Maui Brewing Co. Island Root Beer

Aloha loyal readers! My wife and i took a recent trip to Hawaii for a much needed vacation to stay with Jenn's cousin Tyler and his wife Lauren. They live on Oahu, but for the weekend we all took a trip over to Maui where we found this locally brewed root beer. Maui Brewing Co. is located in the town that we stayed in for the weekend called Lahaina, but we found this root beer at a little pizza place called Flatbread in a town called Paia. It's kind of a little hippie, art community so Flatbread boasted how everything on the menu was locally grown and organic. Apparently there are more of these Flatbread pizza places around the country too, and i would highly recommend going. The menu in each place is different based on what local ingredients are available, and we all enjoyed the food a lot. We saw someone drinking this root beer there and of course had to inquire. Tyler and i each drank a can and decided to visit the brewery when we were closer to our hotel.

Here is a view of the Brewery from the outside. We attempted to eat there one evening, but they were closed for a brewfest going on somewhere else on the island, so we had to squeeze in a quick lunch on the day we left. The restaurant was really good. We all liked the food and it was a nice clean atmosphere that didn't smell weird since my wife refuses to eat at places that smell weird. Not too expensive (by Hawaii standards since everything over there is expensive) and good portions of food. If you make it to Maui and don't like root beer, definitely go just for the food. It's good. There are some pics of the interior below, one of the main dining area and bar and one of the brewery where all the beers and sodas are made.

Maui Brewing Co. cans their root beer, so Tyler and i each had a can of it at Flatbreads, but had it on draft at their location. The 12 oz. can is dark brown and tan in color with black and white writing. I like the Hawaiian turtle design on the can, and while there i learned that the Hawaiian word for turtle is "honu". And now you know that too. Look, we're learning things on this blog!

Tyler really liked the root beer because he really likes honey and the main ingredients in the root beer are honey, vanilla, and cane sugar. The honey definitely dominates the flavor and the cane sugar makes it quite sweet. We both agreed it seemed a little sweeter on draft than from the can as well. But ultimately, it just tastes like Thomas Kemper to me. I have said repeatedly on this blog that i am not a huge fan of honey in root beer, but that aside this stuff wasn't terrible. Not my favorite, but definitely not bad at all. It had good carbonation and was enjoyable despite the heavy honey taste.

My official review is that Maui Brewing Co. Island Root Beer gets 6 (six) IBCs. I rated Thomas Kemper fairly harshly, and i stand by my rating. That was the first root beer i tasted with honey in it, so it is kind of my standard for this style of root beer. But i really didn't mind Maui's Island Root Beer. Again, not my favorite, but i feel it's worthy of a 6. Hawaii is a great place to visit and we enjoyed our time in Maui. If you get a chance to go out there, definitely go to the brewery for a lunch or dinner and grab a root beer while you're at it.