BotF North Asia has returned to its usual digs and back to Jenny Wang’s to survey any new coming sampling’s. Longboard Lager fresh from Hawaii both excited and surprised BotF as something completely out of the bag in the Middle Kingdom.
Kona Brewing kicked off in 1995 and boasts a quiver of no less than 10 beers which are brewed “regularly”. The Longboard was added in 1998 and has won a slurry of awards since the early 2002.
The label is fantastic and creates an aurora of anticipation of what a beer promoting all of what we know is fabulous about Hawaii tastes like; more on that later.
The Longboard is described as a “smooth refreshing lager fermented and aged for weeks at cold temperatures to yield its exceptionally smooth flavour”. Yes smooth is used twice in the same sentence we guess to reinforce its smoothness which is also highlighted in a further caption of “exceptionally smooth” on the website description.
There is a chance that the transit from the Hawaiian Nation to Zhong Guo may have been not so smooth and that the high temperatures whilst traversing the Equatorial region have affected this batch. That’s the only logical explanation having had regard to the noted awards. It’s rare when BotF can’t finish a beer and this one came very close.
back of the ferry 