E-Malt.com News article: Hawaii: Hawaii’s first certified organic beer to be launched next month

Kona Brewing Company announced this month it will launch Hawaii’s first certified organic beer in its pubs in early January.

“We are ecstatic to be brewing the first certified organic beer in the state of Hawaii,” said Kona Brewing Company’s President and CEO Mattson Davis. “We strive to be environmentally conscious in all that we do – from serving locally grown organic produce whenever possible to feeding Big Island cattle the spent grain from our brewing process.”

Oceanic Organic Saison is a Belgian style ale that was brewed with all organic malt, fermented with a custom blend of Belgian yeast strains and spiced with an abundance of organic hops, organic coriander and grains of paradise.

The beer will be served on tap at Kona Brewing Company’s two pubs in Kailua-Kona and Hawaii Kai and at a few select Hawaii restaurants locations. It will be available in growler jugs at the Kailua-Kona Growler Shack. The brewery also will begin bottling Oceanic Organic Saison in
22-ounce bottles in spring of 2010.

Organic beer ingredients can be challenging to find and get to Hawaii, not to mention much more expensive. Brewing this organic beer is roughly six times more expensive than most of Kona Brewing Company’s more conventional beers, which are already approximately 50 percent more expensive to brew in Hawaii.

According to Washington, D.C.-based beer columnist Greg Kitsock, organic beers constitute less than 1 percent of the craft beer segment in the United States, which itself produces less than 4 percent of the beer consumed in this country. However, that niche has been growing by double digits for the past several years.

Started in the spring of 1994 by a father and son team, Kona Brewing Company has grown into Hawaii’s largest brewery, has three restaurant sites in Hawaii and beer distribution reaching 28 states and Japan. The brewery was named the fastest growing top-50 craft brewing company in the country based on 2008 sales figures. It is the 14th largest craft brewing company in the country, posting 51 percent growth in 2008.


18 December, 2009