Brew Ha Ha – Details, episodes & analysis

Chris Kren-Mora from Visit Santa Rosa is our guest on Brew Ha Ha with Herlinda Heras, presenting Santa Rosa Beer Passport and FeBREWary. Chris has been on Wine Country Radio before but this is his first time on Brew Ha Ha. This week marks the 12th anniversary of Brew Ha Ha on the radio and 8 years of the podcast.

To promote the local brewing industry, we emphasize the pronunciation of the month of FeBREWary, and the Santa Rosa Beer Passport promotion is also starting now. The month of February also brings Pliny the Younger from Russian River Brewing Co., with two weeks of release to bars and taprooms, before the March release in their two locations. They have different menus on 4th St. in downtown Santa Rosa and at the big Windsor location.

Chris visited HenHouse Brewing around the corner from the studio, on his way in. They sent over a beer for Beatles fan Herlinda, called “The Walrus Was Paul” which shows the HenHouse chickens crossing the street, in imitation of the famous Abbey Road album cover.

HenHouse has both locations – Petaluma and Santa Rosa – on the Beer Passport itinerary. Starting on Saturday Feb. 7, there is a special shuttle service. It includes Cooperage, CuVer in Windsor, Santa Rosa’s HenHouse, Moonlight Brewing in Coffey Park, Shady Oak on B St. in Santa Rosa and both locations of Russian River Brewing Co. And the Smart Train goes to Windsor now, so that is a great option too. Old Caz is a Beer Passport stop, but they are not on the shuttle itinerary. February is a low month for tourism, so these promotions are intended to raise traffic in an otherwise slow period.

Herlinda and Chris continue, while tasting some brews from Shady Oak. They agree that Shady Oak is a great locale as well as great brewers. Herlinda was a judge at their smash burger competition, along with Hunter Fieri, Guy Fieri’s son. They had six smash burger trucks in competion. Chris has brought several beers to taste today, from breweries participating in Santa Rosa Beer Passport. 🍻

Nick Gislason of Hanabi Lager

1/22/26 – Santa Rosa, CA –  Since there is no live radio show today, for the podcast here is an encore performance of one of our favorite shows from last year, with Nick Gislason of Hanabi Lager. Brew Ha Ha will be back live on 1/29 with Janelle and Chris from Visit Santa Rosa talking about FeBrewary and Santa Rosa Beer Passport.

Nick Gislason, co-founder and Head Brewer at Hanabi Lager Co. is our guest on Brew Ha Ha with Herlinda Heras and Daedalus Howell.

Herlinda Heras is just back from Belgium and brought back so much beer that she had to pay for overweight suitcases. Daedalus is also back from his own trip to Paris and London. He gets to reconnect with Herlinda for a few minutes before having to leave for an event later this evening. One of the beers that Herlinda brought back is from the Saint Sixtus Monastery in Westvleteren, where she visited. Daedalus gets to taste it before he has to take off.

The labels feature drawings of the patterns that different Japanese fireworks make, up in the air. Nick explains that “hanabi” means fireworks, in Japanese. “Hana” means flower and “bi” means fire, so literally their word for fireworks means “fire flowers.” The fireworks manufacturers used these drawings in the 1800s to describe their products, before photography was available to show the patterns that they make.

Nick grew up on San Juan Island in Washington, and learned brewing from an uncle who was a home brewer. In college he brewed at Boundary Bay Brewing in Bellingham, where he met his wife. They both became winemakers and launched Hanabi Lager about six years ago.

Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.

Nick says Hanabi makes grain-forward lagers. They are tasting the Hana Pilsner, which Herlinda says has a refined taste. Nick explains that beer is made from grain, and water, and hops are like a spice. Hops is like the barrels to wine, where the grapes are the main ingredient. So Nick focusses his energy in using the most delicious grains in the world. That fact that these plants are so important to human nutrition for thousands of years makes them sacred.

Visit our sponsor PizzaLeah in Windsor for the finest pizza menu, great beers and the most authentic flavors around! 🍕🍻

They select grains mainly for the flavor they give to the beer. These flavors mostly come from old heirloom varieties of grains. Heirloom varieties of grain can be compared to heirloom tomatoes, for their superior flavor.

To make beer, Nick explains, first you grow the grain, then sprout the seeds, then you have to arrest their growth before it goes too far. Then you dry them and lightly toast them. This process is called malting. Then you steep a barley tea, spice it with hops, and ferment it, basically. They do four different beers, one for each of the four seasons. Each one features a different heirloom grain. The Summer beer uses Eraclea, a grain from Italy.

Nick is also a part-time pyrotechnician. He works with Lopez Community Fireworks back home in Washington. They practice the Japanese art of fireworks.

Fieldwork Brewing Company co-founder Barry Braden joins Herlinda Heras and Daedalus Howell on Brew Ha Ha today.

Barry Braden and Erin Callahan are here from Fieldwork Brewing Co. They are expanding into Santa Rosa and Erin will manage their restaurant in Montgomery Village. They will open soon, after one last regulatory step. There is a buzz in the neighborhood and people passing by are noticing that it looks like a restaurant already. They will have an extensive beer selection and a full menu including pizza, salad, wings, French fries, fried cauliflower and pickles and lots more.

Barry tells about how they serve a rotation of beers, so that fans of different types of beer can keep coming back for their favorites. He also says this is one way to make the brewers’ jobs interesting.

They are using a lot of new technologies with their hops, including hop distillates, extracts and experimental hops. Fieldwork Brewing also works with Berkeley Yeast. This company is engineering yeast to mimic certain flavors. This goes mostly into the hop-driven beers and their non-alcoholic or “N/A” beers.

Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.

Amidst the current downturn in the beer market, Fieldworks Brewing is actually growing. They are opening their tenth location in the Bay Area. The NHL’s San José Sharks have chosen Fieldwork as their official non-alcoholic beer. Some of their N/A drinks use compounds (with complex chemical names) which confer extra flavors as well as a mood lift, according to Erin.

Visit our sponsor PizzaLeah in Windsor for the finest pizza menu, great beers and the most authentic flavors around! 🍕🍻

Daedalus notices that Fieldwork produces an excellent product all across its product line including the N/A drinks, which elevates the quality level of the entire emerging market of N/A drinks. Barry explains that it took them some time to emerge in the N/A market. They waited for the brewing technology to evolve so that their N/A cocktails tastes like real ones, and their N/A beers tastes like real beer. So, if you want to go out with friends and not drink alcohol, for whatever reason, “…we have something for you,” says Barry.

Fieldwork Brewing Co. products are available in many local retail stores as well as their locations.

The 2024 Pliny the Younger 3-pack.

Natalie and Vinny Cilurzo of Russian River Brewing Co. join Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha for the 2024 Pliny the Younger release. This is an annual event on Brew Ha Ha, for example, here is last year’s release show.

Natalie has been getting ready for this year’s release. This morning they had their kickoff meetings for staff at Santa Rosa and Windsor. Everything is ready to begin this weekend. The Pliny the Younger will be available until April 4.

The recipe is mostly his year Vinny says he has added more of a New Zealand hop called Nectaron. The 2024 Pliny the Younger is 10.25% alcohol, so the idea is to hide the alcohol with lots of other flavors.

“It’s still hard to believe.” – Vinny Cilurzo

It was back in early 2005 when the brewery was less than a year old, that they wanted to do a promotion during the otherwise slow season. Vinny decided to take the Pliny the Elder recipe and add more of everything, more hops, more malt and more alcohol. They released it without fanfare, for a few years. But in 2010, everything changed. Pliny the Younger had been rated the best beer in the world on some influential beer websites. That is when people started forming lines before opening hours. It’s great to hear Vinny tell the story again. This has become a favorite annual event for beer lovers from around the world.

Pliny the Younger has some new artwork this year, which is on the header of this web page, showing Vesuvius erupting with beer and hops.

Both brewpubs will be open daily from 11AM to 10PM, from March 22nd through April 4th, 2024.

Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.

Russian River Brewing Co. will be a sponsor of the big beer history exhibition that is opening at the Museum of Sonoma County, called ON TAP: Sonoma County Hops and the Beer Revolution. We just had Eric Stanley from the museum on Brew Ha Ha.

Visit Homerun Pizza, home of the Knuckleball! Fresh pizza dough made from scratch daily, la pizza è deliziosa!

This year Russian River Brewing Co. has raised purchase limit from two bottles to three. A three bottle purchase comes in the convenient carrying case pictured above.

See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.

RRBC has different menus at the Santa Rosa and Windsor locations. Vinny would have a Mamma Mia pizza (with halapeños) at the Santa Rosa 4th Street pub, to pair with a glass of Pliny the Younger. He remembers the time the first people met him four hours before opening time, in 2010.

Eric Stanley from the Museum of Sonoma County is our guest, here to discuss ON TAP Sonoma County Hops and the Craft Beer Revolution, an exhibition that will open on April 20, 2024. He joins Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras, live in the Wine Country Radio studio.

Herlinda Heras has been in England and Ireland, which we heard about about over the last few episodes. Now she will be staying in town to assist with the exhibition. There are two paths to this exhibition, as Eric describes it. One is about the history of hops as part of Sonoma County agriculture and the other is about the more recent craft beer revolution. Brew Ha Ha will be a sponsor of this exhibition.

Herlinda is personally acquainted with many of the people who have made history in local brewing. She has been busy bringing several of them in to participate. For example, New Albion was the first licensed brewery after the repeal of Prohibition and it opened in the town of Sonoma. Tara Nurin will be appearing and reading from her book, since she interviewed a lot of the women who were part of the revolution, for the book. Natalie and Vinny Cilurzo will be participating as well as Ken Hartoonian, who was on this show recently and who has a big collection of brewing memorabilia. Famous brewers like Mark Carpenter, Ron Lindenbush and Don Barkley will be a part of it as well.

Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.

The Museum of Sonoma County has a permanent Sonoma County history exhibition. called Sonoma County Stories. Gaye LeBaron had a lot to do with it, she is a local historian and friend of Steve. The museum is located in the old Sonoma County Post Office building, which was built in 1910. It is a beautiful building, which had to be moved from its original location, in order to save it.

See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.

They are looking for sponsors for this exhibition, so if you are or work for a candidate for exhibition sponsorship, please contact Herlinda Heras.

Visit Homerun Pizza, home of the Knuckleball! Fresh pizza dough made from scratch daily, la pizza è deliziosa!

Hop growing used to be a huge local business and recently hops have been making a comeback, as a local crop. There are several reasons for that. Starting in the 1850s this area was a leading hop region in the country, up to Prohibition. But after Prohibition it wasn’t until the 1980s that breweries came back. The exhibition will tell the story of what happened to the local hops industry, from the last crop in the early 1960s, up the re-emergence of hops in Sonoma County.

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Herlinda Heras is judging at the 2024 British Pie Awards and calls in to Brew Ha Ha today, and with Harry Duke sitting in for Steve Jaxon. Here is an episode of Brew Ha Ha from March 22, 2018, when Herlinda had just returned from that year’s  competition. The winners are listed at the 2024 British Pie Awards website.

Today we hear all about her itinerary on her current trip to the England and Ireland. She began in London, judging the National Fish and Chips competition. Then, she visited Dublin, Ireland, where she saw Teeling Whiskey, the Guiness attraction “Beer Disneyland” and a museum exhibit. Her last stop was the British Pie Awards, an annual event in the town of Melton Mobray. This is Herlinda’s 10 year as a judge in this competition.

The pies at the 2024 British Pie Awards are very traditional and the judging takes into consideration all of the characteristic virtues of combining meat and crust. The categories of pies have evolved, so that today there is a category for Vegan pies, as well as vegetarian recipes and many others.

Herlinda explains how there is a hole at the top of the pie, as in the picture here. This is part of the recipe, specifically the baking process. They place a bit of jelly into the hole which bakes into the pie.

Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.

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See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.

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Visit Homerun Pizza, home of the Knuckleball! Fresh pizza dough made from scratch daily, la pizza è deliziosa!

We get a phone call from Herlinda Heras in London, she is there to judge this year’s UK National Fish & Chip Awards. The National Federation of Fish Fryers of the UK sponsor the annual event.

There are contestants from all over the UK as well as other countries, including the US, which was represented by a British couple from Georgia who have a fish and chips shop. There is the usual panorama of awards, in many categories, even the potatoes. On the Tuesday night before the event, they had a reception in the Houses of Parliament. They were actually in session and voting while she was there.

Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.

Part of the awards was a recognition of extraordinary customer service, and Herlinda heard stories about how during Covid confinement, fish and chip deliveries were almost the only contact that some people had with others.

Visit Homerun Pizza, home of the Knuckleball! Fresh pizza dough made from scratch daily, la pizza è deliziosa!

There is also an award for best sit-down restaurant, and many other categories. See the National Fish & Chip Awards website for all the categories and winners.

See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.

The biggest award is to the “take away” which is British for “to go” service. That award went to a shop called Ship Deck, located in Caerphilly, Wales.

The team from Hiveworks Mead is in the studio for Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras to talk about their way of making mead. Alexander Mendoza, CEO and Head Mazer, Sean Duckworth, COO and Julian Frank, CFO, are taking turns on the two guest microphones in our small converted train car.

They will be at Beer City this Saturday, Feb. 24, in Courthouse Square.

The Hiveworks Mead team all grew up in Sebastopol together and now they are partners in the company.

See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.

First they taste Skyborne, a simple recipe of honey, water and yeast, plus carbonation. They just wanted to make a beverage that they could enjoy with any food. The more honey you add, the higher the ABV. A lot of traditional mead could be 2-3 pounds of honey per gallon of mead. Their mead is lower in alcohol so they can use less honey.

Visit Homerun Pizza, home of the Knuckleball! Fresh pizza dough made from scratch daily, la pizza è deliziosa!

The partners started Hiveworks Mead in Sebastopol in a shed with one fermenter, and experimented until their product was a hit at some parties. That was when it was time to go pro. Even though it is classified and taxed as a wine, mead is actually made on equipment that is much more like that of a brewery. The aluminum cans use a lot less carbon dioxide, than glass bottles.

Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.

Alexander carries the title Head Mazer. Some meadmakers fancy the term. A mazer is a type of traditional medieval wooden cup, low and wide, with a rise in the middle. There happens to be a well-known annual mead competition called the Mazer Cup, based in Colorado, whose logo is shaped like a mazer. This may have suggested the idea for that term. *

* ‘Mazer’ as a meadmaker has no root word history in English nor in any of its contributing languages. Given that mead can be drunk from a mazer, calling a meadmaker a ‘mazer’ could be compared to calling a vintner a ‘glass’ or a brewer a “mug” or a Kombuchist a “tightly capped bottle.” But if people like the term, they will use it, and if enough people adopt it for enough time, it will become documented. 

Chris Keeton from CCBS 2024 calls in to Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras to talk about the California Craft Beer Summit. There will be a convention, the California Craft Beer Summit, March 12-14, in Sacramento. There is the website, ^ with all the info you need. The rest of today’s Brew Ha Ha episode is a conversation with the folks from Hiveworks Mead, which is on its own page.

Chris Keeton is the President of the Sacramento Area Brewers Guild and is also the head brewer for the Alaro Craft Brewery, which is located very close to the convention center. Morgan Territory Brewing won at ccbs last year, as they win a lot of competitions.

Beer City, Sat. Feb. 24 in Santa Rosa

The general public can purchase tickets to the event. The awards ceremony is March 13 during the CCBA Summit. The Competition will be held in the Crest Theater. They will have 197 breweries and 1300 beer entries, which makes it the third largest one of these in the country.

Judy Ashworth, the famous publican, was with Herlinda at the competition last year. Judy is a very famous figure in the craft brewing industry and she was on Brew Ha Ha on this episode back on December 19, 2019, along with former co-host Mark Carpenter.

Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.

The CCBS 2024 winners will be announced on a website after the convention. There will also be a live stream on The Brewing Network YouTube channel. The results will be published at this site: https://brewerscupofca.com/

See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.

The Craft Beer Summit is a great networking opportunity for like-minded entrepreneurs to learn more about their business. The Guilds also provide an important service to their members. For example, the fact that we can taste beer and cider at our farmers markets is due to some lobbying done by the guilds.

Visit Homerun Pizza, home of the Knuckleball! Fresh pizza dough made from scratch daily, la pizza è deliziosa!

Fogbelt Brewing founders Paul Hawley and Remy Martin are back on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras. Paul and Remy have been on Brew Ha Ha several times, including this episode last September and this other episode the previous August.

This is a busy time for beer fans with the FeBrewary promotion and Beer City all taking place.

For Beer Week, Fogbelt Brewing is making Bacon and Beer pairings. It’s as classic as pizza and beer. They serve what they call “Billionaire’s Bacon” and also Salmon belly, served with a flight of beers.

Their annual Godwood Triple IPA has just been released. It is made with Simcoe, Mosaic, Aurora and Eldorado hops, all of them. They do three separate dry hops and a touch of caramel malt.

Visit Homerun Pizza, home of the Knuckleball! Fresh pizza dough made from scratch daily, la pizza è deliziosa!

Paul and Remy just celebrated their tenth anniversary and so did the Brew Ha Ha. They went to school together and studied moviemaking, then moved to New Zealand and ended up working for a winery and making their own beer on the side. Continuing to Australia they “became passionate” about beer. Remy studied beer and Paul studied finance and the new team was ready.

See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.

The Fogbelt location in Healdsburg is a beer garden which is also in an old train, just like Wine Country Radio. Fogbelt Brewing Co. is located at 1305 Cleveland Ave. in Santa Rosa.

The Beer City Festival in Santa Rosa Courthouse Square is on February 24. There are three races, half marathon, 10 K and 5 K, which are optional. Next week the organizers will be in the studio on Brew Ha Ha.

Herlinda went to the SF Beer Week gala. It was advertised as a “space” theme, including Star Wars, Star Trek, etc. Herlinda was the only person in the gala in costume.

Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.

Fogbelt is proud to be making a lot of different beers, something for everybody. Their Redwood Lager won a Gold Medal at the Sacramento State Fair.

Fogbelt also organized a Beer Camp, an adult summer camp with lots of beer. They hosted it at Wildhaven in Healdsburg, which is a glamping resort. They had a few classes in search and rescue, cooking demos, a falconry demo, and most of it was all about beer. Paul’s dad is a falconer and taught a class about it.