Big Island Brewhaus is located in a little town called Waimea. It's about an hour's drive from Kona, and about a million miles away in terms of atmosphere: Waimea is paniolo (Hawaii cowboy) territory, with lots of ranches and cattle and big trucks and motorcycles. The altitude is 2670 feet above sea level, and the air is cooler and moister than Kona seaside air. The people in the area struck me as more of a mix of European and Polynesian ethnicity, whereas Honolulu definitely reflects more Japanese and Chinese influence.
The Big Island Brewhaus brewery itself is located in a tiny little strip mall, alongside a hunting supply shop and a bicycle store. The place was locked up and empty when we were there--the only sign of life coming from a bubbling barrel of trub on a pallet out front--but I peeped through the window to get a look at the brewing set-up. I'm guessing it's around 15 barrel system, with around four fermenters. They've also got a small bottling system for the 22 oz bottles you can get on Oahu. There's a picture below--if you've got a different guess about system size, or if there's anything else interesting you notice from the picture, please feel free to mention it in the comments section of this post.
Big Island Brewhaus also owns and runs a small Mexican restaurant and bar, located in a free-standing building on the property. We went in for lunch and got a sampler of every beer they had available (picture below). Despite the German-influenced name of the brewery, the beer lineup didn't swing toward lager-dominance. Of the eleven beers we tried, about half of them were Ales, and the majority of the rest of the lineup used Belgian-yeasts. Here's a link to the beer descriptions they list on their website, though the list doesn't reflect all of the beers on hand during our visit. Another thing I noticed: grain-wise, the beers on hand seemed to focus on what I think of as "mid-range" grain bills--mostly pale and some caramelized grains, mostly 5-7% alcohol. The only beer that had any roast to it was the White Mountain Porter--I guess they also brew a Guinness style stout, but it wasn't on hand when we were there.
All the beers tasted good to me. My favorite was a Sierra Nevada-styled beer called Paniolo Pale Ale, and what I loved about it was the way the cascade hops came through in the aroma. They smelled super green and fresh, just like the smell you get right when you throw the hops in the boiling kettle. And that helped solidify another thing I've been noticing about beer on the islands--that heady, resinous aroma that I love about West Coast Pale Ales and IPAs is hard to come by here, even in beers that are famous for it like Sierra Nevada, because boat-shipped beers are never gonna be as fresh as what you'll get on the mainland. One more argument for homebrewing in Hawaii.
Another beer that stood out to me was, I think (memory's not too clear on this one), a Pale Ale brewed with ginger. I swear to Ninkasi the beer tasted almost exactly like the Sage Pale Ale I brewed a couple months back, though they say they used ginger and not sage.
As for the food, it was pretty good--probably better than a lot of the Mexican food I've had in Hawaii, but still not up to California standards. My wife gives them super-extra-credit for having real chips--actual tortillas cut into triangles and then deep fried. But my step-dad thought the hot-sauce was seriously lacking in sufficient hotness. I'm not a spicy food connoisseur, but I agree the spice seemed pretty tame. And I also think it's worth noting that the dude who served us was friendly and helpful and on top of it, even though he was working alone during the lunchtime rush.
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