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 […]

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 […]

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. […]

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 […]

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 […]

Anderson Valley Brewing head brewer Fal Allen is back on Brew Ha Ha today. Pete Foppiano is sitting in for Steve Jaxon, and Mark Carpenter and Herlinda Heras are also in.  Anderson Valley Brewing is located up in Mendocino County. Fal was last on Brew Ha Ha in August of 2018, here is the podcast page of that episode. Don Winkle is also here, he is a local attorney and expert in alcohol law. He prefers the term “cold beer attorney.” 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. Don Winkle explains […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]