Prickly Pear Summer Cooler

EDIBLE TRAVEL POSTCARD FROM CUBA

A California chef experiences the island nation’s changing food scene

STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOHN COX

For most Americans, Cuba is the forbidden fruit of vacation destinations, one of the few countries we are banned from visiting even though its sandy beaches lie merely 100 miles away from Key West, Fla. While it is still illegal for Americans to visit Cuba strictly for tourism, the rules are quickly changing. American investors are waiting for the moment the embargo is lifted and trade can resume with the island. ere is no doubt that when that day comes, so will a flood of international corporations eager to plant their flags in Cuban soil.

Earlier this year I decided to throw caution to the wind and visit Havana now, with a group of fellow chefs and sommeliers, before things change too much.

“Panadero!” “Panadero!” e melodic cry echoes through the decaying streets of Old Havana like a pre-dawn call to prayer. A rusted metal cart creaks as it pushes past potholes and piles of debris that have fallen from buildings during the night. Slowly, doors open and people emerge onto stoops and balconies. An elderly woman on the third floor lowers a cloth bag so the man pushing the cart can drop in a couple of freshly baked rolls.

Cuba isn’t known for its food, but its dining scene is rapidly evolving. First, you need to understand that there are two types of restaurants in Cuba, paladares (privately run restaurants) and state-run restaurants. Private restaurants have always existed to some degree, but at the time of the collapse of the USSR in the early 1990s, it was illegal to officially operate any form of private restaurant. In 1993, when the Cuban government instituted various financial reforms, it became possible for private individuals to run restaurants so long as they followed strict rules on the type of food served, number of seats and people they employed. In 2010, under Raul Castro, many of the restrictions on paladares were lifted, setting the foundation for a restaurant renaissance across Havana.

Imagine a city where anyone can open a restaurant anywhere they want, be it a penthouse on the top floor of an apartment building, an abandoned sugar refinery or a beachfront mansion. ink of it as hundreds of pop-up dinners happening across the city every night. is is the chaos and beauty of Havana’s current restaurant culture.

On our first night in Havana we went to the Magic Flute, an unmarked jazz club and restaurant in an apartment building by the American Embassy, a block off of the Malecón, a 5-mile esplanade that runs along the ocean. e small room, which couldn’t have seated more than 60, was packed with locals. We had been told that the music and nightlife in Cuba ran notoriously late, so we were surprised to see that the band appeared to be breaking down as we walked in at 11:30pm. As we sat drinking our mojitos and discussing where to go next, we realized that they were just setting up! We stayed for well over an hour before the first set even began. ree hours later, as we left the club, several groups of people continued to sit on the seawall that runs the length of the Malecón, talking, drinking and sometimes dancing in the sea spray. e next few days were a blur. We spent our mornings exploring the streets of Havana, fueled by shots of dark Cuban espresso. We walked the crumbling sidewalks until our feet were sore and our necks were burned by the intense Caribbean sun. When we couldn’t walk any further, we stopped and waited for a taxi. In Havana practically every car on the road is for hire, whether or not it displays a sign. We waited until we saw a car that looked interesting and then tried to hail it. e cars, mostly large American sedans from the ’40s and ’50s, ranged from Concours d’Elegance-ready convertibles to taped-together jalopies with springs sticking out from the seats and exhaust billowing in from holes in the floorboards. e drivers often matched the better cars—good-looking Cuban men with short-cropped hair and tightly fitted dress shirts. Frequently they would have a friend or girlfriend

along, seated next to them on the front bench seat, to cruise the town, listen to music and pick up rides.

At night we visited paladares. From the stately Mansion in Vedado that housed Starbien to the sleek, contemporary European design of Otramanera, we made our way through Havana’s newest and most acclaimed restaurants. e venues themselves were stunning, but the menus left me wanting something more. I imagine that the food is not unlike what you might have found in Carmel-by-the-Sea during the 1990s, a melting pot of European flavors with little emphasis on local heritage or ingredients. Sure there was the occasional ropa vieja, a traditional Cuban beef and vegetable stew, but for the most part, restaurants featured a mix of international classics such as Caesar salads, antipastos and paellas. Despite having been warned by a few locals how exorbitantly expensive the paladares were, we found our dinners to be quite reasonable, around $20 per person for food and a couple of drinks.

One night, after visiting a couple of paladares, my friend and I decided to visit the Casa de la Música in Central Havana. It was quarter to midnight and our taxi let us out a block away from the entrance. As we walked toward the glowing billboard, a group of women quickly surrounded us, grabbing our arms and pulling us in their direction. ey purred and looked at us from behind rings of dark mascara, making uncouth propositions on how we could spend our night. We quickly put our hands deep in our pockets and fled until we were once again in the dark, quiet streets of Old Havana. e culinary highlight of our time in Cuba was a trip outside of Havana, to Viñales. is verdant valley bordered by steep rocky cliffs is home to many tobacco plantations and other forms of agriculture. Our first stop was Finca Agroecologica El Paraiso, a working farm and restaurant just outside the town of Viñales. Everything on the restaurant’s menu, from the herbs and vegetables to the chicken and beef, came either from the farm or its neighbors. We were seated on the porch with an incredible view of the valley. e lunch was served family style, a progression of simple dishes showcasing the bounty of the land. It was a perfect meal. From the simple salad and roasted root vegetables to the white bean broth and braised pork, everything was well seasoned and delicious! e freshness and abundance of ingredients were a stark contrast to the seemingly sparse pantries of Old Havana.

After lunch we decided to go on a horseback ride through the valley. Much to our dismay, after negotiating a 2-hour ride, our horses emerged from the stables looking old and gaunt. Our guide, a weathered Cuban cowboy, led us down a steep dirt path toward a secadero, or traditional tobacco-drying barn. As we made our way down the treacherous slope. the horse in front of me occasionally lost its footing, sliding a few feet further down the ravine. e lead horse chose the path and picked the pace, with our guide taking up the rear, where he occasionally yelled “Caballoo-OO” while grinding his boots into the side of his horse and pushing the group along its way. When we reached the plantation the farmer was outside and offered us a look at the drying tobacco leaves. Each year, during harvest, a government inspector visits the farm and takes 90% of the leaves for “official” Cuban cigar brands. e remaining 10% are left to the farmer to sell or make into his own cigars. Unlike the large state brands that use nicotine and other chemicals to speed up the processing of the leaves, the farm uses a more natural method, soaking the leaves with rum, honey and wild guava before fermenting and aging the leaves for up to a year. e resulting cigars are beautiful, with a pleasant aroma and smooth flavor.

As we made our way deeper into the valley, we saw two massive white oxen pulling a plough through chunks of red clay, like a vivid look back in time. Tractors and gasoline are both challenging to find in Cuba, and in recent years the government has promoted the use of oxen on farms. Almost all of the agriculture in Viñales relies solely on people and oxen, with very little pesticides or machinery to contaminate the soil.

We passed freshwater lagoons and papaya orchards. We saw old bristled sows on short chains that dug into their necks, watching their piglets run and splash in the mud. Our guide stopped to pluck a native seedpod used as dye, crushing it between his callused fingers until they glowed orange like tiny traffic cones. We rode our sad and weary steeds until the sun began to set and our guide led us home.

Back in Old Havana my friend and I had become bored with the predictability of the paladares and the large groups of tourists who frequented them. We lucked into meeting a young taxi driver who agreed to give us our change in CUPs (Cuban pesos). Up until that point we had been using CUCs (convertible Cuban pesos), which are commonly used by tourists and wealthy Cubans. e CUCs are worth roughly 25 times more than the CUPs.

We took our stack of newly acquired CUPs and hit the streets of Old Havana in search of authentic Cuban food. As we made our way deeper into the city, the streets narrowed and became more decayed. People greeted us, and we responded in broken kitchen Spanish, a dialect that left them confused and prompted them to ask if we were from Paraguay or Argentina. It seems that groups of Americans tend to stay sequestered in designated tourist areas, and the deeper into the city we went, the more exotic we became.

We stopped at a window with a handwritten sign and ordered two Cuban coffees and a torta. e coffee, dark and viscous with a cloyingly sweet finish, was pumped directly out of a tall black air pot into two tiny paper cups. e torta was a state-issued roll with a sheet of egg on top. We paid 15 CUPs and went on our way.

As we walked with our tiny cups of sweet Cuban coffee and half torta, it hit us—we had only paid 60 cents for breakfast! Perhaps this is unsurprising when you consider that the average wage in Cuba is less than $30 per month, but up until that point, we had no concept of the disparity between the two currencies. All of a sudden we realized that we were each carrying the equivalent of two years’ salary for the average Cuban. It was a fact that hit us hard, making us think back to the prostitutes outside the Casa de la Música and almost feeling guilty that despite this gross inequality, we could walk through any part of the city like kings, without any concern of being robbed or kidnapped. e following morning we traversed the crumbling streets and happened upon a thriving neighborhood market. I walked in and began taking pictures of local produce. Within a few seconds an old man with a white beard approached me, wagging his right finger in disapproval and motioning for me to put my camera away. I complied and finished the small market loop without taking any pictures. I’m not sure why he didn’t want me taking pictures—perhaps it was to hide the empty shelves, or perhaps it was because of the live chickens and roosters being pulled from their cages. at night we went to the F.A.C.—Fábrica de Arte Cubana. is sprawling warehouse, which was originally home to Cuba’ electric company and later an olive oil factory, has been converted into a chic nightclub and art venue. Multiple floors display a variety of live entertainment and visual art combined with bars and concession stands. e result is a massive complex that ranges in ambience from rhythm and blues music and contemporary photography to silent films and jazz. By 10pm a large line usually forms outside, and it’s not uncommon for more than 3,000 people to visit on any given night.

By the fifth day the city was beginning to wear on us. e night air in Old Havana was so thick with cigar smoke and diesel fumes that it coated our teeth while we slept. Stray cats came out around midnight, slinking under metal gates and rooting through piles of garbage. A seemingly endless construction project had carved deep scars of excavated sewer lines across the city, leaving treacherous trenches everywhere we looked. Yet despite the general state of decay and seeming lack of resources, everyone we met seemed relatively happy.

One hour of Internet at a local hotel would cost the equivalent of one week’s pay so it’s no wonder that average young Cubans are not going online to check Facebook and see what their friends ate for lunch, or sifting through an inbox of email solicitations or searching for the newest spring fashions. ere is no doubt that the fog of secrecy is steadily lifting from the island, but for now, Havana’s youths are enjoying more simple entertainment, like cruising the city in their vintage cars, stopping for delicious plates of ropa veija or sweet espresso, and dancing in the mist on the Malecón.

John Cox is the former executive chef at Post Ranch Inn’s Sierra Mar in Big Sur. A prolific contributor to Edible Monterey Bay, he is on sabbatical, traveling, writing, photographing and gathering inspiration for his next project.

EDIBLE HISTORY THE MCGRATH HOP

A local heirloom revival story

BY ELIZABETH HODGES

PHOTOGRAPHY BY MICHELLE MAGDALENA AND MICHAEL SANTAELLA

When I think of South Santa Cruz County and the Pajaro Valley, images of quaint apple orchards dotted with yellow mustard, picturesque vineyards terraced up south-facing hillsides and sprawling fields bursting with perfect rows of strawberries come to mind. But on a recent visit to Corralitos Brewing Co., smack-dab in the middle of said fields, I was surprised to learn that in the late 1800s, hops were actually one of the most prolific crops in the area. Peaking at a time when wheat was on the decline and apples and strawberries were on the rise, Pajaro Valley hops were transported via Freedom Boulevard to San Francisco for shipping around the world.

A man named George McGrath was one of the most successful hop farmers around, growing a unique varietal that was the cream of the crop. But the plant, now referred to as the McGrath hop, all but disappeared when the last hop yard at the McGrath Ranch on Casserly Road was taken out in the early 1950s. Luckily, Luke Taylor of Corralitos Brewing Co. managed to locate some lingering rootstock and revive our local heirloom hop, now part of the Santa Cruz Heritage Food Project, making some tasty beer while he was at it.

A BOTANICAL DISCOVERY

In 2004, Taylor found some hop vines growing while working at a local ranch. He asked about them, and the owner of the property told him that they were the original hops grown on the McGrath Ranch. Taylor later found out that the owner’s great-grandfather had been a good friend of George McGrath. e owner asked if he was a brewer, and upon his eager affirmative gave Taylor permission to dig up some rhizomes. He was amazed at their size—they were as large as his forearm, much larger than the standard hop rhizome, which looks more like a 4- to 5-inch stick.

“I was really excited about how old the variety was,” says Taylor, who naturally took some rhizomes home and started growing them. “Immediately, I noticed a difference in the first flush, which is the initial spring growth when they come out of dormancy.”

Taylor set up a trellis for the McGrath hop, and the variety quickly outcompeted the Cascade, Centennial, Magnum and Chinook hops he was growing. According to Taylor, at the 36th parallel (which is where Santa Cruz is) the other hop varieties just don’t grow as well, as the McGrath hop has adapted over the years to the local climate.

“I knew the hops were something special, and they were responsive to what I was giving them and the local weather,” he says.

Since then, Taylor has spent a lot of time learning the ins and outs of the McGrath hop’s growing habits, learning when to cut it back, when to feed it different nutrients and when to harvest it.

“e hop is magical. It’s unlike any other hop I’ve come across,” says Taylor, noting that its flower exhibits notes of citrus, floral and jasmine with Bartlett pear.

PUTTING IT TO THE TEST

To showcase the special hop’s qualities, Taylor first used it to make a simple Belgian blonde. “I hopped it a little more, similar to an American pale ale and used the Belgian ale yeast to ferment it out,” Taylor says.

Next, he made an American pale ale. Taylor had loved the Belgian, but found the yeast to be a bit too expressive and wanted to work with an American strain of yeast that would really complement the hop’s flavor without overwhelming its subtleties.

Taylor began doing more research on the history of the hop and in 2008 found out that one of his brother’s old school pals, Jeff Bassman, lived on the old McGrath Ranch and his mother’s maiden name was McGrath. So Luke went out to visit and met the whole family, including Jeff’s grandma, Shirley McGrath, and his parents, George and Joan Bassman. And then they went about creating a plan to revive the growth of the McGrath hop together. is was right around the time that Corralitos Brewing Co. was submitting for its permit application and moving into the Pacific Firewood building, which is zoned for commercial agriculture. So Taylor was already planting hops at the site that would become his brewery and tasting room.

In 2014, Taylor helped return the hop to the original McGrath Ranch, planting 25 hills of McGrath hops together with Jeff Bassman and his father George. Jeff, a butcher at Freedom Meat Locker, now manages the crop.

“I essentially resurrected their family heirloom, and they loved the idea and took off with it,” Taylor says.

Shirley McGrath, now 89, remembers the days when the original hops were grown. She has six great-grandchildren who now live on the ranch, and she thinks it’s a wonderful way for them to grow up. Her husband, now deceased, started working in the hop fields when he was 15. George McGrath was her cousin.

“Of course, it was a big job, but they just grew beautifully,” she says, “I’m happy to see the hops growing again. I think it’s great, and I love to look at them, too.” e first harvest of McGrath Ranch’s newly planted hops in September 2014 yielded roughly 50 pounds of dried hops—just enough for the first large batch of My Girl, which through home brewing experimentation had transformed from an American pale ale to an American rye pale ale.

“I really like the spiciness and almost dry mouth feel that the rye brings to the beer in combination with the qualities of the hop,” Taylor says.

Last year, another 65 hills of McGrath hops were added to the ranch. During the harvest, Taylor threw a hops picking party complete with free beer. (See photos p. 30–31.) He brought his home-brew system and put hops straight into the kettle for a limited-release, wethopped My Girl. irty-five people were in attendance, and this year about 80 will be on site lending a hand.

EXPLORE: e Agricultural History Project Center and Museum in Watsonville offers an exhibit dedicated to the history of hops in the Pajaro Valley. Learn more at www.aghistoryproject.org. To take a hopsgrowing class, contact Luke Taylor at luke@corralitosbrewingco.com.

Elizabeth Hodges is a freelance writer and owner of the Verdant Pantry, based in South Santa Cruz County. During her free time, she enjoys keeping chickens, gardening and connecting with the local food community as communications chair for Slow Food Santa Cruz.

HEADING TO SANTA CRUZ? THE SANTA CRUZ BEER TRAIL PASSPORT IS HERE TO HELP!

e Santa Cruz Beer Trail, co-created by Bryce Root, founder of the small-business marketing firm, e Root Group, and e Brew Cruz tour operator, Annie Pautsch, is here to take your craft beer exploration to the next level. e Beer Trail’s recently launched Santa Cruz Beer Trail Passport, First Release 2016—our region’s very first beer passport—costs $25 and is full of helpful information for navigating your beer exploration in the northern part of our coverage area. e passport is also packed with discounts of beer and food. For example, Steel Bonnet Brewing in Scotts Valley is offering passport holders a pint and a bag of chips for $1; Santa Cruz Ale Works is giving 50% off on a tasting flight and three bottles of beer for $10.

It’s a big world of beer out there. Grab your passport and go explore! —Rosie Parker

Santa Cruz Beer Trail Passport • SantaCruzBeerTrail.com

Corralitos Brewing Co. draws beer fans to its South Santa Cruz County location from near and far, thanks in part to Taylor’s mad scientist-level barrel program, which started in December of 2014.

According to Taylor, these barrels provide the fifth element to his aging process, a “spice cabinet” so to speak, as the barrels impart various qualities to the beer from the wines aged in them during their prior lives. He also takes advantage of his agricultural surroundings, adding local fruits, such as peaches, apricots, blackberries and raspberries, to select barrels.

“Our beer that has been aging in oak has a very deep, complex Old World flavor going on,” says Taylor. “It might be funky; it might be tart; it might be sour.

“And when you add local fruit, it kind of makes those Old World flavors come to life again. You’re tasting the barrel, the funkiness, and you’re tasting the base beer, which might be dry or soft on your palate, and then you’re getting that fruit-forward finish. It just makes for a much more enjoyable experience.”

In addition to getting set up for bottling these beers soon, Taylor and his business partner Mike Smith have installed an open fermentation room and a large glass window for viewing from the bar area.

“is brings our patrons a little closer to something that’s really fun—it gets them involved with what we’re doing,” Taylor says. e room is dedicated solely to the barrel program, meaning each beer will see oak barrels, and the space is wall-to-wall unfinished American white oak. e brewery’s goal is to bring in the night air, and with it, wild local yeasts that the brewery will eventually be able to use for spontaneous fermentation. ere doesn’t seem to be a secretive bone in Taylor’s body; he’s all about sharing his passion for growing hops and brewing beer with others. He teaches a hops growing class every spring that focuses on these wondrous climbers from planting to harvest. e brewery also releases beers under the Roots Brewing Project, an idea Taylor came up with to teach his employees how to craft their own beer with his original home-brewing system. Almost all beers make it onto the board in the taproom. Of note to date have been the Smoked Chile Porter with chiles from Fire Tongue Farm in Hollister; the Oreo Cookie Stout, a Belgian triple with roses and lavender; and the Woodsman, an American pale ale.

So whenever I find the time to slow down and enjoy a refreshing beer or two, I stop by Corralitos Brewing Co. I can never resist trying an Out of the Barrel, a varying selection of single-barrel brews that Taylor found to be standalone specimens. ere’s just something about the people, the beer and the way that the evening sun glows golden in my glass from across the surrounding fields that feels like home and keeps me going back for more.

Corralitos Brewing Co.

2536 Freedom Blvd., Watsonville • www.corralitosbrewingco.com

Luke Taylor at Corralitos Brewing Co.

Hops growing at the brewery

EDIBLE ENTREPRENEUR LEADING LADY

How motorcycle mama Emily omas ignited the Santa Cruz craft beer explosion

BY DEBORAH LUHRMAN PHOTOGRAPHY BY MICHELLE MAGDALENA

e driving force and culinary mastermind behind Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing and e Cremer House restaurant, Emily omas says she often feels like the producer of a Broadway play.

“Every morning I go in and I have this cast of characters and all the sets and the props. It’s high drama. Everybody’s got their stuff going on, equipment is breaking,” she says. “It’s really intense and then somehow, miraculously, we open and it’s like a beautiful show.” omas, who at 41 runs two successful businesses and manages 60 employees, likes to spend mornings at the brewery and then hop on her black Triumph Bonneville SE for the 10-minute ride through the redwoods up to the restaurant in Felton.

“Riding that motorcycle and yoga are my meditation,” she says. “It gives my head a chance to disengage.” is summer she has even more than usual on her mind with the brewery’s first major expansion. SCMB is tripling its floor space, adding a 2,400-square-foot suite adjacent to the current brewery.

Part of the new space is being used for an 800-square-foot walkin cooler, and the rest is filled with fermentation tanks of various sizes—which will allow SCMB to brew three times more beer than it does now.

“We just couldn’t make enough beer,” omas explains. “People wanted a kind of community center with the beer garden and taproom, so we put a lot of energy and effort into creating that, but once we did, all of our beer was being consumed there.” e expansion will also enable the brewery to have a bigger presence in local shops and restaurants and pursue exciting new projects.

For example, SCMB will begin selling its brews at the Westside Santa Cruz and Felton farmers’ markets this summer. anks to a new state law, shoppers will be able to sample beer at the farmers’ markets and take home bottles, 12-ounce cans and “crowlers”—32-ounce cans filled at the brewery.

SCMB is also expanding production of the beer it brews each summer for the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. is year, instead of one special beer, it will make four brews using recipes from the past four seasons: Giant DIPA, Boardwalk Blonde, Horse Tale Ale and Casinos IPA.

In the second year of its collaboration, SCMB won the Brass Ring Award for “Best New Innovation in Food and Beverage” at amusement parks worldwide, a prize handed out by the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions. A new mobile canning service

this year will help SCMB get cans of the four beers out to more Boardwalk concessions and local shops.

If her brewery can make enough, omas wants to expand distribution to the South Bay, then maybe San Francisco and Oakland, but no farther.

“When we first started we did the whole West Coast and Hawaii and we felt that the farther the beer got away from us, the less we could control the quality,” she says. “With the availability of good local craft beer in pretty much every city, I don’t think it is necessary to go farther than your local area.”

LOCAL ROOTS

e eldest of four siblings, omas grew up in the San Lorenzo Valley on the grounds of a conference center in Ben Lomond, where her parents were caretakers and her mother was the cook. All of the food was vegetarian and mostly organic. So tinkering in the kitchen comes naturally.

“Moosewood and Mollie Katzen were our go-to resources. I’ve probably made every dish in the first three Moosewood cookbooks,” she says with a laugh. “My parents definitely loved food.”

While attending Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, omas developed a taste for craft beer and learned the art of brewing from her uncles, who lived locally and had a great appreciation for Portland’s microbreweries. ough she graduated with a degree in journalism, she took a job in San Diego, another craft beer capital, as a secretary working for tech giant Qualcomm. She caught on so quickly that within six months she was promoted to engineer.

After 10 years in the corporate world, omas returned home with the idea of bringing the flourishing craft beer scenes of Portland and San Diego to Santa Cruz. In 2005, she and former husband Chad Brill founded Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing, igniting the current boom. omas and Brill have two school-aged boys and still happily share both child rearing and running the brewery.

“I came back and couldn’t figure out why there were only Seabright and Boulder Creek brewing,” she says. “I’ve always wanted Santa Cruz to be a beer destination.”

Now with 15 craft breweries in Santa Cruz County alone and dozens oftap houses in the area, omas shines as the leading lady of the brewing community. “We really work hard to be united. We’re only 6% or 7% of the entire beer market,” says omas of the position of craft brewers nationally, “so our true competition is the big beer companies, and we kind of all stick together.

“People who get into brewing are passionate about what they do, and we all try to do something unique so it is less threatening to each other and makes everyone friendlier,” she adds. SCMB remains the area’s only certified organic brewery, although other breweries make some organic beers.

Surprisingly, she believes there’s still room for more local breweries. “A brewpub is different from a coffee shop, it’s different from a bar, it’s different from a restaurant,” she says. “It’s more casual. You can meet friends there after work or hang out with your dog, so I really think every part of town could sustain a beer bar or brewpub, for sure.”

DrivenbyherloveofcookinganddesiretoopenabusinessintheSan Lorenzo Valley where she grew up, omas opened e Cremer House restaurant and alehouse in late 2014. It’s located in an allegedly haunted former hotel, boarding house, tavern and brothel built in 1874.

Together with building owner Bob Locatelli, who also owns the New Leaf Community Markets store next door, she spent months painstakingly restoring the property with vintage finds and rustic handhewn touches. A copper kettle with 25 taps was installed behind the bar, where omas gets to offer not just SCMB’s beer, like the brewery’s own location in downtown Santa Cruz, but also favorite craft beers from other breweries that omas has discovered in her travels around the country. She also created most of the opening menu herself—focusing on all-American comfort foods and vegetarian options made with fresh, seasonal, mostly organic local ingredients.

“We do all our buying with New Leaf,” she says. “Bert Brown has been doing their produce buying for 30 years and he knows every farm in the county.”

As for sticking with organic ingredients: “It’s always been important to me,” says omas. “It doesn’t necessarily have a lot of commercial draw in terms of what the cost of it is, but that’s the way I was raised. It’s just an ethical choice.” roughout the summer, e Cremer House is hosting a series of Tuesday night farm dinners to coincide with the Felton farmers’ market. Using produce from a different local farm each week, chef J.P. Doiron will create a special farmers’ market menu that will be available alongside the regular dishes.

For the brewery and for the restaurant, to a lesser extent, omas relies on three types of customers. “You get your locals, but it’s very expensive to live here so they might not be willing to spend as much on a regular basis; then you get your tourists, but that season fluctuates with the weather; and then the other customers are UCSC students,” she says. “I like to have a trifecta of customers.”

Business is brisk, but omas says she’s learned a lot about the hospitality business over the past few years. “I’ve always wondered why there aren’t more restaurants in Santa Cruz, but I know now from my own personal experience that it is not an easy place to do business,” she says.

“It’s really hard to get the city and the county on board with new business plans. ey are always excited about it, but it’s way easier in Portland to start a new business, get zoned for it and build it,” she says.

“It’s so restrictive and it’s expensive. at’s why people go towards pop-ups and food trucks and take the catering path, so they don’t have to invest in bricks and mortar,” she adds. “In the end, I think Santa Cruz would benefit from more established places.”

KEEPING IT FRESH

To keep everything fun and exciting, dishes are rotated according to the seasons. e wintry chicken pot pie, for instance, was recently replaced by lighter Arctic char, with spiced couscous and yogurt dill sauce. But favorites remain, such as the puffy house-baked pretzels, fried chicken with maple-mustard coleslaw and the Cremer burger. e restaurant’s vibrant and creatively spiced pickled vegetables and condiments are house made and available for sale to take home.

At the brewery, head brewer Tommy Mills—who just returned from a 2-year stint at NOLA Brewing Co. in New Orleans—was experimenting with a batch of horchata pale ale the day we were there.

“Because the tanks aren’t huge and we have a lot of them, we can keep being creative with what we do,” says omas. “We have our six flagships, but one of the ways we keep ourselves inspired is to let people brew what they want.” omas also hosts one of the wackiest and most creative beer fests around, the Twisted Tasting. Held every winter during San Francisco Beer Week, it was inspired by a visit to the Great American Beer Festival where omas sampled a pig’s head porter made by a Michigan brewery called Right Brain.

Twisted Tasting includes all of the local craft breweries and offers brewers a chance to dress up in fanciful costumes and be as weird and wild as they want. Last time one of her personal favorites was a currylaced ai Coconut Stout from Brewery Twenty Five in Hollister. And the first year, SCMB created a version of the pig’s head porter using pig’s ears smoked by el Salchichero butcher Chris LaVeque.

“ey imparted a smoky richness,” she recalls. “It was pretty good.” omas also organizes the popular SausageFest every fall on the first weekend that UCSC students are back in town. Some 2,000 people descend on a Westside field to sample sausages and drink craft beer.

“It’s one of those days when we get to have fun and make fun of ourselves. We have all the other breweries there, so it’s a great way to introduce those students to what’s happening in town,” she says. is year SCMB is partnering with the Land Trust of Santa Cruz County on the event, and it is also releasing a special beer for the Land Trust in September called Rail Trail Ale. Profits from the beer—which will be available in stores and at the brewery—will help finance a 32mile paved bike trail from Davenport to Watsonville.

Being among the first women in the country to brew beer and own a craft brewery has not always been easy, she admits, and that’s one reason omas started offering special educational events such as the annual Strong Women Brew Strong Beer, a homebrew class for women.

“Eleven years ago when we started, beer was a guy’s drink and women drank wine,” she says. “We could see that was changing and just wanted to give it a little push.”

Nowadays she sees a huge movement of young women who want to be part of the beer culture. In just the past decade the number of women brewers at the national Craft Brewers Conference has grown from 12 the first time omas attended to more than 600 the last time she went. “ere are definitely some challenges, but little by little we are having our voices heard,” she says.

As for the future, omas hopes to spend at least a month this summer in the Pacific Northwest, visiting breweries and doing some collaboration beers. She is eyeing properties in historic downtown San Juan Bautista and feels “a very strong desire to do business there.”

So for this producer the show’s not over yet. Pay close attention to find out what happens in the next act.

RECIPE: See p. 41 for omas’ Smoked Black Cod Panuchos.