So, It looks like there is an issue with using snappy version 1.0.4.1, with java 7, on MacOSX, which is fixed in version 1.0.5. We've verified this.
https://github.com/ptaoussanis/carmine/issues/5 Perhaps 1.0.5 should be the default for kafka 0.8 (or maybe too late for that?). I've filed: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/KAFKA-1164
