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.