Russian River Brewing, Santa Rosa - Aug. 25

This year's GABF is a little different for me, I now own Russian River Brewing Company with my wife and two other business partners (they will be handling the restaurant side of the brewpub) and we are building a new brewpub in Santa Rosa, Calif. More than anything, I have earthquake retrofit and constructing a brewery on my mind more than beer! Today we were supposed to have our inspection by the TTB/BATF guy. This is the federal government agency that oversees the beer industry. Because we are behind schedule though this has been pushed back to October or November.

I don't actually have a brewery to call home because we are in construction, and for that reason, we have been brewing our beers at Ruth McGowan's Brewpub in Cloverdale, Calif. Thank you Mike and Mary Ann Brigham, the owner's of Ruth McGowan's! I'm also the brewer at Ruth McGowan's so I know the equipment well, but I only have a chance to brew Russian River beers when a tank opens up and we do not have anything on the schedule for the production of Ruth McGowan's beers. So, I knock out a RRBC batch here, and a RRBC batch there, back in June when we had to fill out the GABF entry form, I wasn't even sure how many beers I would have available for the festival.

Next, no HopTime Harvest Ale in 2003.