Beer Lab HI collaborations sell out in seconds flat

Five chocolate dobash cakes had their moment, lined up and proud, frosted with the logos of Zippy’s, from whence they came, and Beer Lab HI, to which they’d come.

The cakes met their end with little ceremony, tossed into a vat of beer, broken up and stirred in with a long, oar-like wooden spatula.

Eulerson Pajimula, head brewer at Beer Lab, keeps a video of the moment on his phone. View it as funny or sad, depending on the reverence you hold for beer. Or dobash.

For Pajimula it was a little bit science, a little bit art. And: “It was literally hysterical.”

A few weeks later a beer emerged, called Sip Pac, a deep, dark, imperial stout that sold out seconds after it was made available on the Beer Lab website in January. It was a collaboration with Zippy’s, one of several the brewery has initiated since August.

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All these limited-edition collaborations sell out online in about 30 seconds, to quick-fingered aficionados who like being among the few to score something rare.

Many of the brews are flavored to bring to mind nostalgic sweets and treats. A previous effort used a Honoka‘a Chocolate Co. product to make a porter; another the mango mui syrup from Asato Family Shop to make a salted sour ale.

Nicolas Wong, co-founder and president of Beer Lab, said the goal is to produce at least one collaboration monthly, restricted to what can be brewed in a single tank. So that means at most only 1,400 cans are available per batch, each bearing a specially designed label that memorializes the collaboration.

The beers are promoted on social media, then sold online, seldom available for more than a minute. Beer Lab is by no means the first to see sales benefit from rarity. Sneaker companies have purposely been controlling availability of premium designs for decades. But as a local company with an ongoing special edition concept, the brewery is making a mark.

Wong said he’s taken some hits from people aggravated by the scarcity. “But it’s not by design,” he said. “We truly went into this collaboration idea with the best intentions.”

During the pandemic, Wong said, he saw beer-based partnerships as a way to work with struggling local businesses, to cross-promote, create a little excitement. “It was a way of bringing some light by doing some stuff together.”

While the limited-edition beers are profitable, he said, the priority for the brewery is providing for Beer Lab’s three tap rooms. “While we would love to put more out, we can’t have it take up all of our tanks,” he said.

A collaboration usually begins by finding a connection between the companies, with a focus on local roots. “We sit down and chat about it — ‘Is there any kind of beer you dream of making?’”

A few weeks after creating the dobash- endowed Sip Pac, Pajimula was at work on a partnership with Campania Lures, a fishing-lure maker in Halawa, resulting in February’s release of Electric Lili-Pepper, a blonde ale flavored with lilikoi and chile peppers. “It was a given,” owner Jeri Campania said. “You know, beer and fishing, it goes hand in hand.”

Once he and Pajimula, a longtime friend, settled on the flavor, Campania went to work designing a lure to complement the beer. “I basically had to come up with the color to match the amber of the beer,” he said. The translucent, golden lures had bits of iridescent red suspended within to emulate chiles, as though they were some kind of fire-flecked glowworms.

The lures sold for $8 in a pack of 25, alongside the beer, which went for $25 per four-pack.

Pajimula said lilikoi puree was added halfway through fermentation and fresh, locally grown chiles near the end. With the dobash beer, most of the flavor came from a proprietary cocoa powder that Zippy’s provided, not the whole cakes — despite the spectacle the cake dump provided. “Beer is a giant science experiment,” Pajimula said, “and sometimes you have to err on the side of art.”

So, who goes through the trouble of chasing these beers? Bond Repolio has scored all but one of the special editions. “The first time was, ‘What the heck just happened? I swear, I just logged in!’”

Now he has a strategy that involves signing in early and standing ready — plus some other tricks. He’ll sometimes trade beers with a friend on the mainland who also pursues limited editions.

Repolio has long been interested in craft beers and says these ultra small-batch brews simply make things more interesting. “I want to get in there so I’m the one who can say, ‘I have it; you don’t.’”

He’s not such an expert that he can recall every flavor, but he does peel off the labels and stick them to the walls of a pop-up tent. Sometimes he’ll sit inside, look over his collection and just reminisce.

A SURF AND SUDS PARTNERSHIP

Another brewery-small business collaboration pairs Honolulu Beerworks and T&C Surf in creating a beer that helps mark the surf shop’s 50th anniversary.

The limited-edition T&C Surf Session IPA was released Feb. 16 at Beerworks’ Kakaako pub, and cans started appearing in retail stores statewide this month. The label incorporates the T&C yin-yang logo and an older T&C slogan, “Keeping da Vibe Alive.”

Brewery owner Geoff Seideman said the Surf Session beer is a seasonal release that varies by year, usually low in bitterness and alcohol. It’s a good beach beer, he said.

T&C’s silver anniversary was worth celebrating, Seideman said. “It’s an incredible milestone for a family-owned business in Hawaii, especially in an environment like this.”