Beer in Asia

Growing thirst for craft beer in Hong Kong

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• published: 03 Aug 2015
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This is a big shop window for Hong Kong's craft beer industry. The "Beertopia" festival, in its third year, was created to promote distinctive and independent beers. This year, the event is showing off more than 400 different brands - including local breweries and guest companies from Japan, Beijing and Denmark. Hong Kong's market lags far behind that of the US, with only four micro-breweries in operation. That compares to more than two thousand in America. Jonathan So, Founder of "Beertopia," wants to boost the availability of craft beer in Hong Kong. "It's small, and still pretty niche. Right now I think if you go to New York, where I started drinking craft beer and really discovered it, you'd go to any bar, anywhere in the city, and it seems like they'll have some craft beer, whether it's local beer available on tap," he explains. "In Hong Kong, still I mean, the majority of the beer, and we have 400 beers here, but even then, a lot of these are available online - mostly. Then there's a couple of companies that have done a pretty good job with, getting them into bars and restaurants, but I think they're dominating it as opposed to everyone selling everywhere." Young Master Ales is one local brewery who has been making a name for itself since winning the Hong Kong "Homebrew Competition" last year. Founder Rohit Dugar says the key to making unique craft beer is to be innovative with taste. Inspired by taste and smell combinations from Asian cuisine, he came up with the Cha Cha Soba Ale, made with buckwheat and matcha green tea powder. "We like to take inspiration from somewhere outside the beer world. You mentioned the soba beer, the inspiration comes from a chilled bowl of cha soba noodles," says Rohit Dugar. "We're trying to recreate that experience in the beer world, where you have something refreshing, earthy and grainy. So we brewed the beer with buckwheat, or soba, and we infused it with a gentle infusion of matcha." Dugar also believes that Hong Kong could serve as a gateway for introducing craft beer to China, which is largely dominated by commercial beer chains such as Tsing Tao. "I think Hong Kong can play a pivotal role in expanding craft beer in the region," says Rohit Dugar. "It's a great place, it's a cosmopolitan city, there's people from all over the world, different walks of life, so it can really be a centre from where we also serve China and be sort of a leading place and be in the world, be in the map and build a reputation for top-notch quality." Shiro Yamada, the CEO of Nippon Craft Beer from Japan, says that breweries in Asia tend to make beers that are lighter. "From what I see, I think Asian people prefer lighter taste beer, like pilsner style, or pale ale; while Europeans prefer more like, rich taste beer. I think that's because of the climate partly," he says. Shiro's brewery is located in Belgium, but the ingredients are all from Japan. "We put special ingredients from Japan. Which are sansho and yuzu. Sansho is more like a green pepper, like Sichuan pepper, and yuzu is like orange," he explains. With the number of growing craft beer enthusiasts in Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Craft Beer Association was created. Its purpose is to not only support local micro-breweries, but also to introduce more varieties of beer from around the world into the market. "As much as there's craft beer from the States, the Europeans have been doing it for hundreds of years as well. So this new wave that's coming through is all very exciting," says Tony Cooper, Chairperson of the association. This year's "Beertopia" event was held 13-15 March 2014 on Hong Kong's seafront. You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/48adae3feb011f0dff81babf991610a2 Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork