Nicole Rogers from the Sonoma chapter of Les Dames d’Escoffier joins Herinda Heras and Daedalus Howell on Brew Ha Ha. Les Dames d’Escoffier is an international association of women in culinary professions, beverage, agriculture and the supporting industries. Nicole is the chair of the Grants committee. The Sonoma chapter was started in 2020.

Their inaugural fund raising event last year was Birds & Bubbles, and this year’s edition is set for this Sunday, August 24. Herlinda is a brand new proud member. Julia Child was also a member. Nicole enjoys being a member which gives her a chance to meet other members when she travels.

Ethic Cider and CuVer Belgian brewery will be at Birds & Bubbles, with cider and beer, so sparkling wine will not have the only bubbles at the event.

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.

Dora Lee has brought a desert from Jimtown and Then Some, in Healdsburg. They look like little muffins made of mochi, the rice paste, with an apple filling and miso caramel drizzle. Jimtown is open again, owned by a a fellow Dame. She will be providing some of the desserts at the Birds & Bubbles event. For tickets, visit the Dames So. Co. So. Co. website.

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

The Sonoma County chapter of Les Dames d’Escoffier has begun a micro-grant program. They have awarded the first grants of $1000 to three deserving Dames. They also have a cookbook author, chefs, restaurant owners, somelliers, marketing people, writer, retailers, and all ages, too. Herlinda mentions that a big part of this is mentorship.

Sayre Piotrkowski is back on Brew Ha Ha with Herlinda Heras and Daedalus Howell to talk about the Bay Area Brewers Guild and more. San Francisco Beer Week is coming, from February 20 to March 1, 2026. Sayre has been on Brew Ha Ha before, his last time was this episode on May 4, 2023.

All the beers that Sayre has brought today are multiple award winners. Old Caz and Ghost Town were both very local. Ghost Town hired a world class brewer, and Old Caz just kept getting better and better. Now, these two communities can walk to some of the best beer in the world.

Sayre is the executive director of the Bay Area Brewers Guild. The guild started as six brewpubs in San Francisco. At its height it represented over 100 breweries and SF Beer Week would have over 1000 events in one week. Now that beer is getting back to an equilibrium where it is more connected to its community, and no longer serving an investor class that is looking only for big profits. Sayre agrees and says it is good that the “smart money” has left craft brewing. Some investors would only expect to sell the company for multiples of their investment. There are cases where brands have disappeared, such as Pete’s Wicked Ale. Herlinda cites the two examples of Lagunitas and Anchor.

Sayre wants people to understand the difference between buying a beer that is produced and sourced locally, and buying one from one of the biggest corporations in the world.

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.

Some people still feel loyal to old brands but increasingly, it is evident that the difference between craft and corporate beer is the entire brewing ecosystem behind the glass.

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

They are tasting a beer called Ostuary, a robust porter. It has a little cacao bean or coffee flavors. “You want to chew on it a little bit… I’ll pick this over eating, on a hot day,” says Herlinda.

The current iteration of the Guild is based on who survived Covid.

Jason Lindell from Shady Oak Brewing Company is our guest on Brew Ha Ha with Herlinda Heras and Harry Duke. Shady Oak has been on the show before, most recently on this episode in 2022.

Shady Oak has shifted its name to “Brewing Company, so it is now called Shady Oak Brewing Company, after being called “Barrel House” until now.

Harry Duke knows Shady Oak founder Steve Doty from having competed in trivia contests on opposing teams.  When Steve started Shady Oak, they made a lot of sour beers, but as tastes have changed, they have begun making other styles, like hazy and pilsners. The company is also starting to focus on organizing events. It is in a big space that is a former carpet warehouse. It is located in downtown Santa Rosa, near the Santa Rosa Mall. They also have a nice outdoor space in the back.

They have remodeled the back area for this event, increasing capacity. This Saturday they are holding their first event. It is the first annual Smash Bash, they have the four best smash burger restaurants coming in. They have four well-known local food trucks coming in: Thanks for the Invite, Bayou on the Bay, Bennie’s Smash Burgers and The Spot. All four of them will be on the scene for the contest. They will have DJs and live bands. Some illustrious judges will pick a winner.

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.

A smash burger has the pattie smashed all the way down to a thin patty. Sometimes people lay 2 or three thick, plus condiments at will. Bayou on the Bay comes in regularly for their bingo nights. They wanted to do a contest and boom, this was the idea.

They also do vinyl record sales and the next one is September 7th. Shady Oak is a beautiful space and they do a lot of private event. Now they would like to gain more awareness for the venue.

Visit our sponsor Pizzaleah in Windsor for the finest pizza menu and the most authentic flavors around! 🍕🍻

Usually the buns are brioche buns, which are soft and do a better job of supporting the burger.

Shady Oak is kid friendly and dog friendly. They have free pinball and lots of games that people can play at the tables. Admission to the Smash Bash is free.

John Burton is back on Brew Ha Ha with Herlinda Heras and Harry Duke sitting in for Steve Jaxon. He has been on the show once before, on this episode of April 11, 2024 and he was also the subject of this recent article in the Press Democrat.

For long-time Sonoma County residents, John Burton is well-known, because one of his business was a bartending school that he ran for 47 years and recently closed for retirement. Herlinda was just a kid when John’s late wife Nancy was the mayor of Santa Rosa.

Visit our sponsor Pizzaleah in Windsor for the finest pizza menu and the most authentic flavors around! 🍕🍻

John tells his story, starting at restaurants and the Flamingo. He met Virginia Grace when the Sonoma County Fair was the centerpiece of the social season. She didn’t know much about her family history in brewing and they started talking about it. Soon after, he wrote a book about Grace Brothers Brewery.

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.

Breweriana encompases everything related to beer, be it foam scrapers, bottles and cans and especially advertising. On Saturday Aug. 9 at 8:00 the Bennet Valley Grange on Grange Rd. there will be free a show of about 50 tables of breweriana wares. John does it almost like an antiques road show. He describes it as a combination of local history and collecting. If you have something you might be interested in selling to a collector, these are the people to meet.

Grace Bros. was the fourth largest brewery in California during its heyday. They had other brands and produced beer in southern California too, in Los Angeles under the name of Southern. They had 140 different paper labels and 90 different can labels.

Beer memorabilia collector Ken Hartoonian joins Herlinda Heras and Harry Duke in for Steve Jaxon on Brew Ha Ha today.

At the Grange in Santa Rosa, Saturday Aug. 9, 9am-2pm, the Breweriana and Antique Advertising Show. It is a collection of brewery advertising apart from just cans but also lots of different kinds of promotional items.

Grace Brothers brewers was a famous local brewery that was in operation from before Prohibition until 1962. Some of their cans are featured in the show.

Ken has one of the most impressive collections of historic beer memorabilia and artefacts. He started when he was 12 years old, he loves sticker so he wrote to companies to ask for them. Then in 1975 the beer can collecting craze took hold. Before he knew it he had more than 100 cans. The closet grew into a storage unit and now he has a large metal barn.

Here is a 30-second radio commercial from Grace Bros., with a swing band that was popular in those years.

Harry asks what is the Holy Grail of the items, or what is most significant to him? The Holy Grail would be a 7-11 beer can but the most significant was one that he traded for at about age 16. It was called Pride of Newark, or PON.

Visit our sponsor Pizzaleah in Windsor for the finest pizza menu and the most authentic flavors around! 🍕🍻

Their toast is with Happy Hops, which was one of the Grace Brothers’ brands. Russian River still uses the name and the label with a cartoon of a happy hop. Grace Brothers made it through Prohibition by making ice and near-beer, which was weak enough to be legal.

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. 

Renée De Luca joins Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha to remember her father Jack McAuliffe, who recently passed away. Renée was on this show a year ago, talking about her father and some new activity around the brand he founded. Here is part one of that episode, and Part Two follows here.

Renée De Luca joins us on the telephone, she is the daughter of Jack McAuliffe, founder of New Albion brewing company, who passed away just recently. He passed away on July 15 at the age of eighty. He founded a whole beer revolution, is no exaggeration. His passing has been covered widely in the mainstream press such as NPR and the Washington Post, as well as many beer publications. During his life he was already the subject of some articles, due to his influence, although that came near the end of New Albion. Over the last few years Renée and brought him to some craft brewers conferences and she is confident he knew that he would be remembered.

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.

Jack McAuliffe was in the US Navy in the 1960s where he enjoyed the local porters, ales and stouts. Back in the US, all there was to drink was crappy American commercial beer that he didn’t like. So he learned how to brew his own. His operation was the first post-Prohibition micro-brewery to be founded in the United States, in 1976.

Visit our sponsor Pizzaleah in Windsor for the finest pizza menu and the most authentic flavors around! 🍕🍻

Brewing was so new that all of the forms referred to wine and Jack had to handwrite the word beer onto them. They asked him why he used Cascade hops and he replied, that’s what the farmer had. He put a lot of equipment together himself by adapting different parts. Farmers make wine and scientists make beer, he said. Renée’s dog Porter is in the background.

Brent Koen from Surfside Drinks is our guest on Brew Ha Ha with Herlinda Heras and Daedalus Howell sitting in for Steve Jaxon.

Brent has brought a lot of Surfside drinks today. The brand started on the east coast. He brought the Green Tea pack, the Ice Tea pack and the Lemonade pack. All are lower alcohol beverages. The company started as a vodka distiller but their mission changed as they read the market. The founders geared up with makeshift equipment in the parents’ basement. It was about the time that Breaking Bad was on TV. When their father saw the brew lab, he thought it was a meth lab or he acted as if it were that, and he kicked them out. So they got investors and got serious. Stateside Urban Craft Vodka started doing well, before Covid.

When they noticed that people were pouring their vodka into different concoctions and cocktails, they thought of doing the same thing. That’s when they started making the light beverages. Surfside grew from 1.3 million cases in 2023 to to almost 5 million cases last year and projected growth to 12-15 million cases this year.

Surfside Drinks are partners with the San Francisco Giants and they have branded locations inside the stadium.  The beverages have only 2 grams of sugar, 100 calories and only 4.5% alcohol.

Visit our sponsor Pizzaleah in Windsor for the finest pizza menu and the most authentic flavors around! 🍕🍻

Herlinda has seen the huge growth in the non-alcoholic category. Until now, judges at beer competitions did not want to judge that category, but not anymore.

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.

There are 12 different flavors, four lemonades, four green teas and four iced teas. They have three variety packs, different combinations and also large cans. They are now in all 50 states and are seeking to gain a foothold in markets like wine country.

Even if these drinks are not super cold, they still go down smoothly. They only use 2 grams of sucralose for sweetening. There is also no carbonization in any of these drinks.

The Fogbelt caboose in Healdsburg.

Eric and Pedro from the BBQ Team at Fogbelt Brewing join Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha today. Every year Stumptown Brewing puts on the Russian River Beer Revival and BBQ Cookout. This year is it on Saturday, August 16th. The Fogbelt team is competing with their ribs at the festival this summer.

The Santa Rosa taproom is 1305 Cleveland, and the Healdsburg location is in a red caboose.

They are tasting a beer called Eye of the Hawk, the second of their tribute brews to Mendocino Brewing Co. They started with a run of Red Tail Ale.

Visit our sponsor Pizzaleah in Windsor for the finest pizza menu and the most authentic flavors around! 🍕🍻

Pedro started at Anchor brewing in San Francisco. He was the curator of the tour program, so he had access to the brewery operation as well as to the library and archives. He became a tour guide there and eventually moved to another brewery before coming to Santa Rosa.

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.

Pedro likes the Stumptown Beer Revival and BBQ Cookout because it is a chance to meet a lot of the key players in the local craft brew industry.

Today is the first Krush Backyard Concert, so we have Mark Cohen from Moonlight Brewing, who are pouring at the concert. He joins Herlinda Heras and Harry Duke who is sitting in for Steve Jaxon on Brew Ha Ha today.

Mark has brought some Reality Czech Pils, which won a Gold Medal in the Pilsner category, out of 167 entries.

Pilsners are not an easy beer to make. They are cold fermented and takes a lot longer to make. Moonlight’s Pilsner is not filtered, but to make it clear they use an enzyme which takes out the solids and the glutens in the beer. It is not registered as gluten free but it is very low in gluten.

Visit our sponsor Pizzaleah in Windsor for the finest pizza menu and the most authentic flavors around! 🍕🍻

There was a time when Brian Hunt started making beer with spruce tips and redwood tips, when there was a threat of a hop shortage. In the early years, the brewers like Brian Hunt were just learning how to brew. He wanted to get serious, so he moved to Milwaukee to work for Schlitz. He called his brewery Moonlight Brewing because at first, it was his moonlight gig, that he did outside of his other work.

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.

Ron Lindenbusch joins the conversation about five minutes in. He is a retired co-founder of Lagunitas and a veteran beer guru. He started at the beginning doing distribution, when he saw that Tony Magee made the best beer.  that spark became Lagunitas. They sold to Heineken in two stages, half in 2015 and the rest in 2018. Lagunitas is now the number one IPA in the world. Ron had some on tap in Belgium and France.

Moonlight is pouring three beers at the Backyard Concert, they are Death and Taxes, the black lager, Reality Czech Pils, the gold medal winner, and the Bombay by Boat IPA.

Best Day Brewing is Ron’s project to make only non-alcoholic beer. They make a full-strength beer then they remove the alcohol with a cold filtration. This way, it still tastes like beer.

Parliament Brewing Co. co-founder Adam Bosch joins Harry Duke, in for Steve Jaxon, and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha. Adam’s last time on Brew Ha Ha was this episode on December 28, 2023. Herlinda’s father Eloy and brother Anthony Heras are also in the studio today. Eloy devoted his career to the US Navy. He liked Olympia Beer and Herlinda got her first taste of beer from him.

Adam Bosch talks about Parliament Brewing Co.’s plans to expand and their calendar of events. They had a cheesesteak invitational for National Cheesesteak Day last March. Their anniversary party September 20-21 this year, celebrating their sixth anniversary. They are located at 5865 West Labath Ave. Adam likes to think of it as just west of Costco and south of the casino in Rohnert Park. They are dog friendly as long as the dogs are.

The beer they are currently tasting is Prism Hazy IPA, 6.6% ABV, which won Best Hazy at Battle of the Brews last April. It also won Best in Show. Their focus has been mainly local but they will now be looking for more distribution into the East Bay and Sacramento.

Herlinda’s brother Anthony is a rattlesnake handler on the side. He knew someone who had a snake and when they needed a new handler, he got the job.

Visit our sponsor Pizzaleah in Windsor for the finest pizza menu and the most authentic flavors around! 🍕🍻

A group of owls is called a Parliament, where people meet to take care of their community. Parliament Brewing’s “mainstay” beer Kaleidoscope is the collective noun for a group of butterflies. There are butterflies on the can. A new beer is River Raft, a hazy pale ale at 5.9% featuring Peacherene hops, a new kind. A raft is a group of otters. River Raft is on tap only, for now. It finishes “super dry” says Herlinda. They are also tasting the Brown Chicken Brown Cow.

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.

Adam also brought a pilsner, called Pils that says “beer flavored beer” on the label. Pizzaleah has it on tap. It is an American brown ale. Justin, his brother, is the brewer and a UC Davis graduate. His dad does the books. Adam does everything else for Parliament. He is attracted to the business and the service side of the industry. But also, they are selling the culture, the service, comfort and experience. They have about 50 fruit trees around the building at Parliament.