Tiny new brewery on Oahu has beers in 2 Waikiki bars

Sometimes the only way to get a brewery off the ground is to start really small and work extra hard, then grow. That’s the path Darren Garvey took this spring when he opened Hawaii’s smallest commercial brewery, Stewbum & Stonewall Brewing.

In the craft brewing world, the smallest of small breweries are often referred to as nano breweries. These typically brew just one to three barrels (one barrel equals 31 gallons) at a time. To put that in perspective, most home brewers brew about five gallons at a time, while your average brewpub produces anywhere between seven and 15 barrels at once.

Nano breweries cost a fraction to start up compared with a larger brewery, thanks to the smaller equipment and space needed to operate.

Garvey dreamed of opening his own brewery since his first batch of home-brew made in his kitchen.

A Pittsburgh native, Garvey spent years planning the brewery and named it after the nicknames of his dad (Stewbum) and his uncle (Stonewall). One of his biggest hurdles was financing. Garvey looked to crowdsourcing to help raise money to add to his own funds, and a successful Kickstarter campaign raised nearly $52,000.

Garvey’s initial plan was for a seven-barrel brewpub in Honolulu, but finding a location was difficult, and he decided to scale back to a two-barrel brewery.

He settled on a small space in Kaneohe, and he got his brewery set up and running in just a few months.

As the company’s sole employee, Garvey wears a lot of hats. He brews four times a week and spends the rest of his time cleaning the brewery, ordering supplies, delivering and picking up kegs, and trying to market the company. He also still maintains his regular day job running a convention-planning company. Brewing and selling beer may be fun, but at such a small scale it doesn’t always pay all the bills.

Although Stewbum & Stonewall was launched as a nano, Garvey still has his eye on opening a full-size brewpub in the next year or so. At his current size he can brew enough beer to service just two bars in Waikiki, and these are the only places to try his beer. (The Kaneohe brewery is closed to the public.)

Get a taste of Stewbum & Stonewall’s beers at Lulu’s Waikiki and Cheeseburger in Paradise. Swear Jar IPA, Batch 518 Pale Ale and Makana Island Wheat rotate regularly at both bars. The Smoking Cannon Smoked Imperial Stout will be available this winter as well.

Tim Golden shares his obsession with all things craft beer monthly in the Star-Advertiser food section. See his blog, “Beer in Hawaii,” at beerinhawaii.com.