Welcoming sign at Pub 27 in Pompeii
Ono Pau Hana IPA, Ono Brewery, Chantilly, Va.
Date: October 9 , 2018
The Story— So many of us who love beer fantasize about how “our brewery” would stand out among the nearly 7,000 breweries trying to attract a growing but still relatively small army of craft beer drinkers. Owners Scott and Cindi have built their dream around Hawaiian themes and a no longer unique, but still distinctive, draft beer system.
The brewery favors fruits and flavors — the Hawaiian influence– but offers a wide enough range of beers to make a pleasant evening for almost everyone. While we thought the pumpkin spices and passion fruit flavors were over the top in some of their beers, others would find them welcome palate challenges. They hooked us with their very nice full flavored Hana IPA, though.
The distinct tap system is a self-serve brilliant device that allows customers to pour exactly as much of any beer as they want. You get a card, activate the tap with it and pour what you want. For us, the ability to taste carefully and write up notes for just enough for two was rare and wonderful. For someone else, the chance to taste one ounce portions before committing could be as thrilling. I always feel a bit of compassion for brewpubs that (usually cheerfully) pass out small “tasters” before a customer settles into buying a half pint at a fraction of the price of the beers he’s just chugged. Here it’s no problem. Want a sip? Buy a sip. Pennies out of your pocket, but not out of the narrow margins of the brewery. The system is catching world-wide attention. Charlottesville, Va., has an enormous multi-tap that operates on a similar system and we’ve seen it in places as unlikely as Avignon, France.
The system would be pointless if the beer were not worth pouring, however. Most of the beers at Ono are good and depending on your taste, very good. They do an American Wheat nicely, for example, but we were glad to be able to do small pours of several of their beers to save money– and more importantly liver– for their IPA.
This is one of the few breweries that will make it into Brews and Snooze with a chain hotel, but the Holiday Inn is an easy walk and has a bit of a sense of the old Virginia plantation that Chantilly used to be. It’s an easy walk to Ono and a somewhat farther walk to Mustang Sally’s. If you choose to walk to the latter, be sure not to follow GPS directions onto major highways – there’s an easy route through neighborhoods that will allow you to drink and walk.
The Beer–Firm bodied, malty with more barley than wheat and yeast, but a bright fruit from wheat and yeast. There’s just a hint of autolysis in the aftertaste with but tropical fruit flavors ensure a fine drinkability.
Value — Good to very good. We paid $3.50 for about a third of a liter, but could easily have had more or less at the same reasonable price.
All this week we return to the US to highlight some great beers we’ve found in researching out first US Beer publication: Brews and Snooze-– Breweries you can visit and walk back to a fine place to spend the night. Look for it in 2019.
Later, we’ll return to HIGHLIGHTS OF EUROPE 2018– Surprisingly good beer in “bad beer cities.” The best we’ve found in researching our next book – a guide to great beer in European tourist cities. (Planned publication 2019.) We’ll shift back to great American beer finds next week.
About these posts: We taste and evaluate over a thousand beers every year. The beers posted here rank in the top quarter of those tastings. Values: “fair” is a good beer at an above market price, “good” is worth the money, “very good” is a bargain, and “excellent” is a steal.
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