Aloha Pittsburgh

Since the early days of starting my writing on this blog, I've taken a fascination with beers from breweries based in Hawaii. If I remember correctly, it was around the time in which I started this blog that Kona Brewing Company started shipping some brew into the States. I came across two beers from the Aloha State in Maui Brewing's Bikini Blonde Lager and Coconut Porter and completely fell in love.

Seemed like it was totally on a whim, but last night it appeared as if a former Pittsburgh resident took to Twitter to reach out to those of us in the online beer community here in Western, Pa.

@BurghBeerSnob Check out this upcoming brewery in Hawaii... founded by Pittsburghers! http://t.co/nIpiySXO3L
— Darren Garvey (@darrengarvey) August 7, 2013

It looks like there's potential for Pittsburgh to have a stake in the Hawaiian beer landscape. The proposed brewery (currently a Kickstarter project) would be called Stewbum & Stonewall. The name comes from nicknames of the fathers of the two proposed owners of this brewery and of course I go geeky over a Civil War reference.

One unique thing about this idea for a brewery is that (I found this within the Kickstarter page) the brewery plans to feature other local Hawaiian beers alongside its own in the taproom. That's something very unusual and unique. Best of luck to them. I figured that passing this along might help get an extra backer or two for this brewery.

Vive le Pittsburgh.

Coming to Western Pa.: Hawaiian Beer

A few months ago I wrote a post about a Hawaiian brewing company expanding its distribution to According to a link I found on BeerNews.org, Kona Brewing Co., based in the great state of Hawaii, plans to also expand its distribution part way through January.

The difference is that this Hawaiian brewery intends to include the Pittsburgh market in said expansion. According to the link, only two of Kona's beers will make an appearance in the expanded markets (Longboard Island Lager and Fire Rock Pale Ale).

I'm assuming that more of Kona's beers will make there way over to the East Coast based upon how popular those two brands become over the next few months.

I've always been interested in craft beers from Hawaii. I've never had one. I guess the possibility of having a beer brewed with native fruits such as pineapple intrigues me greatly. Hopefully I can find either of Kona's beers in a local six pack shop and eventually post my thoughts on them.