This week Adam De La Montanya and Tyler Laverty from Third Street Aleworks are in the studio for Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon, Mark Carpenter and Herlinda Heras. Herlinda was in Nashville a few weeks ago for the Craft Brewers Convention and World Beer Cup. She was so excited to see Third Street Aleworks win a Gold Medal with their Annadel Pale Ale. Herlinda reports that, “…the place was going bananas for Santa Rosa for all kinds of reasons,” but especially for winning these awards. Steve asks his guests to tell the story of the brewery. Their owner Todd Hendrick wanted to have an establishment where he could bring his friends. It’s located in downtown right on Third Street. It’s a great restaurant and Steve asks them to describe the brewery. Tyler tells how they make all their beer on site, many varieties. […]

Erin Elizabeth Hines, maker of Bitter Girl Bitters and Lorraine Barber, organizer of Petaluma Drinks, are our guests with Steve Jaxon, Mark Carpenter and Herlinda Heras. Petaluma Drinks will take place June 2-3, 2018. Lorraine Barber gives an overview of the event. Her company Barber Cellars produces wine and they have a tasting room in Petaluma. They like all the local craft beer production that is flourishing there now and they wanted to think of a way to promote it all. There will be beer, cider, wine, port, anything that is fermented. Participants include 101 North Brewery, Henhouse Brewery and Lagunitas and also Wilibees will have some coordinated tastings too. Erin Elizabeth Hines produces Bitter Girl Bitters, which she describes: “Bitters are a concentrated flavor additive that bartenders use. They began as a medicinal product and developed into something much more fun.” She has […]

Dr. Robert Eyler of Sonoma State and Anthony Lopez of Seismic Brewing are our guests on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon, Mark Carpenter and Herlinda Heras. Dr. Robert Eyler is Professor of Economics and, Director of the Institute for Regional Economic Analysis, Dean of the School of Extended and International Education at Sonoma State University and he also oversees the Craft Brewing Program as part of their workforce development program, which is part of their Professional and Non-Credit Program. Steve asks Prof. Eyler how the region is doing after the fires of last October. He replies that they have begun the rebuilding process, with some houses going back up. But they are not sure if all the insurance money necessary to rebuild will be available. He expects the labor market will be tightening later this year. Steve also mentions the continuing fire danger […]

On Brew Ha Ha today, Herlinda Heras will call in from the Craft Brewers Conference in Nashville, Tennessee, to speak to Steve Jaxon and Mark Carpenter who are in the studio. Steve mentions that Mark is retired after his long illustrious career at Anchor Brewing in San Francisco and now he has four horses in Petaluma. Herlinda Heras calls in live from Nashville, where she is attending the Craft Brewers Conference. It’s her first time in Tennessee and she loves it. She says it’s so much better than Las Vegas. Steve loves Nashville Herlinda is impressed with the seemingly ubiquitous rooftop bars and the abundance of live music that she hears everywhere she goes. She is at the World Beer Cup awards. Every two years at this annual conference they do the World Beer Cup. They will announce the winners soon. Steve remembers that […]

Our guest today on Brew Ha Ha is John Gillouly head brewer at Drake’s Brewery in San Leandro. Steve Jaxon, Mark Carpenter and Herlinda Heras will taste and talk about some of the very interesting brews that they serve there. First they taste a New England style IPA, which is hazy or cloudy. John says that the west coast brewers have taken over the New England style. He thinks a New England style with the heavy mouth feel (not dry like a San Diego style IPA) but with some bitterness and dryness, for balance. Steve points out it’s 8.4% alcohol. Mark Carpenter introduces John Gillouly. Hopocalypse is a high alcohol highly hopped beer. John says some New England brewers use trick ingredients to get hazy beer. The haze in this beer is from raw wheat, which has proteins in it that make the beer […]

Hazy beer and Anchor Gin are the topics of the day, live from the new KSRO studio with Mark Carpenter and Herlinda Heras, who is just back from Europe.  Mark brought Sierra Nevada Hazy Little Thing IPA, what they call a “New England IPA” meaning it’s hazy. An Englishman would send it back. Mark explains that the first highly hopped beers were difficult to filter to make them clear. When they first tried to sell hazy beer, people wouldn’t buy it but now people like it. They’re even selling some in England. Steve says that you may as well call it foggy. Steve asks Mark about the Anchor Gin, Mark says it is still happening and Herlinda tells about how she found it while travelling in Spain. Mark tells the story of how Anchor Gin got started. After they started making whiskey, they also […]

Today’s guests on Brew Ha Ha are Alfie and Callie from Brewster’s Beer Garden in Petaluma. They will be doing a collaboration beer with Bear Republic. Racer 5 is one of the brands that built the craft scene so he feels it’s prestigious to collaborate with them. Mark says that when you see the roof with a garden on it, you’ve arrived at Brewster’s. They taste a beer form Silver Moon Brewing. They also tasted a beer called Three Kittens. They noticed that playful whimsical names can help sell beer, so they made a Jasmine rice lager that is good for having with Sushi, called Three Kittens. There is a lot of upheaval in the craft brew market. He wants Brewster’s to be a resource for people to keep track of the best craft beers. He selects for quality of process and quality of […]

Sean Paxton, the Home Brew Chef, is our guest on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Mark Carpenter today. He says he has been cooking with beer for 24 years now. There weren’t many cookbooks on the subject when he started, they all talked about cooking with wine. Cooking with beer has a lot more variables, as he explains. Now he is making a NorCal Mole, which is a hot sauce that they will try. It has the Carolina Reaper pepper in it, toned down with Habaneros. Steve says it has a lot of vitamin C too. Mark says that early on at Anchor they were concentrating on making beer, and not on food. Steve says he loves cooking with Anchor Porter, which is a beer that Mark brewed at Anchor. Mark says beer can be more like champagne, in the sense that […]

Our guests on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Mark Carpenter are Elaine St. Clair and Laina Brown of St. Clair Brown Brewery in Napa. Elaine has been a winemaker for a long time. They started St. Clair Brown Winery in Napa in 2010 and they opened the brewery in February this year. They are tasting a honey wheat beer as they talk. Elena tells how they have been in Napa since 2013 but they have worked in the wine business for thirty years and worked together for twenty years at two different wineries. They had to fulfill a lot of legal requirements to open a brewery together with a winery. Their beer comes in attractive bottles, which are wine bottles with a porcelain closing crown. Elaine went to the Fementation Science program at UC Davis and has been working in the wine […]

Mark Carpenter and Herlinda Heras are alone in the studio with Steve Jaxon on today’s show. Herlinda is back from Europe with a lot of cool stuff. She was in England judging the British Pie Awards competition. She brought back a cold pork pie and a beer from northern England called the Bleu Brew, as it’s made from the whey from Stilton cheese. There were 24 categories of pies, all but one was savory and only one was sweet. They covered Northern Ireland, England Scotland and Wales. There were fish pie, cold pork pie, steak and ale pie, steak and kidney pie, game pies of all kinds, squirrel pie, venison pie, even vegetarian pies. They also had some curry pies. There were 938 pies, just 56 in the game pies category. She had 8 other judges with her in her category. Four years ago […]