Brew Ha Ha Podcast

The Rio Nido Roadhouse Oktoberfest crew.

Raena Jones-Metzger from Rio Nido Roadhouse joins Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha today. Brew Ha Ha is a double show and podcast today. Claire Elaine from Wooden Petal Bake Shop is also with us today. Since we have two guests on one radio show, we make two podcasts from the one live show, so that each guest can have their own podcast audio and a sharable (and indexable) web page. So over here is Claire Elaine and Wooden Petal Bake Shop’s podcast episode page. Gioia Merrill, the sous-chef and Tricia Bagley, one of their bartenders, also join Raena in the conversation, after the break (at about the 9:30 mark).

Raena was on the radio with Herlinda five years ago, just before her daughter was born. Reyna has brought some Oktoberfest beers to taste. They will offer flights and pints of these beers.

The Rio Nido Roadhouse fifteenth annual Oktoberfest will be Sunday, September 29, from 1pm to 4pm. There is no entry fee. They will be serving a Warsteiner German pilsner, Headlands Brewery Festbeer and another from Cooperage. There is also a German dark beer only on draft.

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

They have a bratwurst, knackwurst and a weisswurst combination, chef-made spaezle, caramel apples, braised cabbage and a whole German menu. They also have games, live music and kids activities. Costumes are encouraged. Keith Church and David Albini, accordionists, will play the music to make it sound like Bavaria. The weather forecast is good, too!

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.

For more information, visit their website Rio Nido Roadhouse dot com.

Photos from the Rio Nido Roadhouse website. 

Claire Elaine from Wooden Petal Bake Shop in Santa Rosa, joins Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha today. Brew Ha Ha is a double show and podcast today. Also in the studio is Raena Jones-Metzger from Rio Nido Roadhouse. Occasionally, if we have two guests on one radio show, we make two podcasts from the live show, so that each guest can have their own podcast audio and a sharable (and indexable) web page of their own episode. The Rio Nido Roadhouse podcast episode page is over here.

Claire describes her day in the bake shop which begins at 3:30 or 4:00 making dough and then sandwiches from her pretzel buns. Wooden Petal is a name that Claire came up with, based on her grandmother’s catering company Wooden Spoon. Also, she was “an English granny” and used to call Elaine Petal, hence Wooden Petal.

She and her partner built their shop a couple of years ago, from scratch. They had to re-permit the location to serve food. Moonlight Brewing Co. is where she did her first pop-up selling pretzels. Wooden Petal is at 4984 Sonoma Hwy. near Middle Rincon Rd. They are open 7am to 1 pm.

Wooden Petal’s pretzel buns make great sandwiches. Turkey or Salami with chive butter, with cheddar is called the You Betcha. The East Coaster is a classic deli sandwich with mayo mustard and cheddar, and the Valencia has fresh mozzarella, pesto and house tapenade.

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.

Tomorrow, Friday Sept. 27, (as we are live on Thursday Sept. 26) Wooden Petal debuts the Meatball Grinder, which is meatballs, ricotta and parmesan, on a pretzel bun.

Claire and Wooden Petal Bake Shop were featured in the Press Democrat recently, here is the article.

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

Claire suggests ordering ahead online, or by phone. Her original idea was that pretzels would be popular in Beer City. At first, she started by doing pop-ups, and the response was always great because her pretzels always fit into the events where she appears. She is very proud of having a lot of loyal local customers.

Lindsey, Connor and Jeff. Connor was about 5, now he’s 12.

Jeff Reitz and Lindsey Osborne from Barley and Bine Beer Café in Windsor, join Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha. People often confuse bines and vines. Hops grow on bines, not vines, which grow vertically.

The Barley and Bine Oktoberfest party is Saturday, September 28, from 2pm to 11pm. They have a large selection of beers, almost all are California-based breweries.

Herlinda remembers that they have been through a lot since they opened the café seven years ago. They have survived fires and a pandemic. Now they are getting ready for their sixth year celebrating Oktoberfest. Their Oktoberfest party feature the Steve Balich Band which plays authentic German and Bavarian music.

Herlinda suggests watching their social media for updates about special events, including appearances of special beers that have a cult following.

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.

Marzen means March which is Festbeer brewing time, so they are consumed in the fall. These are not necessarily high-alcohol beers. They are tasting one from Cooperage with is 5.7% ABV. Jeff and Lindsey have brought two items from their Oktoberfest menu. This will be their sixth year celebrating Oktoberfest. They will have 15 different beers on party day.

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

Barley and Bine makes a half-liter size beer stein, which is a German beer glass. Oktoberfest is also a chance for them to serve brats, which they do in great numbers. They also have 5 different kinds of mustard. They change the menu every month including lots of kinds of street tacos and tater tot nachos of all kinds. The soft pretzels are probably their #1 item.

They also have a digital menu board that shows up-to-the-minute information about the beer including when the keg was tapped and how much beer is left in the keg.

Paul Hawley and Miguel Smith from Fogbelt Brewing are the guests on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras. Fogbelt first brewed beer in 2013 and started brewing commercially in 2014. They also have a pub in Santa Rosa and a new larger production space. They were among the first brewers to emphasize fresh hops and wet hopped beer and this is the time of year when that is happening.

September 16-22 they have interesting corn dogs, not the normal kind. Each month they work on different beer and food pairings. Today they have a wet hop IPA that goes with a jalapeño corn dog. One is made with Fruity Pebbles. Another is a Ramen noodle corn dog, with a cheese sauce.

“These are the wildest looking cord dogs that I have ever seen.” -Steve Jaxon

Wet hopped beers are very seasonal and you would try to drink them as soon as you can. Their wet hop Oktoberfest celebration takes place in their parking lot on Saturday, September 21. They will also have a full German menu with sausages and potato salad, sauerkraut, etc.

Every month they do a week-long food pairing, alternating between their two locations. In September the wet hopped beers go with these exotic corn dogs. Then, this October, the Santa Rosa location will feature tamales.

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.

Miguel came to Fogbelt as Head Chef, after having worked in fine restaurants in San Francisco and many other places, since age 14.

The morning of a hop harvest, Paul will go out to the fields and inspect the crop. They bring the hops directly to the brewery. Meanwhile, Remy in getting the wort made in the brewery, and he then adds the hops to the empty clean vessel, then they pour the boiling wort back in, for kind of a tea extraction before going into fermentation. The requirements of logistics make it fun and challenging. Picking window on hops is usually a couple of weeks, so they have a little wiggle room. But if the weather changes suddenly they might have to react fast.

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

They have a dog costume contest, and the winner gets featured on a beer the following year. There was mastiff dog dressed as the joker that won last year and his beer is coming soon.

Herlinda has bad news, that Hopland Tap is closing. Ron Lindenbusch kept it open as long as he could.

Nile Zacherle of Mad Fritz Beer and Melissa Luci of Alexander Valley Hop Farm join Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha. It’s hop season!

Mad Fritz Beer is known as a cult brewery, since it is small and has a dedicated following. Mad Fritz is based in Napa. Nile has brought some beer made with fresh wet hops.

The hops come from Alexander Valley Hop Farm. Melissa Luci has been on BHH before, on this episode almost exactly a year ago, on Sept. 15, 2023.

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

Alexander Valley Hop Farm is located on a lot that has an unusual shape, it is very long and narrow, but the hops don’t mind that. The AV website is small but their Instagram page is great. The plants are trained to crawl up 18 feet of a string made of coconut fiber, that are 15 feet apart. Their goal is to have it reach the top by summer Solstice, so that the branches that produce the cones will mature at the right time.

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.

Brewers can only make wet hopped beers at this time of year at hop harvest time. They have to get the hops from the farm to the brewery as fast as possible. Starting at sunrise, they deliver to the brewer the same day. Nothing is left from this year’s harvest!

Nile and his wife are partners in the brewery. Their two children Madeleine and Fritz gave Mad Fritz the name. The Ost House IPA is always available at their tap room and brewery. It uses Triumph hops, 100%, grown at AV Hops. They age the beer in neutral French oak, to allow the beer to settle to a clear beer, slowly.

Leah Scurto and Herlinda Heras.

Leah Scurto from Pizzaleah joins Herlinda Heras and Harry Duke who is sitting in for Steve Jaxon on Brew Ha Ha today. Herlinda Heras is back from another trip to Liverpool, this time to see Pete Best and his band.

Leah Scurto is Herlinda’s neighbor and friend. This is her first time on Brew Ha Ha but she was a guest on our other podcast, California Wine Country, on this CWC episode of April 27, 2022. In that show we hear about how Leah was getting ready to serve pizzas at the 2022 Healdsburg Wine and Food Experience.

Herlinda brought Leah into beer judging. Leah will be cooking at the Great American Beer Festival in Denver, CO, in October later this year. “They get the best of the best of the chefs, paired up with breweries.” It’s Leah’s fourth year doing it.

Leah’s partner this year is a brewery from Iowa called Big Grove, which is the official craft brewer of the Iowa Hawkeyes, check out their website^. Big Grove making a double IPA and an Oktoberfest for the Great American Beer Fest. Leah is cooking for Thursday and Friday nights. To pair with the double IPA she will make pickles with that brew, then make a pickle dip. She will make a mushroom pizza to go with the Oktoberfest.

Pizzaleah is located in Windsor near Oliver’s, at 9240 Old Redwood Hwy, #116. Their beer list includes a tap where she rotates local brewers in and out. Right now there is a beer from Ghost Town in Oakland.

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.

Leah has brought some pizzas including the Old Graybeard which is the people’s favorite. It’s a sweet, spicy and salty with a little orange zest. They make their own sausage for the pizzas. Everything is in-house including the peperoni which is a recipe that Leah worked on for years. They pair that pizza with the Old Caz Free Craig’s.

Leah participates in international pizza competitions This summer she was at the Caputo Cup in Naples. Caputo is a brand of flour from Naples and they put on the pizza festival and the competition. Leah placed third!

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

When Leah needed a job in Santa Cruz in college, she got hired at a pizza shop where she eventually stayed for more then 2 decades. She opened 20 restaurants for them so she sure knows the business. She opened her restaurant about four years ago and survived the pandemic as the first order of business. It happened to be just as the pandemic was closing everyone down. She weathered the storm by being available for delivery at a time when that was the only way to get food to the people.

The beer selection at Pizzaleah is important to Leah. She wants to support local brewers by featuring their products and also whenever possible she tries to support small local suppliers and organic production.

The Lola pizza, with pesto, potato and caramelized onion, is paired with the Crispy Crusher from Cooperage.

The Moonlight Sonata is indeed in three movements.

Brian Hunt and Erin Latham-Ponneck are on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras, for the Moonlight Brewing 32nd Anniversary. Brian has been on Brew Ha Ha many times, the most recent was this episode in October of 2023.

On Saturday, August 24, from noon to 10 pm, Moonlight Brewing Co. will celebrate its 32nd anniversary, with music from The Sam Chase and the Untraditional, and others. There will be food trucks, attractions and activities for everyone including children, in addition to lots of delicious beer. In addition to all that, they will have a kids zone with a jumpy house and a magician.

Moonlight Brewing is now the oldest brewery in the county. Brian tells about getting “the beer guy”, Dr. Michael Lewis as an advisor when he changed majors to fermentation science at UC Davis. Then he went to work for Schlitz in Milwaukee. At that time, they were not invested in making great beer there. So Brian got away from that scene, with the lesson that people won’t be attracted to crappy beer. He came back from Milwaukee in 1981 and worked for a series of breweries before starting his own brewery 32 years ago in 1992. Brian is Erin’s stepdad. At first, he “poached” her away from her job to hire her for the bookkeeping. That led to more, as we will hear.

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.

In the meantime, they taste the beer called Sulla Luna, a Czech-inspired amber lager that Brian originally made with Birrificio Italiano. He met them in Milano at a beer convention and when they visited here, they brewed this collaboration.

Several months into the job she learned that there were actual offices above the brewery. So she moved into a proper room with a desk. Erin’s official title is Chaos Management Specialist and Adult In Charge.

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

Brian has some interesting opinions about hops, especially that beer can be flavored with plants other than hops. Listen to him tell the history of hop use in beer in Europe.

Today Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras is an Old Caz update directly from co-owner Brian Rengel. He has been on this show many times, the last time was this episode on May 23, 2024, along with cidermaker Jeffery House.

Old Caz is now open in its new location. It has “…the same vibe and the same feel as the old spot,” says Brian Rengel co-owner of Old Caz. They have used the same flooring and bar tops from the old place, which was built completely with free stuff. But it’s bigger and it has parking and real bathrooms.

They will be making beer in their new facility and you will be able to drink fresh beer straight from the tank on the anniversary party. They have a brand new lunch service with wraps, sandwiches, salads and sides and they get homemade pretzels from a nearby shop. Of course there are deserts. The menu includes all the Old Caz beers, as well as hard kombucha, wine and sparkling mead. Every evening there are food trucks for dinner.

The Tuesday trivia night is packed. People start coming at 3 and you might not be able to get a table after 4. Their taproom manager Rob is in charge and they had 45 teams competing.

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

Old Caz is open Monday through Thursday 11-9pm, Friday and Saturday 11-10pm and Sunday 11-8pm.

This year’s Old Caz anniversary party will take place Saturday and Sunday August 24-25 at the new location in SoMo Village.

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 Chismosa is a Mexican Amber Lager which is similar to a Modelo. It happened to win Gold at the World Beer Cup!

“I’ve been saying this to everyone, all of our friends and our customers and our regulars. I’m excited for everyone to see where we are right now, because we’ve come this far in a very short period of time. If you give me another five years, we’re going to be putting beer on the moon. So, pay attention!”

Another Old Caz beer is the Bukovany Pivo, a Czech style. Co-founder Tom’s family had a small brewery and pub in the Czech town of Bukovany, and Pivo means Beer in Czech. Breakfast Skaggs beer is an oatmeal-based stout, with additional flavor of maple syrup and vanilla bean. Brian mentions a couple of ideas, such as a Mexican Imperial, which would be an original, and a quad IPA. Trust Tom to make it great.

Catastrophe is a Rye Beer in an orange caution-cone colored can. Not everyone likes rye IPA but this one has die-hard fans.

Instead of having to manage a kitchen with a large menu, they have a rotation of food trucks. To make it easy for them, Old Caz is installing a reinforced concrete pad where the trucks can park, with power hookups.

Golden Rule Cider from Ethic Cider.

Ethic Ciders founder New Lawton is back on this crunchy episode of Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras, to promote this year’s Gravenstein Apple Fair. Ned Lawton appeared on Brew Ha Ha on this August 25, 2018 episode, promoting Cider Week that year.

Herlinda is going to Italy next week to visit some friends who have bought a house near Lake Como, which they will be converting into a bed and breakfast.

The Gravenstein apple is to cider makers what Pinot Noir is to local winemakers. It is the go-to fruit for their art. It is tart and sweet and ripens early. Ethic Ciders got started with their acquisition of an old apple orchard which was in need of renovation. Once that was done they were able to produce a crop and make the cider from that.

They are tasting a cider called Gravitude. Its name means “grateful for Gravensteins. It is sparkling and very food friendly. The tartness is what makes it combine with foods in the same way that a wine with strong acidity does.

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.

They will be pouring ciders at the Gravenstein Apple Fair on Aug. 10. There they will also be launching a new product, Gravitude in cans. Some of their ciders are traditional and others are their creative recipes that combine flavors. You will also be able to meet the cider makers.  There are also styles that come from different countries. It is popular in France, from Brittany. There will be cider producers and also cheese and gelato “It is a really classic country fair,” says Herlinda.

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

There is also a press where you can press apples. Some producers will have special ciders to pour. The arts and crafts are true local artisans and you can find stuff you won’t see anywhere else.

There is no new Brew Ha Ha show today, due to travel schedules, so for this week’s podcast edition here is an encore show of a visit with Ron Lindenbush from last March. Brew Ha Ha will be back with a new episode next week, Thursday Aug. 1. Cheers!

Ron Lindenbusch, Hopland Tap founder and owner, is back again on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras. He has been on Brew Ha Ha several times, including this episode on July 5, 2018, again on May 28, 2020 along with Natalie Cilurzo, and again on May 6, 2021. These episodes chronicle Ron’s career with Lagunitas up to and including the Heineken purchase.

Today’s live radio show is a triple-header. We have two other guests in the studio along with Ron today. The episode with Cynthia from Homerun Pizza is here. Ryan Frank, brewmaster at Headlands Brewing, also has his own podcast episode on this page.

Since he left Lagunitas at the end of a very successful run, Ron Lindenbusch found the perfect location in Hopland to set up the tavern that he always dreamed of. Steve remembers when it was the Hopland Brewery, they had bands including some pretty famous ones. Hopland Tap also does live music. This Saturday the band is Left-Hand Monkey Wrench.

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.

Herlinda Heras is helping the Museum of Sonoma County develop its upcoming exhibition ON TAP about the history of brewing in Sonoma County. Ron Lindenbush was with her at the museum today to record some video that will be used in the exhibition. He personally holds a lot of the stories of the history that is the subject of the exhibit.

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

They are tasting a non-alcoholic beer that Ron makes. It actually tastes like beer. One is called Electro Lime. Ron explains that it is made just like beer, then the alcohol is removed. What remains is a beverage that actually tastes like beer. The non-alcoholic beer scene is completely different than it was ten years ago.