Ask the Foodie: Jeff Boda

Jeff Boda, born in Wisconsin in the United States, is a journalist based in Hong Kong and the founder, CEO and "chief beer evangelist" of the craft beer importer Hop Leaf, which supplies boutique brews from countries such as Denmark, the US and Japan to private customers and more than 30 bars and restaurants around the city.
 

I consider myself someone who loves really good food. I suppose I'm a foodie, it goes back to my childhood. The reason I know how bell peppers are supposed to taste, and carrots and fresh-cooked peas, is that we had a garden: we had to go and pick our own stuff. If we wanted berries for cereal in the morning, we ran down the road, and picked blackberries and raspberries among the spider webs.
 

When I went to university I lived above a beer and sub shop that had a local brew for two dollars a pitcher. On Tuesdays it had some imported beers on special - that's when I first started drinking Theakston's Old Peculier, which was probably my first really good imported beer. Flash forward to 1993, I'm interning for a newspaper in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. I go out drinking one night, go back to a reporter's house for an after-bar, he introduces me to microbrewed beers, his home-brewed blueberry porter, Miles Davis and John Coltrane all in the same night.
 

Sometimes. I view beer as a means to an end. A beer can stimulate the taste buds and conversation. Beer is not the end in and of itself. A great beer helps to enable a great evening. If I'm having a steak I usually try to find the right beer, but sometimes a glass of wine is better.