Saturday April 18th was the Honolulu Brewers Festival in Kakaako. I took a flight from my home in Hilo to Honolulu and an old friend from Japan picked me up. Not having been to this one before, we unfortunately ate lunch together before the festival began at 2 PM. We didn’t know that there would be absolutely wonderful food there for free. Each participant got a wrist band with 10 detachable squares for a 4oz beer of your choice. I had a regular ticket for $72 and bought a designated driver entrance for he for $22. They misread her ticket and gave her the wristband with 10 too. NICE, as 10 was not enough at all. I now had 20 tickets at my disposal. I spilled one, dumped one and gave one away at the end. I had 17 4oz craft beers along with some great food samples. Nice time in the great weather in Honolulu. It was a bit breezy so we all kept cool.
The theme, for most brewers this year, seemed to be dark beers. I was surprised by the number of darks. Each brewer had only 2 on tap and I tried to do all the local brews before doing any of the others. I was surprised to see Sam Adams had two and they were both darks.
The one dark I was looking forward to is one I can buy in a 4 pack here at any time. It is the coconut porter from Maui brewing but at this event, they brought the Imperial version that is even stronger in all the flavors and ABV content. Love that one and wish they would just swap that for the milder cousin I can buy here. That was the only one I went to 3 times but it was also the one I spilled. That would have killed me if I didn’t have that extra wrist band provided by my non-drinking companion.
The very first beer was a citrus flavored pale beer that you will see in the pics. Turned out to be one of the better of the light category for the day. The other one that sticks out in my mind was the peanut butter dark. It was a bit like a Resses peanut butter cup in liquid form and I quite liked it.
There were no seats. They expected us all to be drinking and walking all the time I guess. The band was ok and played my style of music but they had no sound man and the vocals were murder and the overall volume way too high. The line was a block long but moved fast enough so as not to piss anyone off with the wait. We would bring a mat to use on the ground next time. There was also a massage booth for tips only and I hit that early on.
Everyone got one four oz glass on entry and you used that for each draw. Not the best method for the purist to not have a very clean glass for each taste but then, we were outside in less than optimal conditions for real tasting. The location was stress free in a big square grassy area that was dam near perfect for such an occasion except for any seating or real place to relax. Most people were clustered under the tents where the beer was being dispensed and you weren’t sure if they were in line or just hanging. All in all, it was a pretty smooth experience and I enjoyed it immensely…
Here are some pics from around the beer festival.
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