Beer on Kauai: 40 Years Later

My first trip to Kauai was 40 years ago. It's shocking to realize that. I was about to start my senior year of college and my mom talked me into joining her. She had been here several times prior to that 1978 trip and knew the lay of the land. The place had an unfinished look in those days; it's a little different today.

I wasn't particularly interested in the beer scene in 1978. Tennis was my addiction. For beer, about all you could find was standard issue macro brew. Kauai and the rest of the Hawaiian Islands did have Primo, a novelty we coveted at home mostly because we couldn't get it there.

If you're wondering, Primo is still around. Production on Oahu ended shortly after my first trip and the brand hopped from Schlitz to Stroh to Pabst, which currently owns it, in the intervening years. But it's still out there somewhere. It isn't worth the trouble, if you're thinking of looking for it. No.

My second trip to Kauai came in 1996. This was just four years after Hurricane Iniki turned the island upside down, and things were still a little sketchy. I had started homebrewing around that time, so I was more interested in the beer scene. We drank a lot of Kona Fire Rock Pale Ale on that trip. There were some imports, as well. The scene was mostly unchanged when I returned in 2001.

There have been a string of Kauai trips since. I've lost track of how many. At some point, I discovered decent beer at Waimea Brewing. That place, located next to the Plantation Cottages in Waimea and billed as the Westernmost Brewpub in the World, moved to Port Allen and became Kauai Island Brewing in 2012. It continues to attract locals and tourists.

Kauai Beer Company opened in 2013 in Lihue. I visited the brewery not long after it opened. The place was a shell, basically a tasting room. Owner and co-founder Jim Guerber, an avid homebrewer, got mixed up in craft beer when friends kept telling him his beer was too good to stay a secret. Owner of a software company, he didn't need the money or the headache. But he liked good beer. He took the plunge.

The transformation of KBC since 2013 is amazing. From basically nothing, they now have a variety of beers on tap and a full kitchen. They are open for lunch and dinner and they continue to do a Thursday evening promotion with local food trucks. The place was buzzing when I stopped in at lunchtime the other day.

I wrote about KBC for BeerAdvocate in 2014. They have a copy of the article framed and mounted in the pub. I've seen Guerber at beer events here and there. He was mingling with patrons when I visited the other day and I didn't speak to him. But I tapped him on the shoulder as I was leaving. He opened his arms wide and spun around like Vanna White, as if to say, "Look what we've built!"

It's true. KBC has gone from nothing to something. They've done it in what remains a craft beer desert. Most bars and restaurants in the resort areas are dominated by Kona and macro. The beer selection in grocery stores is shameful, dominated by AB swill. My beer of choice here is Maui Brewing's Bikini Blonde. It fits nicely with the tropical weather and Maui is independent.

I don't know how many small breweries Kauai could support. The emerging strong preference for local beer on the mainland may not translate here. Some (heavy) styles don't really jive with the climate and the full-time population (around 72,000) may not have caught the craft beer bug like people have at home. Maybe two craft breweries is enough here.

Regardless, it's great to see independent breweries doing well. I'm especially impressed with what they've done at Kauai Beer Company because they started with not much more than a plan and built it out from there. Plus, I watched the transformation, intermittently.

After 40 years, Kaua's beer scene is evolving in a positive way. Keep it up, folks.

Kauai Island Brewing: Supplemental

Spending the week of Christmas on the island of Kauai was a treat and a nice break from Oregon weather. But I didn't mind the 37 degree blast of air that greeted me as I walked up the jet-way into PDX on my return. I was back in the land of plentiful great beer.

Lanai gear

As I documented in a post from Kauai, the beer choices there are slim. The most popular flavors in the bars and eateries around Poipu are Kona styles...Longboard, Fire Rock, Big Wave and some others you aren't likely to see outside the Islands.

There's nothing particularly wrong with the Kona beers. They're well-made and reasonably tasty. I actually couldn't help wondering if maybe the Kona beers and other domestic macros that dominate the scene there aren't perfect for the mix of tourists and locals. Maybe lighter beers is all folks want in the tropics. Hmmm.

Even if I was somehow out of step with local tastes, I was looking for something more stimulating. And there is something more stimulating for those with a similar mindset. It can be found up the road from Poipu in Port Allen. 

I was well aware of Kauai Island Brewing before this most recent trip. Last summer, I interviewed brewmaster and vice president Dave Curry and there is an earlier post here. My treat on this trip was a visit to the brewery and a chance to meet Dave face-to-face and taste his beers. Not especially lucrative, but great fun.

Not to repeat too much of the earlier post, but Kauai Island Brewing is essentially the old Waimea Brewing Company, which was located for many years within the Plantation Cottages in Waimea. Curry, whose background I'll get to momentarily, ran Waimea Brewing for many years. They lost their lease in Waimea a couple of years back, thus forcing a change of scenery.

Curry is not a Hawaiian. He's a mainland guy...worked at a now defunct Redding, Calif. brewery prior to coming out to Kauai in the late nineties. Upon arriving, he held positions at Whaler's Brewing (in Lihue) and Waimea Brewing. He went full-time at Waimea after 6-8 months on the island. Whaler's evidently didn't make it. 

Curry fronts several of his fermenters

As I noted previously, Kauai Island Brewing has an unique ownership arrangement. Curry is a partner in the business, which is owned by Seattle couple, Bret and Janice Larson. The Larsons (Bret is an engineer at Boeing) do not own a Kauai residence and simply make occasional trips to see how things are going. Curry runs the operation and brews the beer.

As the lease in Waimea was ending, Curry set about finding a new location. This can be a bit of a challenge because property values and lease rates on Kauai have been badly bloated by the tourism trade. More than a million visitors pour into Kauai every year. The building Curry found on the industrial side of Port Allen was previously occupied by Rainbow Paint and Fishing Supply. He suspects the building had been empty since 1992, when Iniki, a Category 4 hurricane, slammed into Kauai. 

The copper clappers...I mean kettles

Not to get too far afield, but Iniki is an interesting story in its own right. Most large Pacific storms originate there and are known as typhoons. Iniki was different. It originated as a tropical wave off the coast of Africa, crossed the Atlantic Ocean and jumped to the Pacific over Central America. It moved westward and strengthened before zig-zagging and making landfall on south-central Kauai with sustained winds of 145 mph. Damage was extensive. More than 1,500 homes were destroyed and many more damaged. It was years before the area recovered and some places were never rebuilt. A vibrant wild chicken population owes its existence to Iniki, but never mind.

Back to Kauai Island Brewing. It took Curry more than a year to get his new-found space ready to house a brewery. There was the usual barrage of permit challenges and regulatory issues. He finally opened last summer. The place is fairly charming, with large seating area and bar on the main floor and additional seating upstairs. 

The overview

Curry operates a 5 bbl brewing system attached to three 5 bbl fermenters and a 10 bbl fermenter. The place is also outfitted with 10 serving tanks (four 10 bbl; six 5 bbl). Lines run under the main seating area and come up behind the bar on the other side. It's a nice setup and the capacity there is more than sufficient for the pub. They were pouring 10 Kauai Island Beers when I visited. Not bad.

There are challenges. One of the biggest is energy costs. Kauai has for decades relied almost exclusively on expensive, oil-fired electricity. Curry said he pays $4,000 a month just for utilities. He had hoped to equip his new space with solar collectors, but plans fell through. So he does his best to conserve power when possible and hopes to someday go solar. A footnote here: Kauai is making progress in the area of renewable power. More here.

Shipping costs for malts and hops is another issue. Curry receives regular shipments from Great Western Malting (Vancouver) and Hop Union (Yakima), among others. All parties are constantly on the lookout for creative ways to minimize shipping costs.

Beach gear

Finally, there's the state's beer excise tax, fourth highest in the country at 93 cents a gallon. Pints and pitchers are more expensive here at least partially due to the tax. By way of comparison, Oregon's beer excise tax is 8 cents/gallon. The differential helps explain why craft breweries have flourished in Oregon and often flopped in Hawaii. 

Of the 10 house beers, most are pretty good. The bulk of these beers came over from Waimea Brewing. The lighter ones, including Leilani Light, Lilikoi Ale, Wai'ale'ale Ale and NaPali Pale Ale are all decent, if not hugely exciting. Captain Cook IPA is a full-bodied, dry-hopped brew that compares to Northwest IPAs. Cane Fire Red is a malty, mildly hoppy red that works fairly well.

Chickens everywhere

It's a pity you can't find Captain Cook or Cane Fire Red in any of the bars and restaurants on Kauai. They would definitely boost the beer aura. Self-distribution is legal in Hawaii, so Curry has that option. He would likely need to bump up his production capacity if outside distribution were to go well. This would be a keg-only situation, as bottling beer in Hawaii presents another problem: a per case tax on empties shipped in. I'm not kidding. Curry says keg distribution might happen someday.

If you happen to be headed out to Kauai and in need of a craft beer fix, Kauai Island Brewing is the only show in town (err, on the island) at the moment. There's evidently another place hoping to open in Lihue one of these days...Kauai Brewing Company. These things take time and things move rather slowly on these islands, so we shall see.