Sandro Tamburin, brewer at Old Possum Brewing Co. and Scott Bice from Redwood Hill Farms are both are back on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon today. Sandro Tamburin comes from Trieste, Italy, and spent time in Dallas Texas in the restaurant business before coming to California to study at Davis and to make beer and wine. Scott Bice's family operates Redwood Hill Farms, a great producer of goat cheese and other products of goat's milk. They also have started growing hops and since this is hops season the wet hopped beers are appearing. To make wet hopped beer, you have to get the fresh hops into the vat as soon as possible.  Russian River is making their Hop Time Harvest beer, a wet hopped beer. "Every time you buy from a small business, the owner does a little dance."  - Sandro Tamburin Sandro says that their aged goat cheese reminds him of Grana Padano. They taste some goat cheeses with the wet hopped beer. Sandro describes the brewing process. The Old Possum beers are available at many local shops and restaurants. Natalie Cilurzo also joins us on the phone, for an update on Russian River Brewing Company's operations during and within Coronavirus restrictions, from their Santa Rosa and Windsor locations. She also describes picking hops today at Crane Ranch and Redwood Hill Farms. They got some fresh hops to add wet hops to the kettle in the Santa Rosa brewery. It's called Hop Time Harvest Ale, it's 100% wet hopped. The downtown pub is open daily from 11-8 for pick-up orders. Visit the website for the menu and call (707) 545-BEER to order for delivery in and around Santa Rosa. They are all wearing masks, keeping distance and sanitizing everything so they have a safe environment. They are able to ship beer directly to customers but only inside California.

Brew Ha Ha Podcast

Sandro Tamburin, Old Possum Brewing and Scott Bice, Redwood Hill

The Earle Baum Center of the Blind and Dr. Hoby Wedler visit Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon today. Herlinda Heras introduced Hoby Wedler, who is a PhD in organic chemistry and a sensory expert who has been blind since birth. He is a tasting expert and founder of Senspoint Design. He will tell how to taste a unique brew. Plus, the tasting is all for charity to support the Earle Baum Center and its work. Hoby explains that the Earle Baum Center was important to him because they taught him the skills he needed to be successful in college. He met with the CEO to put together an in-person tasting for staff and a few donors in August 2018 and the idea is to do it again. With Covid, they have decided to turn it virtual in order to make it happen this time around. They invite people to connect this Sunday at 4pm. Hoby will be talking about the Balletto wines being tasted and there will be a chef there too. Francis Ford Coppola asked him to do a truly blind taste test once, which was his first. He uses blindfolds as a way to "take away the visual tension and talk about what they feel." They will be tasting three Balletto wines, a 2019 Rosé of Pinot Noir, a 2016 Russian River Valley Chardonnay and an award-winning 2018 Russian River Valley Pinot Noir. Each will be paired with delicious dishes. Search Tasting in the Dark on eventbrite. The event is free but if you buy your wine and use the code EBC "Echo Bravo Charlie" you will get a discount on the wine and a percentage of the proceeds will go to support the Earle Baum Center. Herlinda points out that Dr. Hoby Wedler can organize tastings like these for beer and also for mead, cider and spirits as well as wine. In fact Hoby at home and Steve and Herlinda in studio all have a pink guava cider from Ace Cider at their different locations. Brazilian Pink Guava is the fruit that gives it great tropical fruit flavors.   The Beverage People has been Sonoma County's fermentation experts since 1980. They have everything you need for home brewing, winemaking, and also for making cider, mead, kombucha, kefir, cheese, olives, yogurt and more. Their friendly and knowledgeable staff will advise you about what you want to do and how to use the equipment. (Under normal circumstances they hold classes but not right now due to the Coronavirus.) Open Tuesday through Saturday pre-order curbside hours are 10 am - 6:30pm, walk-up hours are shorter, noon to 4pm. 1845 Piner Rd., suite D, Santa Rosa CA 95403 Russian River Brewing Company is open in its Windsor and Santa Rosa locations. Check the website for up-to-the-minute opening hours, menus and Coronavirus precautionary rules.

The Earle Baum Center and Dr. Hoby Wedler

Jan and Marsh from Gray Whale Gin join Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha today. This show was recorded live on May 7 of this year. The regularly scheduled live Brew Ha Ha is preempted today for ongoing coverage of the Lightning Complex fires in Sonoma and Napa counties. Gray Whale Gin is made with ingredients that are foraged and harvested all along the west coast of Mexico and California, the range of the Pacific Gray Whale. There is lime harvested in Baja California, juniper and mint from the central California coast, and more. He invites bartenders to submit recipes for cocktails that highlight their flavors and in return for the promotion they will send a bottle of their gin. Jan explains how she and Marsh thought there was a need for more craft spirits from California that used local ingredients and that highlighted the region. Marsh tells how the Gray Whales have the longest known migration in the world, 12,000 miles from the Arctic to the Gulf of California. "We couldn't think of a more fitting way to say, 'California, we love you.'" Also, as seen on the back of their bottle, they contribute to conservation through Oceana and 1% for the Planet. They are a small company but they still can do a lot to support bartenders, such as their live Instagram features with bartenders. They are proud to be able to pay the bartenders for those contributions.

Gray Whale Gin

Palooza Brewery & Gastropub co-founder Jeff Tyler visits with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras on this edition of the Brew Ha Ha podcast. Palooza is located on Sonoma Highway in Kenwood. Jeff Tyler has brought food and beer from Palooza, to show some beer and food pairings. Jeff Tyler was working in construction in 2008 when the economy went bust. He started a hot dog stand, that grew into a catering business, then he opened this restaurant that has been open for six years. They have a lot of space on six patios and the scenery around there is beautiful. They actually do also ferment beer on site. Palooza also does pick-up up to about 8 or 9 o'clock. They are drinking what Jeff Tyler calls the Porch Pounder, a 4.5% alcohol pilsner. They also have "The Mask Dropper" which is an IPA much stronger. It's 6.8 or 6.9% alcohol. Herlinda notes that the bitterness in an IPA goes well with spicy food. Palooza is located near Kunde Winery and others in Kenwood. They can seat 155 people, in clusters of up to ten, in ways that respect social distancing rules. There is tape on the ground to set borders and everyone must wear a mask. You place your order at the counter and you get a buzzer that tells you when your food is ready. Then they will serve further drinks at your table. There is lots of free parking and also lots of shade. If there are people there, they will stay open. Jeff Tyler attended Herlinda Heras' beer appreciation class at Sonoma State University extension. The Beverage People has been Sonoma County's fermentation experts since 1980. They have everything you need for home brewing, winemaking, and also for making cider, mead, kombucha, kefir, cheese, olives, yogurt and more. Their friendly and knowledgeable staff will advise you about what you want to do and how to use the equipment. (Under normal circumstances they hold classes but not right now due to the Coronavirus.) Open Tuesday through Saturday pre-order curbside hours are 10 am - 6:30pm, walk-up hours are shorter, noon to 4pm. 1845 Piner Rd., suite D, Santa Rosa CA 95403

Palooza Brewery & Gastropub co-founder Jeff Tyler

Taylor Lane, Russian River Brewing Company's head lab tech, joins Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras on the Brew Ha Ha podcast today. She was in graduate school in Microbiology at Cal Poly Pomona, working as a lab technician and manager and researching her thesis subject of probiotic bacteria, when she found that they had a culinary program. She thought there could be good professional opportunities for her in the brewing field. She worked for Ritual Brewing company while in school and then for Innovation Brew Works, where she set up their entire lab operation. Three years ago the joined Russian River Brewing Company as head lab tech. The lab is at the center of the production process, as Taylor Lane describes it. Day to day, they test the tanks that are in process and perform various analytics. They look for sugar, color, turbidity or haze, or bitterness, all the variables that brewers care about. They check to see that their yeast is healthy and that there is no unwanted or wild yeast getting in. They also are involved in tasting the final product. Herlinda Heras asks Taylor Lane about the big room at RRBC's Windsor location with the cool ship. She describes how surprised some people are about the science required to run a good brewery. Yeast counts and yeast types are important to maintaining a consistent product. Herlinda asks, why is sour beer good for you? It's different in this way. It is first fermented as a normal beer, then another sour yeast is added, with other ingredients, to produce the sour beer. Some of the bacteria in their sour stock are bacteria that are also found in our microbiome. That is a relatively new term for the community of bacteria and viruses that live inside us and on us. The Beverage People have everything for home brewing, winemaking, also cider, mead, kombucha, kefir, cheese, olives, yogurt and more. Their friendly and knowledgeable staff are available to advise you about using their stuff. (Normally they hold lots of classes but that's off for now due to Coronavirus precautions.) Open Tuesday through Saturday pre-order curbside hours are 10 am - 6:30pm, walk-up hours are shorter, noon to 4pm. 1845 Piner Rd., suite D, Santa Rosa CA 95403 Phone: (707) 544-2520 Pre-Order Curbside Pickup Hours:   Tues. - Sat., 10 am - 6:30 pm Front Door Walk-up Ordering Hrs:   Tues. - Sat., 12 noon - 4:00 pm

Taylor Lane, Head Lab Tech at Russian River B. C.

Michelle Marquez is filling in for Steve Jaxon today on the Brew Ha Ha podcast, Herlinda Heras has brought guests from Wolf House Brewing in Cloverdale, Kevin Lovett and Dwayne Moran. Kevin Lovett grew up around craft beer. His father was one of the founders of Mendocino Brewing Co. He and Don Barkley took the equipment from New Albion and started Hopland which became Mendocino.  When Barkley founded Napa Smith, Kevin asked for a job and started on the bottling line. The Brian Hunt, who also worked at New Albion, gave him a job at Moonlight Brewing Co., then he was head brewer at Stumptown then master brewer at Cloverdale Ale. Now he is running Wolf House with his partner Dwayne. He describes the challenges of opening a brewery and brewpub in these times. They were open for about three weeks before precautions. They are open, though. They are drinking Burning Daylight Pilsner. It's 4.6% alcohol. He calls it a Cloverdale Pilsner because he does not treat the water so the local water is what is being used. Most Pilsner makers try to match the pH of the Pilsen River, but he says he thought he could do better. He still has some New Albion swag. He also uses a recipe from the old Eye of the Hawk, for a beer he calls One Eye Select Ale.

Wolf House Brewing Master Brewer Kevin Lovett

Sipsong Spirits founder Tara Jasper joins Michelle Marquez (sitting in for Steve Jaxon) and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha today. Sipsong Spirits has recently won a double gold medal at the San Francisco World's Fair for its Indira Gin. Tara Jasper says she never thought she would be distilling gin. She began her career working for other people and then heard the wisdom that people should do what they love. So she enrolled at Santa Rosa Junior College in the culinary program. She experimented with making flavored liqueurs. In order to make liqueurs better, she had to become a distiller. Indira Gin also supports a good cause. Tara is a breast cancer survivor and she supports "Fight like a Girl" which is a breast cancer support community. Herlinda has made a cocktail with Sipsong Spirits' Indira Gin (using a shaker that we hear at 5:51). You can order from their website and if you live in Sonoma County, shipping is free. They also have a line of teas. Their products are available at Bottle Barn and Oliver's markets. Sipsong Spirits has not entered very many competitions. Tara first entered a contest in Singapore, since she thought her gin, being not a common one, might not be as well understood here at home. When she won a Silver medal there, in a big competition with only a few winners, she felt more confident. She made a couple of edits to her recipe, "I pulled back a little bit on the cumin," and she also describes how she changed the spirit base. The modified recipe is what won in San Francisco. She describes how her husband helps her and participates in the business.  

Sipsong Spirits founder Tara Jasper

Fal Allen from Anderson Valley Brewing Co. and Gabe Jackson from The Beverage People are both on Brew Ha Ha to talk to Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras. Fal Allen was on this show two years ago, in August of 2018, talking about his Gose beer. The Beverage People sells kits for brewing specific types of beer, including one that uses Anderson Valley Brewing’s recipe for Gose style beer. This is a German style that AVB has been making and now its recipe is available to home brewers. The Beverage People has been supplying Sonoma County home brewers since 1980 with equipment, ingredients and expertise, for making beer and wine at home but also mead, kombucha, cheese, olives, and more. During the pandemic a lot of people have started baking bread, and they all agree that these folks should also try brewing beer. Gose is a German sour wheat beer that is one of the oldest beer recipes still in use, even if it is very unusual even for a German beer. It was popular in the 1300s then later in the 1700s and 1800s in Leipzig it became popular. Then it became popular in the 1980s in Germany. Fal Allen has actually written a book about Gose style beer. It is 4.2% alcohol. It’s a new trend in craft beer to have less alcohol. Herlinda says that in England there is an extra tax on beer over 4.5% alcohol, which goes to transportation services. Gabe Jackson talks about the importance of having pleasant and productive activities during the pandemic “mayhem” as Steve Jaxon calls it. Herlinda mentions that they are always available to give personal advice to their customers about how to use their equipment, and that this is nicer and more productive than just looking things up on line by yourself. Fal Allen mentions that the next recipe that Anderson Valley Brewing Company will provide to The Beverage People may be their very popular Boont Amber Ale. They remember the late Byron Birch, who founded The Beverage People. Gabe Jackson calls him their “spirit guy” and says that beer was like his religion. When Byron started the store, there were almost no books about home brewing, but that he had written one. Fal Allen started in beer as a home brewer, using Byron’s book and remembers him as an important mentor. The Anderson Valley Brewing Company brewpub is closed right now and Fal Allen says they are renovating it during the closure to turn the entire 23 acres into a German-style beer garden. There is camping space for over 4000 people, between the brewery and a nearby park. In 2021 they hope to return to their usual late-April date for the beer festival and also possibly Oktoberfest. They also have an 18-hole disc golf course. Herlinda mentions Russian River Brewing Co. is also promoting Pliny for President 2020 and their Black is Beautiful beer. The outside patio is open at RRBC and the bottle shop is open. You can sit outside at their 4th street Santa Rosa location. The Beverage People's staff are always available to give advice about using their stuff. Visit the Beverage People dot com.  They have all you need to make beer, cider, wine, cheese, kombucha, olives and more. You can order anything and pick it up in person at their store on Piner Road, or have it delivered to you.  

Fal Allen from Anderson Valley Brewing Co.

Spirit Works Distillery's co-owners Ashby and Timo Marshall are our guests today on the Brew Ha Ha podcast with Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras. They have just been named the 2020 American Distillery of the Year. Gabe from the Beverage People and Fal Allen from Anderson Valley Brewing are also in. Herlinda has just fixed up a cocktail with some of their Bourbon and Sloe Gin, Campari and orange bitters from Bitter Girl. They founded the distillery in 2013. His family has made Sloe Gin for a long time, in England. They wanted to bring their traditional recipe to California. They have a retail location in The Barlow, they are open Wednesday through Sunday 10-4. They can also ship within California. They have been awarded Best Distillery in the USA by the American Distillers Institute, which they are very proud of, Timo says it's the biggest thing that has happened to them since their founding. Gabe Jackson from the Beverage People is also in today. Their staff are available to give you advice about what you will be doing with their equipment. Visit the Beverage People dot com.  They have equipment for beer, cider, wine, cheese, kombucha, olives and more. You can order anything you need and pick it up at the store or have it delivered.  

Spirit Works Distillery 2020 Distillery of the Year

Black is Beautiful is the cooperative fund raising recipe from Marcus Baskerville of Weathered Soul Brewing in Austin, Texas. Natalie Cilurzo calls in to talk to Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras today on Brew Ha Ha. Black is Beautiful now has over 1000 participants and they will taste and describe Russian River Brewing Co.'s version of it today. Natalie describes how the city of Santa Rosa has closed five blocks of 4th Street downtown, from now until October 15, so that restaurants, including the Russian River Brewing Co. downtown Santa Rosa location, can provide additional outdoor seating with social distancing. There is a little parklet in front of their place. Bayside Church donated their time and materials to build parklets for the restaurants that wanted them. Natalie really appreciates that effort. In Windsor, Russian River Brewing Co. is closed for dining and open for beer and food take-out. They do have tables and chairs out in front so people can bring their take-out outside and have it there, but the beer garden is closed for the time being. Their third batch of Pliny for President 2020 has been released. Herlinda gave some to John O'Hurley, the famous actor who played Peterman on Seinfeld, there in the studio. As they taste the Black is Beautiful ale, Natalie describes it as thick and rich, an Imperial Stout that is "definitely not for the faint of heart." Russian River Brewing Co. has also released their edition of the Black is Beautiful project. That's the recipe that Marcus Baskerville of Weathered Soul Brewing has launched. Marcus was on Brew Ha Ha a few weeks ago, on June 11, to describe it. He invites brewers to use the beer to raise money for their choice of local causes. Russian River Brewing Co. has chosen to support Legal Aid of Sonoma County and The California Innocence Project. Pliny runs for President every four years on the Keg Party ticket, this is his fourth campaign. They thought it would be a beer they could use to celebrate reopening, but since reopening is postponed, it's for shelter in place now and they are releasing it in cans now. California customers can order it or get it at the breweries. It is a double dry hop. It has a bright, fruity citrussy beer. She gets grapefruit and citronella. It's based on Pliny the Elder but "even better." Gabe Jackson from the Beverage People was going to come in but is busy. Herlinda will be curing olives this Fall, with help from The Beverage People. Herlinda says Gabe wanted the audience to know that they are available to give you advice about what you will be doing with their equipment. Visit the Beverage People dot com.  Of course we're going into apple and wine season and they have equipment for cider and winemaking. You can order anything you need and pick it up at the store or have it delivered.  

Black Is Beautiful and Pliny for President 2020

Ace Cider's brand ambassador Ed McGrath and founder Jeffery House join Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras today on the Brew Ha Ha podcast. Ed McGrath says he became a cider ambassador by loving cider. He started drinking cider when there was a beer strike in Canada, many years ago. His family had a little vineyard in St. Helena and he felt more comfortable working with cider than in the wine business. Jeffery House is on his way to the studio and will join the show soon. In England, cider is a drink for every social class. It is also very popular in Normandy, France, the north-west region. Cider is the number one drink in that region of France and there are many brands and small local productions. This one they are drinking comes from Isigney-sur-Mer, which is reputed to be the town that Walt Disney's family came from. Herlinda tells about how the locals would reward the American soldiers with bottles of locally produced cider after the troops landed, in the D-Day Normandy invasion. Generally the French ciders are lower in alcohol, 4-6 precent, than others. Next they sample an Ace Cider. Ed McGrath is the brand ambassador for Ace Cider, founded by the House family. Ace Cider is the oldest premiere cider producer in the US. Ace Cider is a Sebastopol company that sells in 48 states of the US. They have a bottle of Ace Black Jack cider made from Sonoma County Gravensteins. The Gravenstein apple is an heirloom apple that is excellent for cider making. The Gravenstein has enough tannins and tartness to make really good cider. Grocery store apples are bred for thick skins and less bruising, and they don't have the tartness needed for cider. Apple cider is made from cider apples but when Prohibition came, the trees were destroyed. There is great cider being made now in places like New York and Michigan. Ace Cider also makes cider with guavas, pears (called "perry"), pineapples and others. At the cider conference last January, Herlinda also saw cider made with Habanero peppers. You can rent an apple press from The Beverage People as well as all the production and bottling equipment you need. They also provide information, books, courses and will help you use their equipment. Visit the Beverage People's website to learn about it all.  [12:48] Jeffery House is in the house! The founder of Ace Cider joins Steve Jaxon, Herlinda Heras and Ed McGrath in the studio. He has brought a Mango Cider from Ace Cider, their latest line addition. It is being test-marketed in Oregon and in Los Angeles. His Guava cider is the fastest-growing cider brand in the US. He has started canning cider this year, which is selling very well. His keg business has dried up due to Coronavirus closures. The business was deemed essential so he was able to stay open. His sons help run the company, Simon is the national sales manager, in Los Angeles. They led the company to start its canning operation. Ace Cider started in Marin in 1993 and moved to Sonoma County with they found apples and a producer in Sebastopol, then they thought they could do their own. They started in Graton, It was called Ace in the Hole.  and then he met Warren Dutton, a big apple grower and grape grower. They became partners. Ace Cider is now the 3rd largest cidery in the US.

Ace Cider’s Ed McGrath and Jeffery House

Today's beer market is the subject of today's Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon. He and Herlinda Heras talk with Tara Nurin, Forbes magazine correspondent who writes about the beverage and spirits markets. Her June 30 article in Forbes magazine is called "Alcohol Sales Are Not Spiking or Even Stabilizing, Here's Why the Misconception Matters. She says she has heard reports in the media saying that alcohol sales are supposedly booming during the Coronavirus crisis, but she knows well, that is not the case, which her article explains in great detail. People have been buying more from liquor stores, but overall sales are down. So much revenue comes from public sales in restaurants and lots of other public locations, which have been closed. The retail sales increase does not make up for the losses. Alcohol sales have only spiked in to-go sales, like everything from supermarkets to liquor stores and convenience stores. Breweries that were only selling draft were in the most trouble, and those that were able to start canning or who had recently added canning lines, had an easier time. Our guest two weeks ago, Brian Hunt of Moonlight Brewing Co., is an example. It is especially hard for restaurants that were closed, then some were allowed to open but now are closing again. This puts strain on management, finance and personnel. Herlinda also reports that the National Brewers Association had to lay off some staff. Russian River Brewing Company is open in its Windsor and Santa Rosa locations. Check the website for up-to-the-minute opening hours, menus and Coronavirus precautionary rules. Gabe Jackson from The Beverage People is also in today. The Beverage People, since 1980, has provided the Sonoma County community with everything anyone needs to make beer and wine at home, as well as many other kinds of fermented beverages and foods, such as cider, cheese, olives, kombucha and more. Gabe Jackson was also a guest on Brew Ha Ha was last summer, on July 18, 2019. The Beverage People also holds classes; they are not active right now, but they hope to resume them soon. Gabe assures us that they can still give personal advice about anything to their customers.

Today’s beer market with Tara Nurin

Our guests from the Earle Baum Center of the Blind this week we are Bob Sonnenberg and Dr. Hoby Wedler, who join Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras. Dr. Hoby Wedler has been on Brew Ha Ha twice before. The first time was in September of 2018, when he brought blindfolds and they conducted a truly blind taste test. The second time was in May of 2019. Bob Sonnenberg and Dr. Hoby Wedler are both members of the board of directors of the Earle Baum Center of the Blind, which is a non-profit regional community center in Santa Rosa serving people with sight loss in Sonoma, Napa, Mendocino and Lake Counties. Hoby Wedler grew up in Petaluma and attended UC Davis for undergraduate and got his PhD in Chemistry in 2016. Hoby Wedler is a co-founder of Senspoint Design, a creative strategy firm that designs and builds brand strategies. Hoby is calling in from home to minimize the risk of damage to his sense of smell, which is a known effect of Covid-19. Since he relies on his sense of smell so much, it is best to minimize his risk. Hoby says, "...I like to talk about eyesight loss instead of vision loss, because I think all of us have vision, some of us might not have eyesight." Bob explains how they are there to help anyone with vision loss, including personal and social support and finding specialized care. The Earle Baum Center used to run a concert series. Bob explains that everything has a shelf life, and they ran the "Earle Fest" for about 10 years. But it was a lot of work and not really connected to the mission of the center. So they had to focus more on their mission. During the pandemic, the Earle Baum Center has not lost a step. They are conducting their classes and support groups all online.  O&M means Orientation and Mobility, which is the name of the collection of skills that they teach to people with vision impairment. During the conversation, Herlinda mentions they are drinking a Happy Hops beer, from our sponsor, Russian River Brewing Company. There is a Donate button on the Earle Baum Center of the Blind website.

The Earle Baum Center

Brian Hunt, founder of Moonlight Brewing Co is back on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon. Herlinda Heras in also in the studio today. Steve asks how Brian is surviving the Coronavirus challenges and he says it has pushed them to put more beer in cans and less in kegs, because kegs to to restaurants which are all closed and so beer drinking has shifted to cans. He opened Moonlight Brewing in 1992 producing beer on a small scale, putting it in kegs and distributing it around the Bay Area. In 2002 he moved near Graton then in about 2012 moved to Coffey Ln in Santa Rosa. They make different styles of beer. They are drinking a Moonlight Brewing Reality Check, which is a Pilsner. They only started canning since December 2019. They have bought a canning line. Previously they used a mobile canning line. Now their canning line comes from the Codi Canning Company in Colorado. Andrew Ferguson, from Codi Canning, is on the phone with Steve Jaxon. Codi Canning is offering free canning services to brewers who are stuck with inventory in tanks in the brewery and who can't put it into kegs because the restaurant business has dropped out and nobody is taking kegs right now. They have extra equipment and he saw the need to get the beer out of tanks and into something that would be sellable so the breweries can have some chance to sell their beer instead of having to dump it. Here is an article in Food & Wine online magazine about Codi Canning's initiative. Moonlight Brewing was producing maybe as much as 95% draft beer before they got the canning equipment. Now they are "basically zero percent draft beer" and it's almost all in cans. They are doing take-out and shipping but the real news for the business is that they are selling beer to places like Oliver's (the gourmet markets) and any other place you can buy good beer in cans. Selling beer in cans to the public instead of in kegs to restaurant distributors means finding the buyers in different places, in different ways. So Herlinda notes that since the canning line installation, she has never seen so much of Brian Hunt on Moonlight Brewing's Instagram page. Herlinda takes a moment to mourn the recent passing of Roseanne Finkel, who with her husband Charles Finkel, ran The Pike Brewing Company in Seattle., which was originally called the Pike Place Brewery in 1989. They were the first large scale importer of many important beers from Belgium, Germany and England, thirty years ago when there was no other way to get that kind of beer here. For this reason they were hugely influential. "It was a beer desert before them," says Brian. Brian explains that it is important to have beer from the small producers who are the only ones who can produce beer made with that kind of care. The large industrial brewers are working on economies of scale so they are not able to take the same kind of care with the beer.

Moonlight Brewing founder Brian Hunt

Marcus Baskerville, co-founder of Weathered Souls Brewing Company, joins Steve Jaxon and Herlinda Heras today on the Brew Ha Ha podcast. Marcus Baskerville's project "Black" is Beautiful is featured in this article in Forbes Magazine. entitled "Weathered Souls’ Black Is Beautiful Campaign Shows Racial Solidarity In Craft Beer." Weathered Souls Brewing Company will celebrate its fourth anniversary this November. They are located in San Antonio, TX. Marcus grew up in northern California. They have been the #1 brewer in San Antonio for the last couple of years. They are known for their Stout beer and they have a lot of local support. There are less than 30 black-owned breweries in America and Weathered Souls Brewing Co. is one of them. They toast with Pliny for President 2020 from Russian River Brewing. The Black is Beautiful collaboration is up to almost 600 participating breweries around the world. He has created a recipe for a Stout beer, his specialty. Breweries can download the recipe and either follow it carefully or adapt it. The plan is for breweries to donate the profits locally to organizations supporting police reform and social justice. The idea is for this project to start conversations and projects on a local basis in as many places as possible. Marcus says that he has found the brewing industry to be inclusive and welcoming. Beer can be, "...the first step in creating change." He remembers being inspired by Annie Johnson winning Home Brewer of the Year.    Visit the Russian River Brewing Co. for updated opening hours and to see the menu. (707) 545-BEER.   

Marcus Baskerville Weathered Souls Brewing Co.

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