High hops

Pierre Cadoret is probably the only Cathay Pacific Airlines pilot who is fond of typhoons. That's because he has been leading a double life as the owner of Hong Kong's newest microbrewery, Typhoon, which he started in July.

After multiple recipe tweaks, he's recently unveiled his first beer - the Typhoon 8. The tiny operation, based on Lantau, produces just 1,000 pints in each batch.

'It was a selfish motivation [to start a microbrewery]; I wanted to make the type of beers I like to drink,' he says. 'I think I've got it with this formula - it's still light and refreshing, but we've upped the intensity of flavours so it's richer. Now it tastes like the ales I grew up drinking in England.'

'A microbrew by definition is beer from a small brewery that can only produce a certain volume of output,' says Rhys Adams, marketing director for El Grande Holdings, which operates multiple microbrew-centric pubs throughout Hong Kong. 'The general assumption is that beers made in microbrews taste better but require a whole lot more work.'

Hong Kong Beer's brewmaster Ferdie Pingol draws from his chemical engineering background to update his techniques, and tastes his brews from their eighth day of fermentation. Like winemakers, Pingol talks about the nose, mouth feel and flavour of the beer, noting the 'terroir' of ingredients sourced from different regions.

'Beer is simply malt, hops, water and yeast,' Pingol says. 'But subtle changes here and there, such as the temperature, the sequence in which you add in the ingredients and the time you let it steep, all affect the final taste.'

The process of beer making from start to finish takes Pingol four weeks at his 3,500 square foot brewery in Aberdeen. It is the oldest microbrewery in Hong Kong, and was the only one until Typhoon came along. Founded in 1998, the business was acquired by investment firm Harmony Asset's in 2003. 'We saw it as an opportunity to support a local business,' says Amy Yeung Ngar-yee, Harmony Asset's project director.