Unquenchable thirst for craft beer

A visitor holds a freshly poured brew at the 2019 8x8 Brewing Project’s Craft Beer Festival at the Langyuan Vintage creative art zone in Beijing, Oct 19, 2019. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

"More than 20!" Yuan Xiaoyang blurted out when asked how many beer flavors he had tasted at a craft beer festival in Beijing.

Yuan had visited the 8x8 Brewing Project's Beer Festival, held last Friday and Saturday in the city's Langyuan Vintage creative art zone. It was here that the 25-year-old experienced his first encounter with craft beer.

"It's a pity that I got drunk that night. Otherwise, I could have tried many more," said the novice craft beer drinker, beaming. "All those beers are creative and taste so different from what I am used to."

The visit has since changed his approach to beer, a drink that he often chooses to pair with barbecue or spicy crayfish in the summer, Yuan told China Daily Website.

Yuan is just one of many Chinese consumers, young and old, that are increasingly drawn to this variable beverage that is distinctly different from factory beer.

Garrett Oliver, chief brewer of New York-based Brooklyn Brewery, pours beer for visitors at the 2019 8x8 Brewing Project’s Craft Beer Festival at the Langyuan Vintage creative art zone in Beijing, Oct 19, 2019. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Imbibing a new culture

China is widely known as the largest beer-drinking nation in the world, but Chinese didn't start drinking beer until the late 19th century when Polish entrepreneurs set up the first modern brewery in Harbin, Northeast China's Heilongjiang province.

Unlike the mass-produced lager that has long dominated Chinese beer market, craft beer made by microbreweries places a much greater emphasis on quality, flavor and brewing techniques. It emerged in China around 2008 when Gao Yan, aka Master Gao, released Chinese mainland's first craft brew Baby IPA in Nanjing, capital of East China's Jiangsu province.

Before long, Chinese craft beer houses began bubbling up in the metropolises of Beijing and Shanghai as foreign-run microbreweries sprouted up.

However, in the throes of the country's craft beer boom, a raft of newly opened brewpubs in big cities crashed in 2014 and 2015.

"In any business, you're going to see a bit of churn. The momentum behind craft beer doesn't mean every craft brewery or craft beer bar will be a success," said Alex Acker, co-founder of Beijing-based microbrewery Jing A and initiator of the 8x8 Brewing Project. "Only those that really care about quality and creativity will survive, and that's the way it should be."

Despite the hiccups, craft beer is seeing robust growth in China.

In 2017, the Craft Brewer's Association in China (CBAC) was founded, with 62 members and counting.

Although Chinese are entrenched in baijiu culture, they are open-minded and inclusive at the same time, showing keenness and interest in the craft beer culture. A rising number of craft beer festivals have been held across the country in recent years.

Some of the best known festivals include the Beijing Invitational Craft Beer Festival, the Shenzhen Craft Beer Festival, and the 8x8 Brewing Project's Craft Beer Festival.

A DJ plays music at the 2019 8x8 Brewing Project’s Craft Beer Festival where many visitors enjoyed beer and had fun at the Langyuan Vintage creative art zone in Beijing, Oct 19, 2019. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

A pleasant palate adventure

Among all beers on tap at this year's 8x8 fest, Yuan was most impressed with Xanadu (6.4% ABV). "It's so good that I've downed three in a row," the young man said.

A collaborative brew by Taiwan-based Taihu Brewing and Brooklyn Brewery from New York, Xanadu features the sweet and smoky Lapsang souchong, a black tea unique to East China's Fujian province.

With a distinct tea flavor, the beer aims to intoxicate drinkers and beckon them into Kubla Khan's exotic, luxurious palace as depicted by British poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Another brew that wowed both fresh and veteran beer drinkers was Chinese Medicine (10% ABV), the brainchild of Jing A and its partner Stillwater Artisanal from Brooklyn, the US.

Inspired by boiled coke with ginger, a popular cold remedy in China, the cola sour beer has a stimulating ginger kick, making it an ideal drink for the cold days.

These are only two of the eight collaborative brews featured in this year's event. Now in its third edition, the 8x8 Brewing Project was launched in 2017 by Jing A, one of Beijing's craft beer evangelists founded in 2012 by expats Acker and Kris Li.

This year's festival showcased 136 beer flavors and attracted some top-rank overseas breweries, seven from the United States and one from Canada, as well as eight local breweries – major players in the Chinese craft beer market.

The festival turned out to be a success, drawing throngs from near and afar.

"I had a blast at last year's 8x8, so I flew back to participate in this year's event," enthused Xu Dawei, a diehard beer fan who used to live in Beijing but has moved to Hong Kong. "The festival is just like a big party where people come and savor all sorts of new flavors after getting the news from social media posts."

Calling himself a groupie of the craft beer community in China, the beer drinker said, "I got tired of factory beer brands like Yanjing and Tsingtao the day I was exposed to Belgian-style craft beer in Beijing some 12 years ago."

"Then I started home brewing, and comparing notes with other brewers has earned me a lot of friends from the craft beer community," he recalled.

Visitors to the 2019 8x8 Brewing Project’s Craft Beer Festival enjoy beer and have fun at the Langyuan Vintage creative art zone in Beijing, Oct 19, 2019. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

A hotpot of creativity and collaboration

Aside from educating consumers about craft beer and expanding beer lovers' horizons, the annual event is essentially about supporting the development of Chinese craft beer scene through international collaboration, Acker said.

Collaborative breweries from China and abroad work closely through emails and Skype to hash out the ingredients, fermentation techniques, and names for their co-branded beer months before the annual festival opens.

Each year, Acker and Li join three to five beer festivals around the world, showcasing overseas beer lovers what Chinese craft breweries have to offer through Jing A beers made with distinct Chinese culinary ingredients.

Inspired by beer festivals they've been to, the duo decided to host their own beer festival in China around the idea of collaboration.

"The starting point was how we create a festival where it's focused on collaboration between foreign breweries and Chinese breweries," Li said, noting, "Many international breweries are so fascinated with China."

"The international breweries have their techniques locked in, but they are always curious about new ingredients and new kinds of fermentation," Acker explained, considering what draws foreign breweries to the 8x8 Brewing Project in the first place.

Chinese breweries are heating up to the idea. According to Acker, each year, dozens of breweries across the country approach them, eager to join the brewing project.

With such interest, Acker and Li have had to decline many requests. "There are more and more Chinese breweries with great quality and creativity. We wish we could invite them all but we need to limit it to just eight each year," Acker said.

Xiong Changchen and her husband Tian Yuan are owners of TapStar, a brewery in Southwest China's Guizhou city that opened its doors in June 2018. The couple said they also hope to join the 8x8 project in the future, but came to the festival mainly for "meeting friends in the industry and learning techniques from these top breweries".

"The idea from the beginning was something more than a festival. We call it a brewing project because it's really about the connection between Chinese and international breweries," Acker explained, hoping this project can help move craft beer forward.

Zhang Junyong, 38, owner of Yun Brewing, a Kunming-based craft brewery, said his brewery has benefited a lot from the collaboration with Thin Man Brewery from Buffalo, New York.

This year, the pair of breweries brought to the festival what they called Nu York Schisandra Berry Gose (5% ABV), a sour ale created using Thin Man brewery's special fermenting technique and the Chinese medicinal Schisandra berry from the Nujiang River valley as a key ingredient.

"Thin Man Brewery is very interested in the ingredients from Yunnan. Next April, we'll go to Buffalo and work on another collaborative brew with them as well as with other American breweries," Zhang said proudly.

"Apart from Thin Man, several other breweries on the 8x8 project have also approached us for future cooperation," the Yunnan native added.

Xiang Qiu (left), owner of Nanmen, a craft brewery from Chengdu in Southwest China’s Sichuan province, and Nanmen’s brewer Rosly Scholfield (right), pose for a group photo with Alyssa Janssen (second from left), and Daniel Johnston (second from right), directors of sales and marketing of Collective Arts Brewing from Canada at the 2019 8x8 Brewing Project’s Craft Beer Festival at the Langyuan Vintage creative art zone in Beijing, Oct 19, 2019. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Tapping bigger markets

The 8x8 Brewing Project was initially conceived as a platform for pushing the boundaries of craft beer brewing through collaborations among breweries from around the world; now it has grown into a platform for breweries to develop new markets.

The Chinese craft beer market is still in its early fermentation stage making up less than one percent of the local beer market share, whereas it's about 20 percent in the US, and five to ten percent in Europe and Australia, noted Acker.

"China is kind of the next frontier for craft beer. There's a huge beer drinking market. People like beer here but what they are familiar with are only Yanjing and Tsingtao. The whole craft beer world is looking at China," he explained.

Chinese beer importers have heeded the past two 8x8 Brewing Projects. The beers of past 8x8 players, such as Portland-based Gigantic Brewing and Parallel 49 Brewing from Vancouver, have been introduced to the Chinese market.

This year's participant, Collective Arts Brewing, a Canadian craft brewery famous for fusing arts with the craft of brewing, has released four beers in China with packaging featuring the artworks of four Chinese artists.

Felix Zhang, a craft beer industry insider from New York who plans to open a beer distribution company in China, also attended the event.

He said the beer festival is special and fun compared with other festivals, as it highlights the idea of collaborative brewing.

"Both the culinary and brewing cultures that paired breweries are steeped in are so different, and their collaborations did bear many surprising fruits," Zhang said. "For example, Guangzhou's ET Brewing and its New York partner Graft incorporated the techniques of brewing beer and cider, which impressed me a lot."

The New Yorker said he will surely keep an eye on Chinese craft breweries and look for chances to introduce and promote Chinese craft beer around the world through beer festivals and collaborative brewing. The aim is "to showcase beers of distinct Chinese flavors and integrate Chinese brewers into the world craft beer community."