Hilo Brewfest & Homebrew Competition 2019

View from the Festival

The seventh annual Hilo Brewfest was held on June 29^th, 2019 at the Wainaku Center along the coast. The festival started as the Hilo Rotary Club’s fundraiser, 100% of ticket sales still go to local charities each year. Beer and food are donated to the event. A VIP hour offered additional food and beer selections as well as an AC room throughout the entire event. It was a nice sized crowd, never being overwhelming like some other festivals with minimal lines for any given brewery. It rained on and off throughout the festival, which was pleasant on an otherwise hot and humid day. I personally enjoyed meeting new people in person for the first time and seeing so many friends!

Amazing Volunteers

The Usual Suspects

The Temple

While the festival was the end of a long weekend, the Hilo Homebrew Competition took up most of our time. The Thursday and Friday before the festival, around a dozen BJCP Judges met at the forthcoming The Temple Craft Beer & Wine Bar. The owner Ian provided us the space and time needed to judge. The competition was planned and organized by Bob Culnan, who did an excellent job of managing time and the entries. We did three flights, two on Thursday and one on Friday morning, with Best of Show completed after lunch Friday. Five beers made it to the final round with a Double IPA taking the gold. There were many excellent entries this year, results can be found HERE and were also announced at the festival.

Hilo Brewing New Cans

Besides the competition, I also finally visited Mehana and Hawaii-Nui Breweries. These two old staples are rebranding under new ownership into the forthcoming Hilo Brewing & Beverage. The bartender Kim gave us a short tour of the facility and talked about all the beers. (It was also great running into him at the festival!) I enjoyed seeing the new can art, which will be hitting shelves in the next few months. I tried all weekend to meet the new brewer Sebastian Bach, but eventually ran into him at the festival as well! One highlight was getting to try the Pineapples Gold Ale that’s only available at Pineapples Restaurant in Hilo and brewed by Hilo Brewing (Mehana); it was refreshing with the pineapple wedge.

Banyan Drive

Banyan Drive with the Queen Liliuokalani Gardens and Coconut Island was my favorite non-beer activity for the weekend, and I was thankful I had time for two morning runs around the area. Each Banyan Tree was planted by someone famous over the years so each has a plaque with the name. Coconut Island offered a panoramic view of the area, Hilo Town, and Mauna Kea in the distance. The Grand Naniloa Hotel was also nearby with Hula Hulas Bar & Grill inside offering great food choices and local beer. Friday they had an Ola Brew Tap Takeover in conjunction with the festival; I loved trying three new beers from them and snagging a new hat! It was a great weekend of beer, family, and friends; I hope to attend this festival again in the future!

It was wonderful seeing everyone, there's too many people to mention by name. The beer community is a small group and it's a great excuse to island hop for a few days!

Ola Brew Tap Takeover

CRAFT: Hawaii’s Only 100% Local Beer Festival

Just a few short years ago on Oahu there was only a sporadic festival, and even then they featured a lot of mainland offerings as the state simply didn’t support that many breweries. Flash forward to this month and the (hopefully) first annual CRAFT Beer Festival. Essentially a celebration of Hawaii-brewed beer and local adjunct ingredients, this beer festival truly stood out.

CRAFT was planned and implemented primarily by Cindy Goldstein of the Hawaiian Craft Brewers Guild, an organization of breweries in Hawaii that meet a number of requirements including being certified Independent and brewing 100% of their offerings in the islands. With the advent of big beer taking over more and more breweries each day, it’s important to highlight the amazing things our local breweries are doing with the added hurdles of geographic isolation and shipping costs. HCBG seeks to educate local beer drinkers and encourage more people to “drink local.”

CRAFT was held Saturday, February 23, 2019 at the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum in Honolulu. Their great lawn was the perfect open-air setting and was further aided by perfect weather including just the right amount of clouds to block a hot sun, but no rain. An army of volunteers aided in set up, helping the participating breweries to their tents and tapping kegs. Each brewery brought two to four selections, with many bringing free swag and information about their products. Non-beer highlights were a selection of free Maui Brewing sodas, Ola Brew’s kiawe bean producer bringing two types of fresh kiawa brownies, and stickers, hats, and other giveaways.

The $55 entry fee included ten tasters in the included commemorative beerglass that featured the fest’s logo designed by Vince Gallo. The glass was larger and despite having a fill line, most breweries filled it to the brim. Even the ten tasting tickets ended up being largely ignored by the pourers; people were just enjoying sharing their beer with people that appreciated it. Many breweries brought limited kegs and Waikiki even brought a gravity keg variant of their Skinny Jeans IPA with fresh whole cone Mosaic hops added. There ended up being more new beers to Oahu that I realized, and I personally missed a few I was hoping to try! Inu Island Ales and Lanikai Brewing Co. each used the festival to debut new beers, which are now available at their respective breweries. For those who don’t travel to the outer islands, Kauai Beer Co., Kauai Island Brewing Co., Kohola Brewery, Ola Brew Co., and Big Island Brewhaus all brought fresh selections not usually seen on Oahu.

The highlight for me beyond the beer was the ability to talk story with the brewers themselves. Each brewery had representatives who knew about the beer, the work that went into it, and the breweries themselves. Most other beer fests seem to cater to the get drunk quick crowd and there’s no one around to ask questions and be proud of their product. This different dynamic was also easy to see in the makeup of the crowd: people were happy to be drinking local beer, and were friendly. I’ve never seen so many people I’ve known personally at a single beer event. Here’s hoping for an annual gathering!