Craft beers on the rise in Beijing

Craft and real ale brewers in China’s capital city are finding their beers and brew pubs increasingly in demand from locals.

Slow Boat Brewery, one of Beijing’s most popular breweries

According to the South China Morning Post, breweries such as Slow Boat, Great Leap Brewing and Jing-A Brewing initially catered for Beijing’s expat community who wanted American and European beer styles which were not readily available from Chinese breweries as well as the pub atmosphere of home.

Alongside English real ales, American IPAs, porters and the like, many of the breweries have been making beers with unusual ingredients such as watermelon, Sichuan peppers and tea.

Increasingly, however, Beijingers are flocking to such venues as they develop a taste for more complex brews which are also cheaper than imported keg beers.

As the paper also reported, many of the new beer enthusiasts, “still can’t quite believe places such as Great Leap Brewing offer up to 16 beers at any one time.”

With prices ranging from 25 yuan (HK$32) to 55 yuan a beer, some locals are convinced the beer is in fact too cheap.

Carl Seltzer, owner of Great Leap Brewing, told the newspaper: “Our reputation on Weibo is that the beer is strong, the price is cheap, the boss is stupid, go quickly. We like that because it means people feel the need to go there urgently.”