It had been too long since I last visited Paskenta Mad River Brewery in Blue Lake. It’s not that I hadn’t been drinking their beer all that time, but returning to those comfy surroundings reminded me to get out more, and farther.
CEO Linda Cooley met me in the bar. She’s been in the beer business most of her adult life, starting on her 21st birthday. A Yurok tribal member who grew up on the river near Weitchpec, Cooley spent time in the industry in Southern California and later at Eel River Brewery prior to taking the position at Mad River.
We talked first about some of the business aspects of the company. Paskenta, a tribe in the Central Valley, is building a portfolio of businesses in beer and spirits. The Blue Lake operation has a big, new canning line, an investment of over $1 million. The ancient bottling line, which went from RC Cola to Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., then to MRB decades ago, finally gave up the ghost.
PMRB takes its Indigenous affiliations seriously. It’s way beyond a branding technique. They seek to source ingredients from tribes. The Maize Goddess Indigenous Ale, for example, contains an heirloom red corn from Ioway Farms, owned by the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska. Cans are printed with QR codes that take you to information on environmental and Indigenous causes. Cooley says this storytelling seems to resonate with younger people. Their customer base skews younger at a time when, in general, younger people are drinking less and those who do drink lean toward seltzers and spirits.
Cooley sees beer “as a reason to celebrate and commune.” I asked about the push and pull of making great beer and making good money. She answered that she believes financial results will follow a good product and the company is committed to brewing good beer in Humboldt. Her hopes and plans for 2026 include brewing up a new barleywine and performing some secret beermaking project that involves orange blossoms.
The business talk sufficiently handled, we turned to tasting. Well, I did. Cooley had work to do after.
I started with the Maize Goddess Ale. It’s lightly sweet, the way cream is sweet. (Not coincidentally, the nerdy beer judging folks would call this a cream ale.) The mash contains 30-40 percent of that Ioway red corn which, in technical brewing terms, is stuffing in a ton of corn. Chuggable at just over 4 percent alcohol, it’s any easy choice for river days and post-yardwork rest periods, but is worthy of sipping at the pub as well.
The Steelhead Pale Ale remains the flagship brew. There is the lightest hit of citrusy Cascade hops and it’s totally drinkable. I’ve long had the beer geek question of what category Steelhead is. Cooley says Steelhead doesn’t really fit a category; it’s one of one. The bartender will make you a Steelhead Shandy if you like, adding lemonade, because that’s what beer people do sometimes.
Turning to the Jamaica Red Ale was like rekindling an old friendship. It’s such an honest, malty beer, a pretty red, and a kind of brew that you just don’t find out in the world much.
Before I turn to the Double India Pale Ale, I should note that PMRB collaborates with California State Parks. This is personal to Cooley. She recalled driving by local state parks as a girl and being sad that her people couldn’t access the land there like her parents and grandparents once could. “We never thought we could co-manage land,” she said. This changed when California tribes and State Parks personnel, in particular Victor Bjelajac, got to talking. The partnership is embodied in the Canyon of Dreams Double IPA, which tips its hat both to the relationship with the parks and to the jewel of a place that is Fern Canyon. The beer succeeds in being smooth and drinkable while providing heavy hits of malt, piney Amarillo hops and alcohol.
And if you get hungry? At the Mad River Kitchen you can get a pub grub burger or chili fries, to be sure, but also pick from rotating specials prepared by Trever Eliason, a classically trained chef.
If you want to get to the heart of a bloke like me, you reach into the back of the refrigerator and pull out barleywine. That’s what Cooley asked the bartender to do, revealing a 2015 opus from the John Barleycorn series. It’s caramel heaven in a taster glass.
While I nursed the barleywine, we conversed more widely. We talked about how Humboldt is special and how we need to support each other. I spoke of my wife, who’s a dancer, and Cooley talked about driving through state parks now with her daughter. She described her activism as a young teenager in the early days of advocating for dam removal on her home river, the Klamath, when that seemed like an impossible dream.
In short, having just met, we did some of that community-building that having a beer in a bar or beer garden lends itself to and that I’m making a mental note to show up and do more of.
Michael Kraft (he/him) consults part-time. He also serves as president of Humboldt Made, is involved in the community in various other ways and writes about Humboldt’s nonprofits, its businesses and its beer/wine/cider scene. You may reach him at
michael@kraftconsultants.com.
This article appears in Top 10 Stories of 2025.