Dr. Hoby Wedler, a PhD organic chemist and sensory expert, is back on Brew Ha Ha with Herlinda Heras and Daedalus Howell. He has been on the show before, the last time was this episode back in August of 2020. His Instagram has almost 480,000 followers as of today’s show date.

Hoby was born sightless, and was raised to have high expectations for himself. He was inspired by his great high school chemistry teacher who has worked at Petaluma High School for a while. He thought he might study history because the prospect of needing an assistant to perform manual jobs in a chem lab. But his graduate advisor was a computational organic chemist. This subject provided an avenue for him to study chemistry with more independence. His original goal was to teach freshman chemistry at the college level. He is an inspired teacher and wants to make his subject more than a requirement. “Hey maybe this is something really interesting that I never thought I would love.” He taught several freshman chemistry courses while at UC Davis. He prepared lessons and study materials carefully, but found that many students just wanted “the minimum knowledge value” to simply pass the class.

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 Pliny the Younger 2026 information.

Then Hoby met Francis Ford Coppola, who asked to organize truly blind tastings at his winery. Hoby then trained his palette by tasting and smelling things, day after day. He was at UC Davis where the brewing program was going on right next to where he was getting his PhD in computational organic chemistry. Professor Charlie Bamforth, “The Pope of Foam” worked nearby, so did Michael Lewis.

Hoby thinks of wine and spirits and beer as a very fine intersection between art and science. Science gives us the tools and art gives us the way we want to use those tools. Herlinda first met Hoby Wedler at one of his Tasting in the Dark events. Guests were encouraged to take their time and focus on taste and smell. They use the blindfold “…so people can focus on their other senses even more.”

Today they will taste two brews, a barleywine and a Tripel from CuVer Brewing in Windsor.

Herlinda admits that as a beer judge, she begins by looking at the beer. Is it clear? What color is the foam? Hoby says you can smell the carbonation. Hoby points out that you can hear the carbonation too. When he smells the cuVer, he tastes clove, allspice, a bit of nutmeg and orange peel. These elements are coming from the yeast, which produces esters. Belgian yeast is special and produces esters that carry these fruity flavors. He can also taste the malt. It has a low-to-mid hop profile but the flavor is dominated by grain and malt, and the ester compounds coming from the yeast. He also knows that the water in Belgium is special, it’s very pure. Herlinda smells coriander and also the alcohol.

Hoby promotes his tasting experience called Tasting in the Dark. It works with many kinds of foods and beverages, including wine, beer, spirits, olive oil, vinegar and even beef. He did a tasting experience of scotch, gin and bourbon for the launch of a new kind of freshwater fish bait. The bait is designed to be attractive to the fishes’ sense of smell.

Hoby’s Instagram has grown explosively in the last year. He put a few reels online from their tastings and they proved to be very popular. Some of them were from Hawaii about tropical fruit. They went from 3000 followers to 480,000 followers today.

The second tasting is a Barleywine called Bigfoot from Sierra Nevada. Hoby knows Ken Grossman who started Sierra Nevada out of the back of his pickup truck in 19790. Barleywine uses light hops and so much malted barley that the beer has a similar alcohol concentration to wine, 9.6% ABV.

Jenna Bautista from the Pink Boots Society, also a Senior Quality Analyst for Lagunitas, joins Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha.

Jenna Bautista joins Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha, with Adam Bosch from Parliament Brewing Co. also in studio.

International Women’s Day is Sunday March 8, this year. There is a whole weekend of Pink Boots Society collaborations to check out.

Lagunitas has made Glass Breaker, using Nectaron, Simcoe, and O-33 experimental hops. It has pine and stone fruit flavors and is a little over 8.5% ABV. It will be released this Saturday.

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 Pliny the Younger 2026 information.

The Pink Boots Society North Bay has partnered with CuVer in Windsor to brew a Belgian IPA called By Her Bootstraps. HenHouse is releasing The Coven, a botanical rice lager flavored with sage, grapefruit and lemon peel and lavender. They are releasing it at Fort Point Valencia on Sunday.

Jenna was just in New Orleans for the Pink Boots Society conference. They had a couple hundred women and non-binary people working in the beverage industry. They had a speaker from Europe who talked about advocating for yourself in a tough industry and how to advocate for others.

Friday there is a performance of Werewolf on Holiday at Lagunitas, too.

Adam Bosch from Parliament Brewing is back on Brew Ha Ha with Herlinda Heras today to talk about the Cheesesteak Competition on March 21. Adam has been on the show several times, the most recent was this episode last September.

Chris Amadio from Mamadios food truck, is in the studio. They were the people’s choice winner at last year’s Cheesesteak competition.

First, they are drinking Capital Letters, a new West Coast IPA that they started brewing last year. The hops are Riwaka, Citra and Nelson.

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 Pliny the Younger 2026 information.

This is their third year of the Parliament Brewing Cheesesteak competition. Apart from the five cheesesteak vendors, they will have four bands and a dj, plenty of seats, tables and chairs, tents and parking. The cheesesteak vendors will be Mamadio’s, Lila’s Streetside Eats, The Spot Food Truck, Golden Steak Warriors and Canevari’s Deli. There will also be so far about 13 merch vendors, and food and beverage vendors.

Herlinda recalls visiting Philadelphia and finding cheesesteaks. The old city has cobblestone streets and lots of corner shops like delis and restaurants. There is also a burgeoning brewery scene. Chris Amadio is from Philadelphia and he can really turn on the Philly accent when he wants to. Eagles, Phillies, 76ers, Flyers.

The competition is for cheesesteaks not limited to Philly style, so everyone can have their own twist. There will be two awards, one from the judges and the people’s choice award. Herlinda will actually be one of the judges on March 21. One of the other judges is Mercedes Ramos who runs the SoCo Market, who has also been on the show. The Cheesesteak competition day is kid friendly and dog friendly. There will be four bands, SPF, Citizen Flannel, Werewolf on Holiday and then Ellie James and the Electric Dream. 🍻

The Fort Point HenHouse merger is the subject today with Justin Catalana of Fort Point Brewing and Colin MacDonald of HenHouse Brewing, on Brew Ha Ha with Herlinda Heras. Justin is calling in on the phone today while his friend and colleague Colin is in the studio at Wine C0untry Radio with Herlinda Heras.

Fort Point Beer Co. has been featured on Brew Ha Ha before, the last time was this episode. Colin has been on the show before, most recently this episode in 2024 about the Freshtival that year.

Recently HenHouse and Fort Point breweries joined forces. Although they still produce beers under the two brands, Colin describes them as having complimentary strengths. HenHouse is rooted in the North Bay and Fort Point has grown to be San Francisco’s biggest craft beer.

The first beer tasted today is an alcohol-free KSA from Fort Point. SF Beer Week is happening all over the Bay Area. Fort Point makes KSA which is a non-alcoholic Kölsch style beer. They also make other NA beers. Herlinda will be with Fort Point at the Dim Sum Brunch at the Hong Kong Lounge on Saturday.

KSA is the beer they are most known for. Kolsch style beer comes from Cologne, Germany. They will be serving this beer tonight in the same style as a brew pub in Cologne, in the same kind of glasses. The event on Saturday is a huge Dim Sum service with Fort Point beers. This is one of Herlinda’s favorite SF Beer Week events.

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 Pliny the Younger 2026 information.

Big Chicken is a double IPA that HenHouse makes once a year. It is also a statement about freshness. They want it to be the freshest beer it can be. You can buy beer that was packaged the same day. Fresh beer is so much better and makes enough of a difference that they founded the brewery on that principle. They used to do a promotion called the Freshtival, where they brought beers in that were no more than a week old.

This Sunday Mar. 1 they have an event to promote the end of Big Chicken this year. Colin compares its flavor to a tropical fruit bowl. That then begs the question, what do you pair it with? Something big and intense, so fried chicken. The Big Chicken fest this year closes with the Fried Chicken competition at Palace of Barrels in Petaluma, from noon to 4 PM. They will have 5 food trucks there serving to the people and a distinguished panel of judges. There will also be a separate hot sauce award. There will be a distinguished guest list and plenty of great tasting fresh beer. 🍻

Big Chicken

Colin MacDonald from HenHouse Brewing is our guest with Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha today, talking about Big Chicken. He has been on the show before, most recently this episode in 2024 about the Freshtival that year.

Recently HenHouse and Fort Point breweries joined forces. They still produce different beers under the two brands. Colin describes them as having complimentary strengths. HenHouse is rooted in the North Bay and Fort Point has grown to be San Francisco’s biggest craft beer.

Justin Catalana from Fort Point Beer Co. joins the show today along with his friend and colleague Colin. There is a separate podcast page over here for Fort Point’s portion of today’s show. This way, both guests and both companies can have their own online destination and their own web traffic, for their episodes.

Big Chicken is a double IPA they make once a year. It is also a statement about freshness. They want it to be the freshest beer it can be. You can buy beer that was packaged the same day.

Fresh beer is so much better and makes enough of a difference that they founded the brewery on that principle. They used to do a promotion called the Freshtival, where they brought beers in that were no more than a week old.

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 Pliny the Younger 2026 information.

On Sunday they have an event to promote the end of Big Chicken this year. Colin compares its flavor to a tropical fruit bowl. That then begs the question, what do you pair it with? Something big and intense, so fried chicken. The Big Chicken fest this year closes with the Fried Chicken competition at Palace of Barrels in Petaluma, from noon to 4 PM. They will have 5 food trucks there serving to the people and a distinguished panel of judges. There will also be a separate hot sauce award. There will be a parade of dignitaries rubbing elbows with the hoi polloi, all in the name of community and of great tasting fresh beer.

Justin Catalana from Fort Point Beer Company joins Brew Ha Ha with Herlinda Heras and Daedalus Howell, on the phone. Fort Point Beer Co. has been featured on Brew Ha Ha before, the last time was this episode.

Colin MacDonald from HenHouse Brewing Co. is also in the studio today. Colin’s podcast episode from today is over here on this page, so that each guest can have their own podcast page and web search traffic. 

Fort Point and HenHouse merged about a year ago. The first beer tasted today is an alcohol-free KSA from Fort Point. SF Beer Week is happening all over the Bay Area. Fort Point makes KSA which is a non-alcoholic Kölsch style beer. They also make other NA beers. Herlinda will be with Fort Point at the Dim Sum Brunch at the Hong Kong Lounge on Saturday.

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 Pliny the Younger 2026 information.

KSA is the beer they are most known for. Kolsch style beer comes from Cologne, Germany. They will be serving this beer tonight in the same style as a brew pub in Cologne, in the same kind of glasses. The event on Saturday is a huge Dim Sum service with Fort Point beers. This is one of Herlinda’s favorite SF Beer Week events.

Colin describes the merger as an alignment between friends whose companies have complimentary strengths. HenHouse is based in the North Bay while Fort Point is the biggest craft brand in the City. Justin describes it as a very natural fit. They continue to produce the two brands separately, but they have created some great synergies, he says.

Marty Nachel

Marty Nachel, founder of the American Craft Beer Hall of Fame, calls in to discuss the 2026 HOF nominations, on Brew Ha Ha with Herlinda Heras and Daedalus Howell. Marty has been on the show before, including this episode back in December, about his recently published book the Beer Story Project.

Today’s Brew Ha Ha show is appearing online as 3 separate podcast episodes, so that all the guests can have their own page, and their own Internet traffic. This also makes it easier for listeners to find the guest they are looking for, among the other two. 

Marty Nachel is a well-known author who also wrote the popular book Beer for Dummies. He is calling from Chicago, which always invites the comparison of the weather there and in Santa Rosa, California, aka Beer City.

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 Pliny the Younger 2026 information.

The American Craft Beer Hall of Fame will induct its second annual class on Saturday, February 28, at 3:00 EST, 12 noon PST, they will livestream their induction ceremony. Eight people are being inducted this year, whose names will be revealed at the ceremony. There are links to the live stream at their website. There will also be events at different breweries where people will gather to watch. Herlinda wants to have one here in California too, next year. The event will be on YouTube afterwards, for on-demand viewing.

This is the second year of the Craft Beer Hall of Fame. Last year the inaugural class included several famous founders of the craft beer movement. Jack MacAuliffe, Fritz Maytag, Ken Grossman, food and beverage journalist Michael Jackson, and eight others made up the class.

Conor Begley from Fathers Brewing is the guest of Herlinda Heras and Daedalus Howell on Brew Ha Ha today. This is his first time on the show.

Sayre Petrokowski, the executive director of the Brewers Guild, introduced Herlinda to Conor. Fathers Brewing was launched less than a year ago, last July. They went through a lot of R&D to create their first two flagship beers. They are a lager (with a red label) and a light lager (with a blue label).

Before Fathers Brewing, Conor started a software company that he sold for a lot of money in 2021. His bio is a whirlwind from graduation, to “a startup company that grew really fast” then went to Australia with his girlfriend who is now his wife. He worked for Thunder Road Brewing Co. in Melbourne, Australia, running their digital and social media operations. What he learned there led to his software company, which in the long term has led him back to beer.

The brand is being built in a streamlined format for growth and further investment. Conor is committed to founding the company upon the best possible quality product by a relentless process of R&D. The brand identifies as “clean beer” similar to how his partner’s previous company had a product based on clean skin care.

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 Pliny the Younger 2026 information.

When the question for a brewery is, ‘How to stand out?’ Fathers Brewing is defining itself by being organic and clean. Their first production on other people’s equipent, a.k.a. “gypsy brewing” worked at first. Now they have invested in the company adding capacity, from 20 barrels to 400 barrels at a time. That improves the quality and makes it consistent, in the higher quantity.

Mikkeller and Evin Twin beers are actually made by rival brewers who are twins. They were gypsy brewing for a long time. Mikkeller became one of the most sought after and expensive beers in the world this way. Conor spoke to a lot of other successful beer entreprenurs, to learn from them. Overall in the brewing business, people are willing to help each other.

They have tested for the presence of micro plastics in beer, in the materials from suppliers and in all stages of packaging and processing. Any stage that uses plastic has the potential to shed microscopic plastic debris. Another example, is using surfactants to supress the production of foam. But the material is plastic. It may increase the yield but, “that can’t be good.” So pouring plastic on the beer is right out!

Herlinda, Rob and Chismosa

Rob Saccuzzo, Old Caz GM, is our guest in studio today on Brew Ha Ha with Herlinda Heras and Daedalus Howell. This is Rob’s first time on the show but the brewery has been featured many times. Old Caz co-founder Brian Rengel is the featured guest on this episode of Jan. 21, 2024. He was back for an update the following August on this episode on August 8, 2024.

Rob Saccuzzo is the General Manager of Old Caz Beer and is also a board member of the Bay Area Brewers Guild. They are preparing for some big events coming soon. SF Beer Week is the biggest event of the year, and they are also putting on the SF Beer Week Beer Fest at the Salesforce Park beer garden on the top of a skyscraper in the city.

Rob is busy doing ten events at Old Caz in ten days. They are releasing 16 beers, six of which are being released at the kickoff party on February 20th and many of them are collaborations. Old Caz themselves are releasing another seven. “This is the biggest slew of events we’ve ever done,” says Rob.

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 Pliny the Younger 2026 information.

One of the things Herlinda likes about the beer business is collaboration and mutual assistance. Rob describes one with the same ingredients and two brewers. One brewery will add all the hops at the beginning then the beer is hot, and other one only later when it is cool, to produce two different flavor profiles.

Rob is also a very enthusiastic participant at beer festivals. He likes to remind people that Old Caz is a party and everyone is invited. While they can talk seriously about beer, they will also spray confetti in a Mexican wrestling suit just to get attention for the beer.

Their most awarded beer is Chismosa, and has won medals in numerous beer festivals for this beer. He compliments their brewing team for keeping it so consistent. Rob says that if someone had told him in high school that his chemistry class would help him make beer later in life, he would have paid more attention. Old Caz has “a cavalcade of human beings who are hard working and who believe in the brewery.”

Natalie and Pliny

Natalie and Vinny Cilurzo join Herlinda Heras and Daedalus Howell on Brew Ha Ha with the first taste of Pliny the Younger 2026 from Russian River Brewing Co.

Today is a very special edition of Brew Ha Ha because Vinny Cilurzo is also here along with Natalie Cilurzo. They have brought the first taste of the Pliny the Younger 2026 in a keg. Today they celebrate the distribution of Pliny the Younger on draft at all of the bars and restaurants in their distribution network. It will all leave the brewery by Friday. It is a huge effort for the staff but it is like a holiday event. The retail release at the two RRBC locations runs from March 20 to April 2, 2026.

Pliny the Younger 2026 “tapenings” are happening and will go on the rest of the month in about 130 locations. The other release of Pliny the Younger to the general public will be in March. Right now, the trucks are on the road for Maine, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, as well as northern and southern California. Vinny also mentions ten or so brewers who are working hard in both breweries. Their sales reps in southern California have worked hard to prepare for Pliny the Younger 2026 to be a big event. A month ago, every tank in both breweries was full.

The month of February would normally be the slowest time of the year for a brewery. Their original idea was to create a promotional brew to goose sales for the slow time. At first they never dreamed that it would become such a success.

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 Pliny the Younger 2026 information.

Vinny describes Russian River Brewing Co.’s history since he took over the brand from Korbel, the original founder. It used to be that barley wine was the winter brew. Vinny decided to see how far they could push the hops. For the first five years of Pliny the Younger, “It wasn’t a huge deal.” But in 2010 everything changed. Vinny would always show up on the first Friday in February to tap the first keg. That time, there were people waiting outside. That is when Vinny learned that this beer was rated the number one and two beer in the world on two popular beer rating websites. He did not know about any of that.

By the time they opened, they had to call every employee they could get, and limited people to 4 growlers per person. A table of 4 would buy 16 growlers. They were overwhelmed by its popularity that day. The websites were taking votes from beer enthusiasts. They ended up having to make up rules to govern and limit the traffic. During covid they had to split the distribution between bars and restaurants first and then the retail distribution later. They were forced to wait about 2 months and ended up March into April. They do that every year because it turned out to be an easier way to manage the whole season. Herlinda remembers how they organized a vaccine clinic at the brewery.

The recipe has changed a little bit from year to year, but for the last few years it has used the same selection of hops. This is the first year they have used the exact same seven hops. They are Simcoe, Amarillo, Citra, Tangier, Mosaic, Nectaron and Warrior. There are five different hop formats. There are whole cone hops (as they grow) and there are pellets, which resemble rabbit food. Then there are other advanced products that are concentrated flavor extracts. Some of the processes that hop companies are using for extracts are the same as used to make cannabis extracts.

As for the malt, it is about 60% silo malt, 30% Pilsner malt and about 10% sugar. They use sugar because it ferments right into alcohol and doesn’t leave any body at all. Pliny the Younger 2026 is 10.5% alcohol but it doesn’t taste so strong.

The Sonoma County Economic Development Board has studied the economic impact of Pliny the Younger. In 2024, the last year studied, they found 8.3 million dollar impact on the community. This comes from business to hotels and other hospitality businesses and more. Natalie and Vinny are very proud of this.