Gift of beer makes holidays merry

If you’re like me, you’re always in need of some last-minute holiday gifts. The ones most challenging to find hit both the right price point — under $20 — and still impress the recipient. And running around at the last minute, dealing with crowds and parking isn’t fun.

This year, keep it simple with some awesome beers. The best part of giving beer is that there are amazing beers for less than $20 — and who doesn’t love getting beer as a present?

Just in time for the holidays, Maui Brewing Co. has released its award-winning Imperial Coconut Porter in beautiful 750-milliliter bottles. Until now this popular beer was available only on draft, and beer lovers would flock to whichever bar was serving it.

This is just the second beer Maui Brewing has ever bottled (Liquid Breadfruit Belgian Golden Ale was released last month), and it is part of a new limited series of beers they will release throughout the year.

Imperial Coconut Porter is an amped-up version of the brewery’s Coconut Hiwa Porter, which has made Maui Brewing famous. The imperial version is lusciously thick, with intense coconut aromas and flavors that are wonderfully backed up with subtle notes of roasted coffee and rich chocolate.

A recent winner of a gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival, this beer is made with an absurd amount of both raw and hand-toasted coconut. At 9 percent alcohol by volume, it has a pleasant warmth that is fitting for this dark brown to black beer. Poured carefully into a glass and allowed to warm up a bit, it reveals a flavor similar to a dark chocolate-covered macaroon.

Imperial Coconut Porter is available exclusively in Hawaii for a limited time, so it’s a great selection to send to friends and family on the mainland. Bottles are available at fine beer and wine shops.

Another local company with a special beer for the holidays is Kailua-based Lanikai Brewing. The 2-year-old brewery recently released Mahina, a barrel-aged barley wine, which is the first beer in their new Mauka-to-Makai series. The brewery plans to release new specialty beers about every eight weeks. These will feature seasonal local ingredients.

Mahina is a recipe that brewmaster Steve Haumschild has worked on for years as a home brewer. The name (which means “moon” in Hawaiian) refers to the first time he ever brewed the beer, during a full moon. It is a strong, 12 percent alcohol-by-volume barley wine that spent a full year in bourbon barrels. Caramelized raisins made with local turbinado sugar were added to the barrels and aged with the beer. The result is a complex offering with notes of oak, boozy bourbon, brown sugar, toffee and roasted fig.

Pull this beer out of the fridge for about 15 minutes before serving. This will allow the full flavors and aromas to emerge.

Only 2,500 bottles of this release were produced, and each one was hand waxed, making for bottles so pretty you don’t even need to wrap them. Just stick a bow on it and you’ll surely make someone’s holiday a happy one. Mahina is available at Lanikai Brewing’s tasting room in Kailua and at a few high-end beer and wine stores on Oahu.

Tim Golden, a certified cicerone and co-owner of Village Bottle Shop & Tasting Room, shares his obsession with all things craft beer monthly. See his blog, “Beer in Hawaii,” at beerinhawaii.com.