If you notice our cans are a little wider at the top. It’s great quality, a very nice beef and it’s supporting local agriculture,” Marerro says. Grain goes to local farmers to grow cattle. The Maui Brewing Company team is even helping a brand-new Hawaiian brewer set up shop in its old Lahaina brewery in West Maui. They source everything they can from Hawaiian manufacturers and farmers. By the end of 2016, he expects to employ twice that. Marrero employs almost 90 locals in sales, sales support, brewery staff, brewpub staff, etc. Maui Brewing Company’s impressive new facility and efforts to further craft beer are also steps toward improving the economy of Hawaii. Marrero estimates they could push out 100,000 to 120,000 barrels if they were to build out and expand to an extra acre of space in the back of the property. “Going to try and push 40,000 by end of the year, so that will be a really good clip of basically 100 percent growth over last year,” he says. To say that it has been well received is an understatement and a testament to the dedication of Marrero and his team, which includes his wife. “They were already checking out, if you will, but they came through!” “Open by Christmas was my goal, and Christmas Eve I was on the phone with state senators and house reps … not to pull strings, but definitely to get people to do their jobs over that week,” Marrero says, smiling. Brewing began in late October 2014, and the tasting room opened to the public on Christmas Eve, but not without complications. The Maui Brewing Company team found and acquired the land they needed in Kehai in South Maui.

My commitment is to always remain independent and always brew in Hawaii.” For us to brew elsewhere wouldn’t be doable. Beer has an amazing sense of pride and a huge sense of integrity, as well. “There are brands out there that look like something they’re not, and it’s important to us to be authentic. “We’ve always been committed to authentic local production. “Orders would come in and we’d send beer out … and we couldn’t get reorders out because we didn’t have beer!” Marrero says.īut despite the constraints placed on Marrero by brewing on an island (read: finite available space), he was committed to keeping his product bred and brewed in the Aloha State.Ĭaptain Keith, Andrea Smith (Addison Flying Saucer Manager), Maui Brewing Company’s Garrett Marrero

Demand had reached the mainland, from California to Texas. In 2014, Maui Brewing Company closed out close to 21,000 barrels, and its 11,000-square-foot facility just couldn’t accommodate the demand. It could fill 27 cans a minute, generating almost 1,700 barrels that year. Fast forward to 2007, when he opened a production facility in Lahaina Maui and started canning using an automated system featuring a five-head filler. Production reached 320 barrels that year. Two years later, in 2005, Maui Brewing Company began brewing. “I almost kind of needed it spiritually,” Marrero says while in town visiting his good friend Captain Keith at the Addison, Texas, Flying Saucer. He had just discovered that the “local Hawaiian beer,” Kona, wasn’t even made in Hawaii. Marrero left his job in the financial services field in 2003 after he realized there was an opportunity to pursue the production of authentic Hawaiian craft beer. To learn that, we have to go back to the beginning and understand what makes Marrero, his team and their brewery so special. A view of Maui Brewing Company’s new brewpub.īut the shiny new craft beer palace isn’t the only reason Marrero and Maui Brewing Company are enjoying so much success.

Bartender class on maui