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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Colin from HenHouse 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 HenHouse brew that you can make at home and then compare to their product. Colin tells about how HenHouse has grown over the last couple of years. They are tasting a new HenHouse beer called Mattress Mafia. They came up with the name this […]

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 […]

(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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]