Beer tasting at the Waikiki Wine Stop

My mother-in-law bought my wife a Groupon for a beer/pupus event at the Waikiki Wine Closet a few months ago. We finally got a chance to use it on the 8th of this month. Lemme tell you about it.

We got 8 tastings, but there were only five beers on offer. The beers were poured out of bottles. Here's the lineup:

Wells Banana Bread Beer
Big Island Brewhaus Golden Sabbath
Big Island Brewhaus White Mountain Porter
Big Island Brewhaus Overboard IPA
Widmer Brothers Barrel Aged BRRRBON (I don't remember what number)

I didn't really care for the Wells Banana Bread Beer, and I've already had all of the Big Island Brewhaus selections. The Widmer Brothers was pretty good, but it'd probably be more appreciated by someone who loves Bourbon, as that flavor was definitely dominant.

The guy pouring didn't seem to know much about any of the beers on hand--the info he gave while pouring basically consisted of the name of the beer and its alcohol level. He tried to tell me that Big Island Brewhaus has been brewing Golden Sabbath since the 1700s--the brewery has only been around since 2011; I think the guy might have read that the style of beer comes from the 1700s, or something like that, and he confused that information. In my opinion the selection and order of pours didn't really reveal deep beer-knowledge, or a cohesive vision, either.

After we finished the five beers, the guy tried to move us on to some kind of honey whiskey, and some kind of tequila drink that had a pink-colored mixer. We passed on those and went back for more Big Island Overboard and Porter.



There's some novelty to drinking in a store, surrounded by bottles on shelves. There are some downsides too, like the lack of a bathroom (you had to leave the store and take the building elevator to the hotel bathroom on the 4th floor). I noticed, while I walked around, that a lot of the prices seemed pretty inflated. But then again, the place is in Waikiki.

The event pupus (appetizers) consisted of a tray of pretzels and other snack mixes, and two medium sized pizzas cut into 2-inch-square slices.

It wouldn't be hard to criticize the event, but in the end we didn't have to pay for it, and free beer is almost always a good thing.

British Beers at House of Brews

Bar 35 hosts a beer event every Wednesday called "House of Brews." It costs $25 a person, and that gets you 9 beer tasters and a few pizza appetizers. Last week (August 28, 2013) the event focused on British Beers, and because of my love of British styles, my wife and I decided to check it out.

It turned out to be a pretty low-key affair. Basically, you let the man behind the bar know that you're there for the beer event, and they give you a blue wrist-band with nine pull-off tabs (you can see it in the picture above). After that you can sit anywhere in the bar, or out on the back patio, and they bring the beer tasters to you one at a time. Event organizer Tim Quirante (who was recently interviewed by Beer in Hawaii) makes the rounds, sitting down with you for a few minutes with each beer to give you the scoop.

The line-up for last week's event featured eight beers, with a chance to revisit a beer with a second tasting after you'd had them all. The beers on hand where: John Smith's Extra Smooth, Newcastle Werewolf, Newcastle Brown Ale, Boddingtons Pub Ale, Samuel Smith's India Ale, Harviestoun Old Engine Oil, Greene Kind Old Suffolk, and Samuel Smith's Imperial Stout. The Harviestoun and the Greene King were new to me, and Greene King's Olde Suffolk in particular was a standout--rich and complex, with a notable Oak character--excellent! Apparently I wasn't the only person to think so--they ran out before I had a chance to revisit it with my ninth taster. I ended up going back for seconds on the Samuel Smith's India Ale instead--a great beer from one of my favorite breweries.



Toward the end of the event I had a chance to chat with Tim Quirante about his new job brewing part time at Hawaii Nui, and about his Chico, California roots. He mentioned he'd be flying to the Big Island on Sunday for his first solo brew on Hawaii Nui's system, a batch of Mehana Mauna Kea Pale Ale. I was a bit surprised to hear that. Brewing five gallon batches is hard enough to do alone--I often force my wife to help me out with certain steps--but Tim's going to be doing a brew on Hawaii Nui's 30 barrel system all on his own. Apparently that's they way they do it there.

Mahalo and Aloha to Tony from REAL Gastropub

(Above picture taken from the website for REAL a Gastropub. Below pictures taken by my wife Tara.)

I'd stopped in at REAL a few times since arriving in Hawaii last year, but it wasn't until last month's tasting event that I finally realized what an incredible place this is. The tasting events happen once a month in the upstairs seating area, and they give REAL's beverage director Tony Raso a chance to pour five beers grouped around a key theme. Last month's event focused on beers that had been awarded the highest ratings at Ratebeer.com. The beer lineup included Trois Mousquetaires's "Porter Baltique," St. Bernardus's "Abt 12," Birra del Borgo's collaboration with Dogfish Head called "My Antonia," and North Coast's "Old Rasputin"--and amazingly, all of these beers were poured from draft.

Anyway, the beer was awesome, but what blew me away more than anything else was the sense of knowledge and passion for beer displayed by the presenters, especially by Tony. The guy has managed to bring an incredible variety of beers to Hawaii, in many cases for the first time ever. He's been working with breweries across the mainland, and with distributors supplying product from breweries worldwide, to give people on Oahu a chance to try some truly remarkable beers they'd probably never get a chance to try otherwise. The beers often come in one-time shipments, sometimes of just a few bottles or a single keg, and the fact that Tony is putting in the effort to secure beer in such limited quantities strikes me as incredible. Effort like that only comes from one place: a true passion for the endeavor.



Just take a look at the picture above (click the picture for a bigger version), which shows the beers on offer on the night of last month's event. The variety is impressive, but it's even more impressive when you consider what it takes to get these beers to Hawaii. For example, take the Moylan's beers listed in the lower right corner of the board. Moylan's is a relatively small brewpub in Northern California, so small that they didn't have enough kegs to spare for Hawaii shipments--the wait for the kegs to travel by boat to Hawaii, and then to return by boat to California, would have left the brewery without enough kegs for normal operation. But Moylan's produces some incredible beers--including the 100+ IBU "Hopsickle" Imperial IPA, and the multi-award-winning "Ryan Sullivan's" Imperial Stout--and Tony wanted to be able to serve those beers at REAL. He kept contacting Moylan's until the brewery agreed to purchase one-time use, plastic kegs to ship the beer to Hawaii. The effort was above and beyond normal business practices, but Moylan's beers made it to the taps at REAL, and it wouldn't have happened without Tony's efforts.

Alas, as indicated by the title of this post, Tony's time here in Oahu is coming to a close. He's recently become a father, and he and his wife have decided to return to their hometown so that their son can grow up near his extended family. This past Monday, August 5th, was Tony's last beer-tasting event. Tony set it up as a sort of "swan song," with an emphasis on beer's from his native state. The lineup included beers by Ballast Point, Moylan's, Coronado Brewing, and Sierra Nevada. My wife and I attended, and though the event was bittersweet, the beers were excellent.



Tony's duties as beverage director are being handed over to Anthony, and next month's tasting is an "Oktoberfest Pregame" scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on September 9th. REAL is having a farewell soiree for Tony on August 13, 2013, from 2:00 pm – 11:30 pm. If you live in Hawaii and you love craft beer, consider stopping by and expressing your thanks.

Mahalo, Tony.

Sam Adams Longshot Competition 2013

Last week I shipped four bottles of my Lilikoi Amber to the mainland to have them compete in the Sam Adams Longshot American Homebrew Contest. This is the first homebrew contest I've entered. I generally have very little interest in competitions, and I doubt that I'll be entering another competition anytime soon. But my friend Chris (of Lewy Brewing) had a good experience with last year's Longshot, and it doesn't cost anything to enter, so I figured I'd give it a try. I'll post an update when I get the results.

If you're interested in participating, you have until May 26 to enter the contest.

HOPS Big Brew Day

On Saturday, May 4th, the Homebrewers On Pacific Shores brew club (HOPS) organized a Big Brew Day event. Homebrew in Paradise provided free extract-recipe ingredients for either a Belgian Blonde or a Dark English Mild. I went down there with my girlfriend and our friend Matt, and we brewed up a batch of the Dark English Mild. Homebrew in Paradise is also providing kegs to hold the beer, and the plan is to get everybody together on Father's Day (June 16th) to sample the brews.

It was fun to meet a few of the other Oahu-based homebrewers, and to see the gear and techniques they use for their brewing. There was also plenty of homebrew to sample--I tried four different brews in the first hour, and had to put the brakes on after that. A lot of the other brewers seemed to forge ahead without fear, and I was impressed by their ability to keep their brews going while drinking double-fisted. I was also impressed with the HOPS linchpin--I think her name was Cindy, but my memory of the event is somewhat impaired so I might have her name wrong--in her valiant efforts to maintain a sense of meeting order in the face of all the imbibing and brewing and other distractions. There was a rep there from Sam Adams (I think they flew him in from the West Coast) who didn't fare as well.

I'll be sure to post an update on the Father's Day tasting.