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TheBuzz

BY ERIKA ENGLE

Wednesday, April 25, 2001

No Pink’s hot dogs,
but pink suds

THE HOT DOG DEAL was apparently not done, so the tube-steaks served at the new Consolidated's Ward 16 Theatre won't be Pink's Hot Dogs after all, as TheBuzz had previously reported.

Instead theater publicist Eileen Mortenson said the multiplex will offer char siu hot dogs when it opens next month.

Now the suds

The featured beer on Taco Tuesdays at Compadres Bar & Grill in Ward Centre -- Corona -- is being replaced.

Now, the selected suds are brewed in Lihue, Kauai, by George Wells and his Keoki Brewing Co. Previously available on tap at the eatery, Keoki Beer now moves to a position of prominence over an internationally advertised brand.

The Keoki brew served at Compadres is within the normal amber color range for beer, but the company also makes a privately labeled pink beer for the famously pink Royal Hawaiian Hotel. The beer captured the attention of the Discovery Channel, which will air a segment about it in July, Wells said. As for how it gets its color, "That's sort of a secret," he said, "to keep a kind of mystique about it."

Keoki Brewing Co. also makes a private label beer for the Sheraton Moana Surfrider, and includes among its larger clients the Paradise Cove Luau.

"We do quite a bit of that (private label business) -- it's probably more the direction we'd like to go in," Wells said.

Wells appreciates the increased visibility for the fruits of his small business' labors -- "There are three of us" -- that produce about 1,800 cases a month.

Keoki beer is available in some supermarkets, he said, but just getting on the shelves is a daunting task. Wells said he had never been in marketing before. "It's not necessarily an easy business to get placements and it sometimes takes up to a year to get into a grocery store," he said.

His three years in Hawaii have given him insight into a key ingredient of doing business local style. "Trying to get out and get the exposure without spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in advertising campaigns, I'm now developing personal relationships," Wells said. "That's rewarding but it does take time."

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Erika Engle is a reporter with the Star-Bulletin.
Call 529-4757, fax 529-4750 or write to Erika Engle,
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210,
Honolulu, HI 96813. She can also be reached
at: eengle@starbulletin.com