Inside Hana Koa Brewing Co.’s Bronze and Silver Wins at the 2025 World Beer Cup

Josh Kopp, head brewer of Hana Koa Brewing Co., was in a meeting on May 1 when he received the news: Ricebreaker, his most popular lager, had just won an award at the World Beer Cup in Indianapolis, Indiana. “I ran to the back, and we just started yelling at each other, like, all the brewers,” Kopp says. “We were like, ‘We just won a f––ing award!’”

The staff joined them. One of the brewers put on Queen’s “We Are the Champions.” “Everybody was freaking out,” Kopp says.

It wasn’t just an award. The World Beer Cup is the largest competition in craft brewing. More than 200 beer professionals judged 8,375 entries from 1,761 breweries and cideries in 49 countries. Only 349 beers won medals. Ricebreaker’s bronze in the International Lager category made Hana Koa the only Hawai‘i brewery among World Beer Cup winners this year and the first to bring home a medal in seven years.

Hana Koa brewers Josh Kopp, Will Goumas, Jake Robertson, Juan Garcia and Kris Rimando. Photo: Courtesy of Hana Koa Brewing Co.

A few hours later came a call from Chrissie Pinney, Kopp’s wife and fellow co-founder of Hana Koa. The Kaka‘ako brewery’s How to Make Friends had just won silver in the Hazy IPA category. “It’s great if you win a medal in general, regardless of the category, but winning Hazy IPA is, like, winning big,” Kopp says. “That was pretty much solidifying as, like, ‘Hey, you’re doing something really right.’”

Where the Great American Beer Festival and U.S. Open Beer Championships recognize the best in the country, World Beer Cup winners set standards for excellence internationally. The nonprofit Brewers Association, dedicated to small and independent American craft brewers, held the first World Beer Cup in 1996. According to Kopp, recognition here means a brewer has succeeded at several levels of recipe development, technique, packaging and shipping.

Kopp has submitted Ricebreaker every year since 2021, the year after the brewery opened. Each time, the beer made it to the final round, but never placed. Judges always said it was in the wrong category, so Kopp tried different categories. Still no awards. Last year, he noticed that winning beers in the International Lager category were all made from rice. He studied how they stylistically tasted, smelled and looked, the ingredients used and the level of alcohol, then this year submitted Ricebreaker. Voila.

How to Make Friends made it to the finals at the Great American Beer Festival last year. Kopp used judges’ feedback to make one change and submitted it to the World Beer Cup. The one change earned it a silver medal in a category with 290 other entries.

Photo: Courtesy of Hana Koa Brewing Co.

Beyond nailing the category and making exceptional beer, contestants have to find ways to ship their beer so it arrives at two rounds of judging still tasting in its prime. Entries this year went to Louisville, Colorado, for the first round of judging, then onward to the Craft Brewers Conference in Indianapolis.

“It’s very much like you’re packaging this beer to go through tons of turbulence,” Kopp says. Hana Koa’s team tasted the same batch of beer over time to see how it held up. A key step, Kopp discovered, is to refrigerate the beer immediately after it is made. He keeps it inside the cooler, on ice, and even labels the beer there.

SEE ALSO: The Year in Beer: Who Opened, Who Closed and Best Beers of 2024

Hawai‘i’s craft brewing industry is no stranger to accolades. Thomas Kerns, now co-owner and head brewer of Big Island Brewhous, earned Maui Brewing Co. bronze, silver and gold medals at the 2006 and 2008 World Beer Cups. Kerns went on to win Big Island Brewhous bronze, silver and gold medals every year from 2011 to 2022 at the U.S. Open Beer Championships and two bronze medals at the 2014 World Beer Cup, among numerous other awards.

Maui’s Koholā Brewing won bronze at the 2016 Great American Beer Festival. Waikīkī Brewing Co. won bronze, silver and gold medals every year from 2017 to 2021 at the U.S. Open Beer Championships. And Maui Brewing Co. earned gold again at the 2018 World Beer Cup.

“I want people to know that [Hawai‘i breweries] are swinging, and it’s worth coming out here and trying beer,” Kopp says. “Just because we’re in the middle of nowhere doesn’t mean we don’t know what we’re doing … Hawai‘i is awesome.”

You can find Ricebreaker at Hana Koa’s brewpub and at Giovedi, Monkeypod, Fete, Pizza Mamo and Nami Kaze. How to Make Friends is seasonal and not currently available.

962 Kawaiaha‘o St., (808) 591-2337, hanakoabrewing.com, @hanakoabrewing

Sarah Burchard is a longtime contributor to Frolic Hawai‘i.