Kona Brewing Pub on Oahu

What's worth knowing about Kona Brewing's pub on Oahu?

As far as I know, it's one of only two places on Oahu where you can get a discount for being a member of the American Homebrewers Association. I've only been once so far, but they gave a ten percent discount to the entire bill--not just the beers. And that discount was added on top of the already lowered happy-hour prices (which has discounted appetizers as well as beers). In the end, as brew pubs go, it's a pretty good deal.

They don't actually brew the beer here. But they do serve beer that was brewed in Hawaii, at the Kona Brewery on the Big Island. My understanding is that the Hawaii-brewed beer is draft only, not available in bottle, which brings up the next point:

They've got beer you can't get anywhere else. Well, anywhere else except for the other Kona Brewpub, on the Big Island. I tried the Duke's Blonde, the Lavaman Red, and the Black Sands Porter. They were all pretty good, though I'd say the Porter was my favorite--it's pretty mellow as Porters go, which is a nice alternative to the heavier Kona Pipeline Porter; and since it's made without coffee, it doesn't have the caffeine kick of the Pipeline Porter, either, so it won't keep you up at night.

And what's the other place on Oahu that gives the AHA discount? Gordon Biersch, at Aloha Tower.

Aloha Beer Company tour

On Saturday I stopped by Aloha Beer with my girlfriend and her mom. The beer hall door's were locked, and the guy I'd set the tour up with was nowhere to be seen. We stood around in the parking lot, watching the constant stream of cars pulling in for lunch at Sam Choy's (the restaurant that shares the building with Aloha Beer), waiting for the guide. After twenty minutes, I decided to sneak into Sam Choy's to use the bathroom, and while I was in the restaurant I saw a few guys standing up by the brew equipment. I went up to say hello, and one of the guys was the Brewmaster himself, Dave Campbell. He hadn't heard anything about the tour, but he said he'd show us around for a few minutes anyway.

In the end, Campbell gave us almost an hour and a half of his time, and he generously responded to all of our questions. I went from standing in the parking lot and looking like a chump in front of my girlfriend's mom, to getting a private tour of Oahu's up-and-coming brewery with one of the father's of Hawaii's craft beer scene. To say I felt grateful would be putting it mildly.

Campbell was born and raised in Hawaii, and has been involved with craft brewing since 1985. He opened Oahu's first homebrew shop, and he's been Brewmaster for Sam Choy's since 1997--well before the current wave of craft-beer enthusiasm started reaching Hawaii's shores. Throughout our tour he answered my questions candidly, never hesitating to voice sometimes controversial opinions about the beer scene on the islands. Following below is my summary of the points I found most interesting. (Keep in mind that I didn't take notes during the tour, so my memory of the finer details might be slightly off.)


(This picture and the one below where taken from the Aloha Beer Company website.)

Aloha Beer is brewed for the local Honolulu palate. I'd read this in an interview with Campbell a while back, and to tell the truth, I was a bit skeptical of the wisdom to that approach. The "Honolulu palate" in the article referred to the local predilection for "green bottle beers"--namely Heineken and other mass-produced brews like Coors Light and Bud. It didn't seem likely, in my mind, that fans of such beers would appreciate craft beer. Why waste your time and energy on an audience that's not only satisfied, but even claims to prefer, the cheapest and blandest beer available?

Campbell explained his view that the local predilection for "green bottle beers" isn't just evidence of herd-mentality. It comes in response to the Hawaii climate. Heavy-bodied, high-alcohol beers like the Double IPAs and the Imperial Stouts that are so popular on the mainland don't go down as easy here, where it's usually hot and humid. People prefer lighter, refreshing beers because they go better with the heat. "How many local guys do you know that'll drink a twelve-pack of Coors Light every day after work? I know plenty," he said. "We wanted to brew a higher-quality version of the types of beer they like."So Aloha Beer aims to be more "session-oriented." "The session beer is coming back."

Aloha Beer is passionate about tradition. When I asked Campbell if he'd ever consider using some of the more exotic ingredients that are featured in other Hawaii brewing company beers--like Maui Brewing featuring a beer with toasted Papaya seeds, or Kona brewing with its Coconut Brown--he scoffed. "That stuff seems sort of gimmicky to me," he said. "I used to brew a beer with breadfruit, back when I owned the homebrew shop, but the truth is it wasn't very good."

For Campbell, who graduated from college with a degree in History, the exploration of traditional styles is much more interesting than wild experimentation. There's a wide variety of experiences available in traditional styles. Why not explore the wealth of knowledge that already exists?

Campbell's next beer might serve as an example of how this approach can still be used to introduce drinkers to new experiences. He's planning on using a portion of ocean water in an upcoming brew. Salt is a traditional ingredient in certain long-established styles, like Gose, but it's rarely seen today.

His use of ingredients does sometimes include other locally-produced ingredients, like honey, but only when such ingredients fit with tradition. Honey has been used in beer for thousands of years, he said. It's been proven to work. Coconuts, not so much. If you want to experience a coconut flavor with your beer, try pairing a porter with a slice of haupia (coconut) pie. But don't make the beer taste like coconut. Let the beer taste like beer.

He also reminded me that the main ingredient in beer is water, and Aloha sources its water locally.



Aloha beer has some big changes coming up. Right now Campbell is focusing on keeping the kegs filled and the taps running. He wants to keep producing as much beer as his system can handle. But once the dust settles from Sam Choy's restaurant shutting down (which is scheduled for the end of this month), Aloha is planning to expand. They'll be taking over the bar in Sam Choy's, turning it into a sort of "beer sanctum" to offer local beer fans a place to congregate (instead of the current "club-feel" of the Aloha Beer hall). And the beer-production size will double, or possibly triple, which will give Campbell a chance to explore more of those traditional styles he's so fascinated by.

And what's the current Aloha Beer brewing set-up and process like?. This subject in particular is hard to discuss accurately, since I didn't take notes, but here's what I remember: The brew system size is around 16 barrels, which means a capacity of around 500 gallons. They typically use between 800 and 1000 pounds of grain in a batch, and the grain comes in what looked like 40-pound bags (so the brewers have to lift at least 20 bags up into the mill, and they climb on a rickety stack of milk crates to do it--consequently, Campbell is a pretty brawny guy). The boil goes on for an hour and a half to two hours, in order to insure complete isomerization of hop bitterness, and to evaporate 5 to 7% of the volume of the wort. The kettle is steam-heated, so no caramelization occurs during that boil. I think they had seven fermenters, and they're doing their best to keep them full at all times. Campbell gets his yeast from Wyeast.

And finally, a bit on the Maui brewing versus Kona Brewing controversy. For those who don't know, Hawaii's biggest brewer is Kona Brewing, and they've been under attack by Maui Brewing for brewing some of their beer in the mainland. I asked Campbell what he thought of the controversy, and he expressed a pretty pronounced skepticism in Maui Brewing's "local" credentials. Garrett Marrero (founder of Maui Brewing) moved here from San Diego like six years ago, got a tribal tattoo, and now he wants to tell us what qualifies as "local", Campbell said. And he added that Kona Brewing's been here since the start of the brewing movement in Hawaii, and that that gives them at least as much claim to "local" status as Maui Brewing.

Tasting the Poi Wheat ale

Jeffrey Crane wanted a follow up on the Poi Wheat ale I brewed a while back, so I figured I'd post about it following the tasting session approach Lewy's been using on his blog (plenty links in one sentence, yeah?).



Aroma: A subtle, pleasant fruitiness, sort of reminiscent of guava, probably from esters produced by the yeast in a warm fermentation. Also has a slight acidic citrus aroma, likely resultant from adding cascade hops late in the boil.

Appearance: Straw colored, or perhaps just a tad more orange than pure straw (the greenish hue I noticed when the beer first went into the carboy seems to have settled out). Translucent (lets light through), but not clear--probably resulting from protein haze caused by use of malted wheat in the mash (protein haze is not undesirable in wheat beers). A brilliant white head, reminiscent of egg white meringue, that persists for several minutes, and leaves some lacing on the sides of the glass as the beer is drank (or drunk, or drunken... whatever). Bubbles continue to rise throughout the drinking of the beer, maintaining a ring of foam inside the glass, though the carbonation isn't strong enough to result in bubble chains--it's more diffuse, like rain drops in reverse.

Flavor: Some initial fruitiness, probably linked to the aroma. A sort of powdery, alkaline taste hits the roof of the mouth a moment later. Finishes with an almost grassy bitterness from the cascade hops. Crisp and refreshing throughout, which I associate with the wheat/ale-yeast combination.

Mouthfeel: Not too heavy in body, and not too light--a sort of middling roundness. Very slight tingle from carbonation, well below sting-level. Somewhat cloying after the second bottle (which is where I'm at now, in the course of writing this review).

Overall Impression: In the end, it's a pretty good beer. Not the best I've ever brewed, but definitely the best I've brewed so far in Hawaii. I'm not too sure of what characteristics were contributed by the poi, though I'd be more confident attributing the powdery, alkaline flavor--which comes mid-way through a sip--to poi than anything else. I'm still interested in exploring poi as a beer ingredient--particularly in letting the poi sour for a few days before adding it--but at this point I can't say that there is any definite result that merits the extra cost.

Other Info: Original Gravity was 1.047. Final Gravity is 1.007. Estimated alcohol by volume is 5.3%, and the alcohol is felt in the head more than the heart--befuddling/relaxing more than emotively inspiring.

Also: The Taro root is considered a physical reincarnation of the ancestors. It is kapu to argue in front of the poi, and I'm applying that rule to this beer. If you wanna brawl, maybe try Fenton Smith's Sparring Spud Stout instead.

Brewing with Lilikoi

Lilikoi is a variety of passion fruit commonly grown in Hawaii. I've read that it takes its name from Lilikoi Valley in Maui, where it was originally planted. While the more common passion fruit varieties on the mainland look purple and wrinkly on the outside when ripe, Lilikoi turns yellow and doesn't wrinkle (before ripening, lilikoi fruit is green). Its fruit is perfectly round and ranges in size from squash ball to baseball dimensions. The plant itself is an aggressive vine that will totally take over if you don't keep it under firm control; you've got to cut it back harshly every few months--sort of like blackberry in Northern California, though lilikoi has no thorns.



The rind of the lilikoi is inedible, a stiff and durable material that resembles packing foam. You eat the fruit by cutting it in half with a knife and scraping out the inner pulp with a spoon. The pulp is very tart and extremely potent--about the equivalent of lemon juice in its potency, or maybe even beyond that. The seeds can be eaten along with the pulp, but because of how potent the taste of the fruit is, it's rarely eaten in its unadulterated form. Usually lilikoi is used for its juice, which is blended with other juices (a popular drink in Hawaii is POG, made from passion fruit, orange, and guava juice) or used to make jelly.



I wanted to use lilikoi in a beer, and decided to try it in an Amber. I'm hoping that the malty, sweet orientation of the Amber style will balance well with the tartness of the fruit, and I'm hoping that the color shade of the beer will be enhanced by the vivid orange of lilikoi juice. I brewed my last batch of beer, mentioned in my post about brewing in a bag, with lilikoi in mind. I pitched it with a British ale yeast, and let it ferment at 72 degrees Fahrenheit, to encourage the development of fruity esters. And the mash temperature was higher, which will likely result in more body and less fermentable sugars, which fit with an English ale.



One of the lilikoi characteristics I wanted to capture was its delicate aroma--a truly unique scent that's unlike anything else. Because of that, I added the lilikoi juice to secondary, when the yeast is less active and has already consumed most of the fermentable sugar in the wort--I didn't want my lilikoi aroma to be blown away by all the carbon dioxide produced with the yeast's initial feeding frenzy. Also, because of my desire to capture as much lilikoi aroma as possible, I treated the juice with only a very delicate pasteurizing process--raising it to 160 degrees Fahrenheit over the course of 20 minutes--before adding it to the carboy. I would have liked to pitch it in directly, with no pasteurizing at all, but Hawaii's warm, fertile environment is full of potential beer-contaminants, making off-flavors a much greater threat here than they were in my San Francisco-based brewing.



In the end I only added about four ounces of lilikoi to about a five gallon batch of beer, dropping it into the bottom of my secondary fermenter and then racking the beer on top. It may not seem like much, but lilikoi is (like I said before) a very potent, very distinct flavor, and I'd rather add too little than too much. My general approach to adjunct ingredients is to shoot for an effect that will be notable, but not overwhelming. I want the drinker to notice something unusual about the beer, but to have to concentrate in order to decipher what it is.

I'm planning on letting the beer sit in secondary for another two weeks, and then bottling. So it'll be about another month before I know whether four ounces was the right amount.

what to do with spent grains?

Start a compost pile, and compost 'um. Gotta Malama da 'Aina, brah!

Brewing in a Bag

After reading about it in the January/February issue of Zymurgy, I've been wanting to try the whole brew in a bag process. It seems like a remarkably easy way to handle grain mashing, and the Zymurgy article claims it's as efficient as the more traditional mash-and-sparge approach. I wanted to try it with my last beer, a Poi Wheat ale, but I didn't have a grain bag, and I wasn't sure how much additional gravity would be added by the poi. In the end I used a modified approach in which I mashed the grains in six and a half gallons of water, instead of my usual one-or-two-quarts-per-pound mash with a two-quart-per-pound sparge, and then drained it into the kettle. Grain absorption meant I had to add more water, which I ran through the grains straight from the tap. I was satisfied with the original gravity I wound up with, but my questions about brewing in a bag weren't really answered.

Since then I've acquired a grain bag big enough for an all-grain brew, and yesterday I used it for the first time. What's more, since I brewed a recipe I've brewed before, I was able to compare the conversion achieved with the brew-in-the-bag method to the conversion I achieved previously, with a separate mash and sparge. (If you want the end result, you can skip to the bottom of this post--what follows is a bit of detail about the process I used.)

In order to compensate for grain absorption, this time I started with about eight gallons of water in the kettle. I brought it to 165 degrees Fahrenheit, put my bag in the kettle, and dumped my grains straight into the bag. I mixed them around a bit, and then twisted the top of the bag in hopes of keeping the grains from sneaking over a dropped edge. And then I put the lid on the kettle and let it sit for an hour.



I should mention that I added 10.5 pounds of room-temperature grains to eight gallons of heated water, and the relatively small amount of grains meant that the mash temperature only dropped to about 160. I didn't add heat at any point in the 60 minute mash, and after an hour the temperature had dropped to 144. Those are sort of unusual mash temperatures, which probably affected the original gravity I ended up with. And it's likely that the high starting temperature resulted in a more dextrinous wort, with less fermentable sugars, which will result in a heavier-bodied beer. (I love heavy-bodied beers, but since I've moved to Hawaii I've been trying to lighten them up a bit, so my hot mash was probably a mistake.)

Anyway, after an hour I started the flame again, and immediately after that I lifted the grain bag out of the wort. I held the bag above the wort for a few minutes, wanting to let it drain more wort into the kettle. But before long I decided I'd just throw the grain bag into my old bucket fermenter, let the wort separate out there, and then open the tap to pour that wort into the kettle. (In the picture below you can see the shadow of the wort that's starting to gather at the bottom of the bucket.)



After that, it was brewing like normal.

The end result? My previous brew of the same recipe had an original gravity of 1.058. This brew, using the brew-in-the-bag approach, resulted in an original gravity of 1.055. So I lost .003 points, or around one-tenth of a percent of potential alcohol. But I also cut my total brewing time by nearly an hour and a half.

For me the time reduction and the greater simplicity make the brew-in-the-bag mash a winner. I'm planning on using the big grain bag for my next batch.