Brewsday Tuesday: Maui Brewing Edition

It's the return of Brewsday Tuesday on ralphnolannoble!

This installment features Maui Brewing Company (@mauibrewingco) based in Kihei, on the island of Maui in the great state of Hawai'i.

Having grown up on Oahu, I am thrilled to feature another great brewery from my home state. I may be a New Yorker now, but the Hawaiian Islands will always be home to me.

Our tattoos today come from Jon DuPont, Maui's Brewing Supervisor in Kihei. Jon has been with MBC for a little over four years, having originally applied to be a bartender in the new tasting room when they were moving production from Lahaina to Kihei. He ended up starting as a packaging tech and moved up in the organization into brewing and has been in his current role for about a year.

Jon was kind enough to share his Super Mario sleeve with us:

Jon credits this cool work to Kevin Reinert (@truetattoos1923) at Zen Tattoo Maui (@zentattoomaui).

Jon told us how this sleeve came into existence:

"It started as just the green 1-UP mushroom many years ago. I had been kicking around the idea of some kind of Nintendo-themed tat and my girlfriend (now wife) had just given me a little tin of mints (or something) that was shaped like the 1-UP shroom so it seemed like a good fit...my good friend had been planning to road trip (Coeur d'Alene to Boise, Idaho) to see one of his old artist friends so I tagged along for the ride and ended up getting the mushroom done with I was down in Boise with him. At that point it wasn't outlined, just had a little orange starburst around it that fell out pretty quickly. CdA to Boise is about 8 hours so I never had it touched up.

So fast forward about 8 years from that and I'm living on Maui and had become buddies with Kevin...our wives worked together just down the street from the MBC tasting room so we become drinking buddies pretty quickly. My wife ended up getting a big mandala back piece from him and I was digging his work so I plunged back in and started working on the sleeve piece by piece...Mario/Bowser/Luigi first combined with lining and touching up the mushroom. Next was Princess Peach followed by the flying goomba and bullet bill, and finally the background."

Thanks to Jon for sharing this cool tattoo with us!

As for Maui Brewing Company's beer, you'd think that I couldn't get Hawaiian beer in Brooklyn, but you'd be wrong. I was able to track down  several of their brands for this Brewsday Tuesday:

I had previously had MBC's Coconut Hiwa Porter and their Big Swell IPA, but the Bikini Blonde Lager and Pineapple Mana Wheat were new to me. These are four of their year-round brands. Alas, the Pau Hana Pilsner and Double Overhead Double IPA eluded me. Jon said the Double Overhead, or as he called it, "Big Swell's Bigger Badder Brother," is really something special, and is the tattoo artist Kevin's favorite beer.

It was great to be trying these in August when the hot New York City summer made the Bikini Blonde lager really light and freshing.

 

The lager is super crisp and I could almost hear the surf while drinking it. And the Pineapple Mana was really nice, as well. I love pineapple, and the flavors are super subtle. It is not overpowering, but it definitely makes its presence known.

As for the Big Swell, I've had this before and it is a solid, great-tasting IPA.

With a 6.8% ABV and an 82 IBU, this has the perfect amount of hoppiness and flavor to give you a rock solid IPA.

As someone who is partial to darker beers, the Coconut Hiwa Porter was already on my radar and having an excuse to track down another one (they don't stay on the shelves too long in Brooklyn), was a treat.

This baby is smooth, and so robust with flavor. Just the perfect amount of coconut to give this 6.0% porter a nice touch of the islands. I can't recommend this enough.

Maui Brewing has some limited releases, as well, which I will be constantly on the lookout. Their Lilikoi Saison looks amazing.

Like in previous editions of Brewsday Tuesday on ralphnolannoble, Maui Brewing Company has been generous enough to throw a little swag our way:

So, you know how this works. Commenting on the post below will get you two entries into the giveaways (there will be at least two prize packages), social media likes will garner one entry, as well. There are hats, coozies, stickers, keychains and magnets to be had.

A hearty mahalo to the good folks at Maui Brewing Company for joining us in this Brewsday Tuesday post. Thanks, of course to Jon for sharing his tattoos, as well as to Marsha Hansen in MBC's Marketing for setting everything up, and lastly to Garrett Marrero, Maui Brewing Company's CEO.

Cheers from Brooklyn!

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