Mark Carpenter and Herlinda Heras are both back from their recent travels. Mark was in Finland and Poland and Herlinda was at Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany. Mark tells about a pub in Helsinki that has real English ale. He also visited Poland, to see some famous horses in Eastern Poland. There is a book called The Perfect Horse which is about this horse farm. He brought some beers back, including an English style ale from Poland. He enjoyed Warsaw and learned that it had been completely destroyed in World War II and restored in the old style after that. His local guide showed him all the good local beers. Mark describes a kind of traditional Finnish beer that he drinks when he is there. Then, the vast majority of beer in Poland is lager from major breweries. But there are hundreds of local brands. […]

Robert Nathanson of Palmia Beer in San Francisco is our guest on Brew Ha Ha today. (This episode was originally recorded on August 23, 1018.) Robert is impressed that Mark Carpenter has been in the beer industry longer than he has been alive. His company produces Palmia Beer, which is a beer that is flavored with lemon.  Palmia comes from Spain. The founder of the company noticed “claras” which they drink in Spain, like a Radler or a Shandy. Mark says it’s a great summer beer. Steve likes it and says it’s not too sweet. Robert says the 90 calorie profile makes it unique and all the ingredients are natural. This beverage is popular throughout Europe. His business is growing; he was delivering the beer out of his own car but now he has a distributor, Morris based in Petaluma. Herlinda lists some of […]

Fred Abercrombie is in, from Lagunitas. Ron Lindenbusch was also going to come in for today’s show but he is not available, as Herlinda Heras explains, do to some issues with his reopening of one of Steve Jaxon’s favorite local venues, the old Hopland Taproom. Today they will talk about an event in Petaluma to be held next weekend, the 60th Annual Bill Soberanes Memorial Petaluma Whiskerino. Here is the event’s Facebook page, log on to FB to access it. Bill Soberanes was a longtime journalist who covered Petaluma in the local press and who was beloved by all the people whose lives he touched. He called himself a Peopleologist. Herlinda remembers serving him beer years ago. The Petaluma Whiskerino, where men come to show off beards, sideburns, goatee, moustache, business beards, etc. Lagunitas is a sponsor. There are prizes, a free photo booth […]

Martin Voigt,  the only beer blogger in Austria, is our first guest today, and Dr. Hoby Wedler is also here, together with Bob Sonnenberg and Jeff Harrington from the Earle Baum Center in Santa Rosa. Martin will talk about his trip to California to get better acquainted with the craft beer industry here. Then Dr. Hoby Wedler, an organic chemist who has been blind since birth and who is a flavor expert, will lead a blind taste test. Martin Voigt greets Steve Jaxon with “Servus!” which is a typical Austrian and central European greeting. Martin says that Marzen beer is the most popular style in Austria. It’s a lager beer. They have some Pilsners too, but mostly those are made in Germany. In the last decades, major companies have bought all the small breweries in Germany, but not in Austria, where they still have […]

Andreas Fält visits Herlinda Heras and Steve Jaxon today on Brew Ha Ha, while Mark Carpenter is still on a trip to Poland. Steve and Herlinda will be talking to Andreas about his import export beer business and judging the Great American Beer Festival next week, September 20-22, 2018 in Denver, Colorado. Steve asks Herlinda Heras about Polish beer, which she says is excellent. She and Andreas were judges at the Polish national beer competition in Poznan. Andreas Fält is originally from Sweden and lives in Leeds, England. He got into home brewing 27 years ago in Sweden. His friend taught him how to home brew. They wanted to start a brewery but the legal and tax requirements are too difficult. So they began importing Belgian and English beers. In 2006 he moved to England for a job. He was the first to bring Sierra Nevada into […]

Tony Magee, the founder of Lagunitas Brewing Company visited Brew Ha Ha back on Nov. 14, 2014 for on-air interview with Steve Jaxon. Steve is in the studio with Joe Tucker, who was his co-host on the show at the time. Steve began by asking Tony Magee to tell the story of how he got started in the brewing business. Tony Magee began, “It was Christmas 1992 and my little brother got me a home brewing kit for a Christmas present, and I brewed it in January, drank it in February. It was a California Common Beer, an Anchor Steam sort of variety, drank it in February and was immediately smitten. I had never even considered brewing before that.” He tells the story in his book, So, You Want to Start a Brewery..?  Steve asked Tony Magee if he had been a beer drinker […]

Ken Grossman, founder of Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, and Vinnie & Natalie Cilurzo from Russian River Brewing are all in the studio today with Mark Carpenter and Herlinda Heras. Steve Jaxon is away and Pete Foppiano is sitting in for him today. Mark Carpenter introduces today’s guest, his old friend and colleague in the beer business, Ken Grossman, founder of Sierra Nevada Brewing Company. He started Sierra Nevada in 1980. He made his first batch of pale ale then. He had aspirations to be one of the new small brewers in America. At the time there were only about 40 small brewers in the country. A lot of breweries were started back then and it was a challenge to get a distributor to carry a new beer. Mark asks Ken Grossman about Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. Ken just gave a talk a few weeks ago […]

Our guest is Michelle McGrath, Executive Director of the United States Association of Cider Makers, who calls in to talk to Steve, Mark and Herlinda.  (Mark and Herlinda mention that Ken Grossman will be our guest next week, he’s the founder of Sierra Nevada.) Herlinda Heras has just recently earned her certification as a CCP, a CCP Certified Cider Professional, a program administered by the USACW. Michelle lives in Portland, Oregon and she knows Steve’s son’s band, The Wild Ones, who are based in Portland. Michelle has just been listed as a “Top 40 Under 40” person in Tastemaker Magazine’s list. She’s the only person in the cider industry on the list this year. Michelle describes the Cider Association. They advocate for cider producers and growers, in public relations and government relations as well as education. Their CCP program is a way to educate people […]

Natalie Cilurzo from Russian River Brewing Co. is back on the program today, along with Peter from Stumptown Brewery and JC Fluger with J Christopher Rubs. Steve Jaxon, Mark Carpenter and Herlinda Heras mention Wilibees in Petaluma and Santa Rosa as a great place to taste a great varieties of beer and whiskey. Tuesdays they have tacos, Saturday they have bands. Peter tells about their 16th annual Russian River Revival and Cook-Off on Saturday August 18, from 1-5 PM under the bridge at Monte Rio Beach. Natalie Cilurzo is back on Brew Ha Ha. Today she was a keynote speaker at the CFO of the Year awards in San Francisco. She brought a beer called “It takes a lot of great beer to make great wine” that Russian River Brewing Company makes. Natalie says that all during harvest, the workers like a cold beer (or six). This […]

David and Scott Bice from Redwood Hill Creamery join Steve Jaxon, Mark Carpenter and Herlinda Heras today.  Their parents founded Redwood Hill Creamery and they have been making great artisan goat cheeses for more than fifty years. First, Mark Carpenter tells of his visit to San Francisco yesterday, and visited his old employer Anchor Brewing. They had opened a distillery which was not sold to Sapporo with the brewery, but they had to change its name. He tasted some whiskey that was aged in port barrels. Mark notes that it was port that they made at the brewery using Fritz Maytag’s grapes. It is amazingly smooth. The distillery is named after Anson P. Hotaling, an early San Francisco merchant and real estate investor. During the 1906 earthquake, the firemen ran a half-mile of hoses to save his whiskey warehouse. Mark remembers these verses written at […]