Take it to the mat
A boom in imports has helped feed the city’s appetite for craft beer. Janice Leung Hayes gives us the heads up on what they are and where to get them
CRAFT BEER, OR BEER made by smaller, independent breweries, has been on the rise in Hong Kong recently, thanks to a boom in importers. But how does craft beer differ from the tipples you’ve been knocking back all these years?
What is craft beer?
“The best definition I’ve heard is that there are more people brewing beer than there are in the marketing department,” says Toby Cooper, chairman of the newly formed Craft Beer Association and director of popular Central pub, The Globe.
While the term “craft beer” has a strict definition in the US (the Brewers Association deems craft beer to be beer made by independent brewers that produce less than six million barrels a year), to most beer enthusiasts, it appears to be about setting themselves apart from corporate brewers by focusing on quality and flavour.
Chris Wong, co-founder of HK Brewcraft, says that it’s about “low production, high quality”. He says craft brewers in the US are only allowed to add adjuncts, or carbohydrates other than barley, when it benefits the flavour of the beer.
But the craft brewers are not against corporate beer. Jeff Boda, founder and “chief beer evangelist” of importers Hop Leaf says: “At major breweries, the people who brew the beer are incredibly skilled. It takes as much skill to make a mass-market lager as to make a craft beer, it’s just that the focus is put on the bottom line, the margin.”
Wong says it’s a mentality, a mindset.