Colin from Hen House Brewing Company is our guest today on Brew Ha Ha with Steve Jaxon, Mark Carpenter and Herlinda Heras.

We welcome our new sponsor, The Beverage People, Sonoma County’s fermentation headquarters since 1980. They invite beer geeks and home brewers alike to join their Fermenter’s Community Membership Program. It offers the best deals and high level support from their staff, store credit, discounts and a lot more. Visit beveragepeople.com for more details.

They have all the materials for making beer, cider, cheese and many others. Colin points out that they will also give you a recipe for a Hen House brew that you can make at home and then compare to their product. Colin tells about how Hen House has grown over the last couple of years. They are tasting a new Hen House beer called Mattress Mafia. They came up with the name this way. It seems to him that there are too many mattress stores. So he wondered why there are so many of them. It is a fresh IPA, canned four days ago. They put a lot of effort into freshness.

In October they will put on the Freshtival, where many brewers will bring beer that is less than 7 days old. It will be at Sonoma Mountain Village in Rhonert Park, on Saturday, October 12. There will be several famous and less well known brewers and all of it will be less than seven days old. They will also have some of the most popular local bands performing. They will write some new music so they will have fresh music to match the beer.

Mark Carpenter says that Hen House is justly famous because they make good beer, in addition to their interesting labels. Colin tells how everybody pulls for beer quality. “Beer only matters when someone drinks it.” Everybody in production, sales, etc, knows that it is their job to make beer delicious.

They may also have some fresh hop and wet hop beers, provided that they are less than 7 days old. This is the first year of the festival and they are focussed on beer. But in the future they may branch out into other foods.

Hen House also has a brewery and distribution hub in Santa Rosa with a tasting room. They also have a barrel aging room in Petaluma, across from Lagunitas. This is only about a year old but it is growing.

Colin tells about another Hen House beer, called Phantom Time, which alludes to the Council of Nicea with Pope Sylvester and the Byzantine Emperor Constantine