Kona Brewer's Festival 2009 - Trip Report by Zeke

There's no place like the Big Island. Sitting atop a mid-Pacific hot spot, the Big Island is where new earth is made. That’s hot.

March is a great time for whalewatching and the weather on the Kona Coast is as good as it gets.

And when brewers from around the country converge on the Big Island, there's no reason why we shouldn't all be there.

I attended the Kona Brewer's Fest last year with my new friend and homebrewer extraordinaire J.B. Zorn. In advance of the Festival, J.B. wanted to brew a beer with me at his homebrew garage in Lanikai. Being new to brewing, I was lucky to have such a professional to observe. Now, I used to live in Portland, Oregon - the nations preeminent locale for microbrews. While there I developed an affinity for hoppy India Pale Ales. I hung out at places like Bridgeport, Amnesia, Lucky Lab, New Old Lompoc and McMenamins to name a few. So naturally, when J.B. wanted me to choose a beer style, it was a simple choice. I wanted to brew a NW Style IPA. J.B. came up with the recipe and we went to Homebrew in Paradise to buy the Oregon hops and the rest of the supplies. We brewed on a sunny Saturday afternoon at the Zorn Homebrew Co. with his friend Paul.

I've tasted J.B.s beers before, even some of his IPAs and I would say that they are quite delicious, so I had high hopes for Zekimus IPA. I thought the hops were spot on and boy I couldn't wait to taste it. As J.B. led me through the brewing process (I pretty much stood there and stirred) I found it was not as complicated as I had thought. I looked forward to opening the packages of Hops as we put each in. When we were done, we had a nice orange Carboy of Zekimus IPA. J.B. spent the next week dry hopping the beer and we bottled it a few weeks later.

We sent off two bottles to the Homebrew contest for the Kona Brewers Fest. When the beer was ready, I shared it with some friends. Wow! This was as good as the real thing. This was better than some of the real things. J.B. was a genius! The color and the carbonation was perfect. It was the kind of beer that you could taste before you even sipped it.

J.B., Josh and I arrived in Kona on Thursday for the Brewers Dinner which took place at the luau garden of one of the Kona hotels right on the water. It was a gorgeous night and really set the tone for things to come. We ran into some folks that we new from work and also talked to a reporter who was covering the weekend (rough job). The next day Friday was a free day and we drove the high road to the far northern part of the island. We cooled off in Waimea which is a cowboy town up at about 4000 ft elevation. We stopped and found a few geocaches as we made our way to Hawi and the end of the road. On our way back south we drove down the Kohala coast which has all the nice resorts on the best beaches with the best weather in Hawaii. Everytime we looked to the ocean we saw whales. They were everywhere! Back in Kona, we stopped at the Kona Brewing Co. and ran into some more new and old friends. We talked to the brewmaster, Rich, I think was his name.

We filled up our growlers and brought some steaks back to the place to grill on our patio. The sunset was grand and later on in the night, Chris, Jake and Tim arrived from Honolulu.

On Saturday morning, we hit the road again and drove a very bumpy road across a desolate section of black lava to a beautiful oasis on the beach. The Big Island’s beaches are so beautiful as the black lava rocks are contrasted with the blue and white of the waves and water. There was actually quite a nice surf break off the point, but none of us had boards. We enjoyed a dip and headed back to get ready for the Festival.

We walked the mile or so down Alii Drive to the Festival at the King Kamehameha Hotel right on the pier at the bay. The crew was all lined up, many wearing medals from previous beer festivals and homebrew contests. There were some serious-looking brewers here. Most with beards and tie dyed shirts. I knew Zekimus was going to have some serious competition. The homebrew judging part of the festival took place on the days leading up the festival so the winners could be announced at the festival. When it was time to open we barged through the gates and hit the taps.

On tap was all professionally brewed beers from all over the country. Many of them were from my hometown on San Diego like Ballast Point, Green Flash and Stone. There were a lot from Oregon and Colorado too. Some of the biggies where there like Samuel Adams. We enjoyed tasting a bunch of the beers and waited for the announcement of the homebrew contest winners.

Low and behold, while I was sipping a cold one, J.B. came running over to me to tell me that Zekimus had placed FIRST in the American IPA division! I didn’t believe him at first so I ran over to the booth to see for myself. It was true. Zekimus was top of the list out of 22 entrants in the American IPA division.

The rest of the day and night, there were shouts of Zekimuuuuus IPAAAAA ringing through the streets of Kona. It was pretty cool. I was pretty darn proud of J.B. for winning his first Homebrew Contest. And I was pretty stoked that I had about 30 more bottles of award winning Zekimus at home.

This years Kona Brewers Festival is this weekend. I’ll see ya there!