Freshtival 2022 is the subject today with Sayre Piotrkowski from HenHouse Brewing, who joins Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha. Freshtival is a HenHouse 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. HenHouse 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 HenHouse in the craft beer competitive environment. “The rigors of time, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Sandro Tamburin,  Old Possum Brewing Co. brewer, 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 […]

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 […]

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. […]

Tom Edwards, brewmaster at Old Caz Tom Edwards, is in the studio with Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha. Paul Matlock and Dan Ferris from the 20/30 Club of Santa Rosa will also talk about the Battle of the Brews which takes place April 9, 2022 at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds. Dan Ferris 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 […]