12 Hong Kong breweries pull out of Beertopia craft beer festival over rising costs; I have to raise rents, founder says
Rent increases for stalls unaffordable and will force beer price rises for festival-goers, say alliance of craft brewers; seven-year-old festival founder defends charging them more, saying his rent for harbourfront site has risen 50 per cent
A dozen Hong Kong breweries have pulled out of the city’s biggest annual craft beer festival, Beertopia, citing rising costs.
In a Facebook message posted on Monday by the Hong Kong Brewers’ Guild, which has about 20 members, 12 of them, including Moonzen Brewery, Black Kite Brewery and Gweilo Beer, said they had decided not participate in this year’s Beertopia because they and their customers would have to pay more.
But Jonathan So, the founder of the event, now in its seventh year, said he was paying 50 per cent more than last year to rent the Central harbourfront venue, yet ticket prices would be lower than in 2017 and food prices unchanged.
“Raising the stall prices is not passed to the consumers,” he said. “We have to share that with the vendors. Not everyone is happy to participate.”
The craft beer festival Beertopia will be held on October 5-6. Rohit Dugar, founder of Young Master Ales, one of the breweries boycotting the event, said: “Beertopia has been a craft-beer-focused event, with little or no participation from big brands. But the cost for consumers is creeping up. We told the organiser about this in the last few years, but this year it went too far.”
