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SCENE & STORY

Established in 1994 by father-and-son team Cameron Healy and Spoon Khalsa, Kona Brewing Company is now the thirteenth largest craft brewery in the United States and owned by the Craft Brewers Alliance. Kona’s head brewer moved on as of summer 2011; most of the company’s beers sold on the U.S. mainland are contract brewed in New Hampshire and Portland, Oregon and distributed by Anheuser-Busch. The brewpub in Kona, built on-site a few years later, brews 2,000 bbl a year for locals; the Honolulu location is a bar and eatery. Beer travelers can count on a fresh and relaxing beer in the Kona location with its verdant patio and menu of hand-tossed pizzas, sandwiches, salads and pupu plates (appetizers). Free tours are also offered, and there’s a cool little growler station for beer to go. The larger Koko Marina spot in Honolulu overlooks a placid bay of boats tied up to the piers and has a spacious indoor taproom.

PHILOSOPHY

Easy in the islands. They’re obviously not too worried about being a contract brewing company, despite the stigma it creates in the eyes of diehard craft consumers. As long as the local beers stay high quality and hopefully even innovative, they’ll draw beer lovers of all stripes.

KEY BEER

Da Grind Buzz Kona Coffee Imperial Stout (8.5% ABV) is a winter seasonal brewed in Kona that’s made with coffee beans grown, harvested, and roasted in nearby Holualoa. It’s as aromatic as a freshly iced espresso but creamier on the tongue and black as ancient lava.

Best of the Rest: Hawaii

HUMPY’S BIG ISLAND ALEHOUSE

75-5815 Ali‘i Drive • Kailua-Kona, HI 96740 (808) 324-2337 • humpys.com

Sister bar to craft beer maven Billy Opinksy’s famous Humpy’s Great Alaskan Alehouse in Anchorage, Alaska, Humpy’s opened in 1994 right across the street from the water, overlooking a couple of slender palms and the Pacific. There’s ample outdoor seating (though it can get a little windy), a sports-bar-like interior (read: plasma screens), and a vast menu of options, from ten-ounce burgers, local grilled and fried fish, and Hawaiian pork platters, to a full list of pizzas. And the beer? It’s only the best beer selection on the Big Island (twenty taps and around twenty in bottles). Order a local Hawaiian variety, naturally, whatever’s on and especially fresh.

COLORADO

MOUNTAIN

and the ROCKY

MOUNTAINS

Colorado

ASK ANY BEER LOVER TO NAME THE BEST BEER STATE IN AMERICA, and, depending on their zip code, you’ll soon be besieged with per-capita statistics and other “inside baseball” minutiae, a puffed chest conversation brewers and industry watchers refer to as “the arms race.” The fact is, there’s room for more than one Super Power on Craft Beer Planet.

From the leafy streets and sunny taprooms of Fort Collins to the cavernous barrel-aging rooms in Boulder, sleek gastropubs in downtown Denver, and wood-stove-warmed, log cabin–like Rocky Mountain brewpubs, there are scores of beer-friendly spots and some of the country’s most scenic drives between them. Denver alone merits a stop in this state: the mile-high city is home to the Denver Beer Fest, a ten-day annual craft beer festival culminating in the Great American Beer Festival (GABF), the world’s largest mass beer tasting (for number of beers on offer—more than 2,000) and America’s largest beer festival of any kind. Denver is also the only major U.S. city since Colonial times to be governed by a brewmaster in chief, John Hickenlooper. No beer lover should miss making a good long visit, especially during the Denver Beer Fest and GABF, to see—and taste—what all the fuss is about. After visiting Denver, Boulder, and Fort Collins, head West into the Rockies and then South to Durango, a 450-mile epic of 11,000 passes, atmospheric taprooms, and thirst-stoking outdoor options.

ITINERARIES

1 – DAY

Great Divide, Wynkoop Brewing Co., Breckenridge Brewery & Bar-BQue, Falling Rock Taphouse

3 – DAY

Denver to Boulder County for Upslope, Oskar Blues, Left Hand, Mountain Sun, Wild Mountain Smokehouse, and the West End Tavern