HenHouse Brewing Company
Big Chicken is the beer people chase, a limited-release double IPA out of an industrial room off Bellevue Ave. There is no kitchen. Popcorn is free, and Red Horse Pizza parks out front.1
Why go
Collin McDonnell and Scott Goyne started HenHouse in Petaluma in 2012, selling bottles only.1 They opened this brewery and taproom on 4 March 2016, a room that holds about fifty.2 They cut the bar from Sonoma County redwood, hired county contractors, and have the merchandise made here too.2 McDonnell said why, plainly: We're big on keeping all the money in the local economy.
2 On opening night the food was peanuts and crackers, and Goyne was already looking ahead: Someday, we hope to put cheese on that cracker.
2 Nine years later there is still no kitchen.
Order this / avoid
- Order: Big Chicken when it drops. Sonoma Magazine calls the limited release
one of the most sought after brews made in Sonoma County.
1 - Order: the HenHouse IPA or Chemtrails, the two Sonoma Magazine rates highest here.1
- Order: the Incredible Pale Ale at 6.9%, hopped with Cascade, Mosaic, Hallertau Blanc, Simcoe and Belma.3
- Avoid: turning up hungry and hoping. Red Horse Pizza was a Friday to Sunday truck in 2016 and the current listing does not name days.21
What locals & experts say
- Sonoma Magazine (7 August 2025):
Their HenHouse IPA and Chemtrails IPA are two of the best IPAs we've tried and the limited-release Big Chicken DIPA is one of the most sought after brews made in Sonoma County.
1 - Christi Warren, The Press Democrat (4 March 2016), on the room at opening:
The tap room is an interesting, industrial space that holds about 50 people.
2
Good to know
- Two doors. 322 Bellevue Ave in Santa Rosa and 1333 N. McDowell Blvd in Petaluma. This entry is the Santa Rosa taproom.1
- They filled growlers at opening and took other breweries' glassware. That is a 2016 fact and the brewery does not publish it now.2
- I could not find the taproom hours. The brewery's own visit page returns a 404, and neither the Press Democrat nor Sonoma Magazine prints them.
Verdict
should-visit — Sonoma Magazine calls the HenHouse IPA and Chemtrails two of the best it has tried and Big Chicken one of the most sought after brews made in the county, which in a county that also holds Russian River and Moonlight is a real claim. McDonnell and Goyne have been at it since 2012 and built the Santa Rosa room out of county redwood with county contractors. There is no kitchen, the brewery publishes no hours, and nobody prints the days the pizza truck turns up.