Kaua‘i’s only brewpub reopens in Ele‘ele

The former Waimea Brewing Co. has been reborn as Kaua‘i Island Brewery & Grill in Port Allen Center in ‘Ele‘ele.

After one year in the construction mode, Kaua‘i’s only brewpub and the world’s westernmost brewery, is open and “we are very excited about our future in our new location and the expansion possibilities that it offers us,” Kaua‘i Island Brewing Co. partner Bret Larson said.

The new brewpub occupies a 4,000-square-foot warehouse next to Red Dirt Shirts in A&B’s industrial center. Outside, the warehouse might look like any other, but inside on the ground floor, it has been remodeled with an industrial theme to accommodate a 60-seat restaurant, a 20-foot bar, a kitchen and a brewing facility.

The bar offers KIBC- and guest-crafted beers on tap as well as Oregon-brewed and domestic beers plus 64-ounce “growlers,” glass bottles resembling apple cider gallons. For large parties, the company sells beer-filled kegs and rents out party pumps and jockey boxes.

Party pumps force beer out of the keg when the keg is placed in a trash can filled with ice, and a jockey box is a portable device with cooling coils through in which the beer runs.

KIBG’s point-of-sale system is no less state-of-the-art, with the ability for waiters to send orders to the kitchen and bar using iPads. It is a “cloud-based system,” with information being stored on the Internet as opposed to a local PC.

“This means the servers can go from table to table and by the time they finish their ordering, all the food and drinks are ready for them to pick up,” Larson said.

The food is prepared in a kitchen built and operated by another business, Kaua‘i Island Grill. It is owned by Erik Horner, Chef Frank Guillermo and Cory Masaveg. Larson said their operation is seamless with the bar. “You wouldn’t know it if you walked in the door. It’s a great relationship.” The restaurant’s menu includes its signature “Nui Nachos,” ahi poke, half-rack ribs and taro goat cheese dip, among other specialties.

Larson said KIBC prefers to focus its efforts on brewing beer. “We craft great beer and we wanted another company to do the food.”  The styles of beer are named after Kaua‘i surfing and scenic sites and other local words. They include Na Pali Pale Ale, Wai‘ale‘ale Gold Ale, Captain Cook IPA, Leilani Light, Pakala Porter and Canefire Red.  

The brewmaster is Larson’s business partner, Dave Curry.

“He is the mastermind behind many of Waimea Brewing Co.’s award-winning recipes,” Larson said.  Curry was the brewmaster for 13 years at the former Waimea brewery.

Larson hired Curry in 1999, a year after Larson started Waimea Brewing at the dining room at Waimea Plantation Cottages, owned by Kikiaola Land Co.  The Cottages site wasn’t the original site intended for the microbrewery.

A co-worker at Boeing in Seattle, Rob Faye, suggested turning the dilapidated Waimea Sugar Mill property across from the Waimea technology center as the site.

The mill is on property also owned by Kikiaola. Estimated cost to renovate the old mill, however, was $3 million.

“It was quite a financial undertaking,”he said. “The cottages’ dining room turned out to be a better option, costing only $300,000 to bring it up to brewery standards.

A year and a half ago, Larson and his wife Janice, decided to partner with Curry and his wife Christina to create KIBC. Currently, the Larsons are running the business from Seattle while Larson continues to work at Boeing, which he plans to do until the children are independent. Meanwhile, the Currys are holding down the fort on Kaua‘i with 30 full- and part-time employees.

As the brewpub grows its new roots in Ele‘ele, the brewery is prepared to expand its distribution of craft beers soon. Larson said that within a year, the company will start selling its beers in kegs to local restaurants and taverns, and within two years, it will sell them in bottles or cans islandwide, and within five years, expand the sales statewide.

“We’d like to start off slow, test the market and tailor our product to our customers’ tastes. If things go well in the brewpub and with our customers, we could be encouraged to accelerate our plans,” he said. Currently, the brewhouse holds 10 serving tanks and four fermenters. Five of those tanks were recently purchased from the former Whaler’s Brewpub in Lihu‘e.

The tanks and larger space make it possible for KIBC to ferment, store and serve more of its crafted beers.  The idea to go into the brewpub business has its infancy in Larson’s experimentation with brewing while still in college. He brewed different styles of beer, “everything I could brew. Like a cook in a kitchen experimenting,” he said. During that time, he experimented with carbonation, a naturally occurring process. Larson said he had his way of “helping it along” by putting in a little bit of sugar, bottling it and capping it. “The sugar reactivates the yeast.” It took 10 years of this home-brewing before he started brewing professionally.  “Brewing professionally is a whole new experience,” he said. “Commercial brewers actually place the exact amount of carbonation so the fix is the same in every batch.”

This is one of the procedures KIBC will soon be doing as it expands into the realm of commercial bottling and canning.  Meanwhile, KIBC is happily brewing for its brewpub and local and visitor community.  “There’s an interesting mystique about the brewpub. People come from all over, especially the West Coast, to visit a brewpub and to get the feeling you get when you walk in. You’ll see Dave Curry brewing beer and sitting over the kettle. The steam of the kettle can be seen and smelled all over the restaurant. That’s what people like.” Aug. 18 is the grand opening of the brewpub and an all-day celebration of events, giveaways and live music is planned. The Kaua‘i Island Brewery & Grill is open seven days a week from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., or when the party’s over. Kitchen is open until 9 p.m.