura Ulrich who is the current president. They are tasting a promotional brew, a Brut IPA, a c0llaboration brew made by some Pink Boots society members. One of the hops is an experimental hops named the Lotus, and another, Mosaic. (The inventor of the Brut IPA style, Kim Sturdevant, was on Brew Ha Ha last November, here is the episode.)
Sarah describes the Stone Brewing building in Napa, which is a historical building and they do a lot to maintain it. They have phenomenal brewers making Napa-specific beer. They also have their big brewery in Escondido, near San Diego.
Vinnie and Natalie Cilurzo are here to celebrate the 15th anniversary of Russian River Brewing Company in their Santa Rosa location.
Steve and Vinny tell the story how Vinny was running the brewery at Korbel, as a consultant. Then they opened another brewery at Lake Sonoma Winery which is now Sbragia. But in 2002 Korbel decided to get out of the beer business and Vinny wanted to keep the brewery going so he traded his severance for the Russian River name and raised $750k. That is how they started.
The rest of the show is the rest of the story. (34 min)
Craft brewing legend Don Barkley is back on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon, Mark Carpenter and Herlinda Heras today.
Don tells the story of how his career began with Red Tail Ale, which he came up with in the early ‘80s. He founded Mendocino Brewing Co. in 1981 after he had worked at New Albion, the first craft brewery. They were operating in the Hopland Brewery. Now Don Barkley and Ron Lindenbusch are producing Red Tail Ale and Eye of the Hawk again, and they are both on tap at the newly reopened Hopland Tap House.
For now, Red Tail Ale is on draft. They might produce it in cans later on. Right now they are making the beer at the Napa Smith Brewery. Don operated that brewery for about 10 years so he knows the equipment and the people, as well as the recipe. They use the same amount of hops during the boil but then they add a little more hops. They use Cascade, Cluster and Centennial. You can taste the male because the hops are light. The new Red Tail is 6/1% alcohol.
They were inspired to name Eye of the Hawk by another beer that was called Eye of the Partridge. Don Barkley worked with Jack McCauliffe at New Albion Brewery in 1978. They made 100 cases of beer per week. Herlinda mentions that the Smithsonian interviewed Jack for their exhibit about brewing.
Herlinda mentions that The Pink Boots Society has made a beer called Till There Are Nine beer dedicated to Ruth Bader Ginzburg.
They taste the Eye of the Hawk beer which they notice has a little more alcohol than Red Tail Ale. Dan Barkley says that his beers all finish clean on the palette. Blue Heron was a Mendocino Brewing Co. IPA that for its time had strong hop flavors, although today it would seem mild.
Dan remembers they used to have events for 4th of July, their anniversary and for Oktoberfest. As part of the festivities there was always a keg toss. They didn't use a little 5 gallon keg, though. They used big 15.5 gallon kegs and it took some strength to throw them. Their champion was also the n.5 shot putter in the USA at the time and he put it 118" out into the sand pit.
Lastly they taste a barley wine called Talon. They keep it on the yeast for one year. This bottle is probably 12 years old.
Pete Foppiano is sitting in for Steve Jaxon this week as Herlinda Heras and Mark Carpentner review some beers, rum and cocktail recipes that Herlinda has brought back from her trip to Puerto Rico.
Herlinda has brought beer and rum back from Puerto Rico. They start tasting with a beer from Ocean Lab Brewery in Puerto Rico, one of the coolest breweries Herlinda has ever seen. They took an old convention center that had been vacant for ten years. They have a private beach. This beer has a passion fruit flavor. To help the smaller breweries in Puerto Rico, this bigger brewers
Herlinda was in Puerto Rico for Tales of the Cocktail, an event that was started after Hurricane Maria. This organization is similar to efforts in New Orleans to bring tourists back after Katrina. All of the attendees did some service for the island. Herlinda and Tara Nurin did a beach cleanup with the Surfrider Foundation. Bacardi is still privately owned and Herlinda says they have a lot of women in management. The piña colada was invented in Puerto Rico.
There are some tax challenges that brewers face in Puerto Rico. They use the US dollar and Herlinda heard that the consensus there is that they would like to be a state. Some people were without power for 10 months after Hurricane Maria. She met some brewers who had to carry water by burro in order to keep making beer after the hurricane. Herlinda heard a lot of stories about how people were surviving. They needed to make beer in order to stay in business.
Puerto Rican breweries pay $2.55 per gallon, which Mark points out, multiplied by 31 makes the tax per barrel. The highest tax in the US is $18 per barrel but they are paying $79 per barrel.