Petaluma Hills Brewing Company connects with brewing roots

The Homebroots program pairs aspiring home brewers with professional beer makers.|

Gone are the days when wine connoisseurs were the only ones to pair their preferred libation with cheese platters, dinner plates and desserts. Conscientious and creative chefs now also incorporate craft beer into their recipes, and they are not shy about placing food and beer pairing suggestions on their menus.

In the craft beer mecca of Petaluma, restaurants are just as likely to present a prix fixe brewer’s dinner as a wine maker’s dinner.

However, this requires a clientele with at least a baseline understanding of beer styles and, just as important, craft brewers who stay connected to their customers, whose palettes are crying out for more than just a Miller Lite or Corona.

Petaluma Hills Brewing Company’s Homebroots program aims to do just that by keeping owner/brewmaster JJ Jay firmly connected to his homebrew roots.

“Once a brewery loses touch with its home brewing roots, it ceases to be about the craft of brewing and becomes simply a business,” said Jay, who invites select home brewers to brew their recipe at Petaluma Hills, and then offers it in the brewery’s taproom.

But instead of simply shadowing Jay while brewing a single batch in his full-scale commercial equipment, the home brewer brings in their home brew set-up and brews their recipe themselves. JJ dusts off his home brew equipment too, which he still uses to make test batches, and also brews the same recipe with identical ingredients.

Once the brews have been racked, fermented and are ready for primetime, Petaluma Hills taps them simultaneously, so curious fans can taste and compare.

“It’s not about one being better than the other,” Jay said. “It’s about recognizing that two brewers, using different equipment, can brew an identical recipe yet come out with different tasting beers.”

Jay created Homebroots once he realized how many of his regulars also brew beer of their own.

“I don’t have a degree in brewing or any commercial experience prior to opening the brewery. I’m just like them, I started off brewing at home,” he said. “So long as they are good brewers and know the process, they can create beers as good as anything on the commercial market.”

Jay does not have any hard and fast rules about choosing participants.

“So far we have picked brewers from our taproom,” he said. “We see them at pouring events, they share their brews with us, and they are fans who have become friends. They are not strangers to us.”

The first Homebroots participants were Craig Eshe and Jon Conte, who hope to open their own brewery someday under the name of HopLabs Brewing. Their selection was “Baby On The Way IPA,” in honor of NorCal Beer Geeks and Healdsburg Emporium’s Peter Lopez’s newborn daughter.

“JJ’s love and knowledge of beer definitely shows in his craft,” said Conte, in reference to their Homebroots session.

“We sold out 15 gallons in about four hours,” said Eshe of the Homebroots unveiling event. “It was like a dream.”

On May 19, from 4 to 9 p.m., craft beer fans can try the second Homebroots selection, Cherry Street Wheat, created by local firefighter and paramedic Kevin Larson. Larson is in the planning stages of his brewery, Coastal Acres Brewing Company, and jumped at the chance to brew alongside Jay.

“It was great to learn about the commercial brewing challenges and rewards, from someone who is doing what I would like to do,” Larson said.

At the North McDowell Boulevard brewery, an outsider would not be able to tell who was the professional and who was the home brewer, keeping true to Jay’s desire to remain close to his home brewing roots. But anyone who loves local craft beer recognizes Jay’s shaved head and Petaluma Hills T-shirt-wearing stick-figure profile from a mile away.

At the suggestion of Larson, Jay donates 15 percent of the proceeds to the home brewer’s chosen charity.

“The Homebroots program has been a boon to the taproom and is good for the brewer, so why not add another element and use this to also give back to the community,” Jay said.

Larson’s charity is Big Brothers/Big Sisters of the North Bay. HopLabs Brewing donated to Sonoma County Vet Connect.

Beer has reemerged as more than just a “cold one” while fishing on a hot summer day. To fans of craft beer, a meal is not complete without the right beer.

The Homebroots program keeps Petaluma Hills Brewing Company firmly connected to its home brew roots, while giving budding brewers a taste of what it is like to brew professionally. And for craft beer aficionados, it provides a rare opportunity to taste what an identical beer tastes like when brewed by two different craft brewers.

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