Beer Making In The Fogbelt

On an unassuming stretch of Cleveland Ave. a couple of friends decided to do what every homebrewer dreams of doing everyday. They opened a brewpub. Fogbelt Brewing Company to be precise.

Paul Hawley and Remy Martin grew up in Healdsburg. Both the sons of prominent winemakers and both with extensive experience in the winemaking business. In fact, they started brewing beer together while working at Kim Crawford in New Zealand.

“We worked the night shift and when our shift was over at 7am all of the beer was gone. The day crew would drink it all when their shift ended in the evening. So we just started making our own beer for us to enjoy” says Remy. “The saying goes…Behind every great wine there are about a thousand beers”, chimes in Paul.

Paul and Remy are the embodiment of everything that I expected from Sonoma County when I moved here last year. Down to earth, friendly, authentic. All with a casualness to hyper quality ingredients that most of the country would die to get their hands on.

Maybe it is an issue of accessibility. If you grow up around such high quality food and wine, you just kind of accept that this is “just the way it is”.

The staff at Fogbelt all seem to be homebrewers themselves and are welcome to use the pub’s pilot system to test out their own recipes. So they do. On their days off.

The food menu is small but they pack a ton of flavor into what they offer. Their vendors are top notch. Sonoma County Meat Company, Costeaux Bakery, Imwalle Gardens. Everything local. Including the hops that they use in their Fresh Hop Beers, which are grown on two acres at Paul’s family farm. They have brought that attitude of “just the way it is” to their freshly opened brewpub and thankfully we can all go in and experience it ourselves.