Local craft brewery trend is booming as chefs look to pair brews with food

Hong Kong craft beers are turning up in some unexpected places. According to Rohit Dugar, who established Young Master Ales last year, restaurants and hotels, which previously kept only big brands, are now receptive to much more individualistic local brews.

"Our beers are available in about 14 or 15 locations," says Dugar. "That includes craft beer bars like The Globe and The Roundhouse, and hotel bars. I would not have expected that a year ago, but things have changed."

Young Master Ales and the Tipping Point - Hong Kong's first "brew pub", not in the sense that its design incorporates some cosmetic brewery paraphernalia, but in that beer is actually brewed on the premises - are two of the newer entrants to Hong Kong's fast growing craft beer business.

They share a belief that beer is for matching with food rather than quenching thirst - an idea that Dugar has taken one step further by brewing an ale intended to echo a popular Asian dish.

Young Master's Cha Cha Soba Ale, according to Dugar, is intended to refresh and to evoke "the earthy flavours of a bowl of chilled cha-soba". This is achieved by brewing with organic buckwheat and infusing the beer with organic matcha - powdered green tea.

"Taking a combination that's used in the food world and bringing it into the beer world is something that we've done once, and will probably do again in the future," says Dugar.