Beginner's Guide to Craft Beer in Hong Kong

Lager Touts

All over Hong Kong, people are going crazy for craft beer. No longer a niche market for old crusty Brits looking for esoteric ales, microbrews are now in fashion in a big way.

While the trend has been gathering momentum for a couple of years, craft beer finally had its moment at the Beertopia festival in West Kowloon back in April, when an unprecedented turnout saw beer stalls drained dry by enthusiastic boozers, eager to learn more about the brews—or maybe just to get drunk in an interesting way. “We went from 1,700 attendees last year to over 6,000 this year,” says Jonathan So, Beertopia’s founder. “Since that time, the craft beer market has been growing very quickly.” In fact, craft beer has become so popular that several retailers, distributors and enthusiasts got together to form the Craft Beer Association of Hong Kong (cbahk.org), a part-trade, part-consumer organization where industry professionals and beer enthusiasts alike can learn more about craft beers, keep abreast of events and share tips. It held its launch event at The Globe pub—a huge advocate of craft beer with the city’s most comprehensive craft beer menu—on September 4.

Crafting a Trend

Why drink craft beer? Quite simply, they’re so much better than your run-of-the-mill brands—well, at least according to our experts. “Craft beers have so much more flavor and complexity than your average mass-produced beer,” says Laurie Goldberg of Americraft Imports. “Once people taste a craft beer, they don’t want to go back to the mass-produced beers they were drinking before.”

That’s certainly true for the distributors. Passionate craft beer companies have been bubbling up everywhere, with each distributor offering a unique clutch of interesting tipples from all over the world. But, as with cronuts and froyo, we were behind the curve compared to the rest of the world. “Singapore, Japan and mainland China had craft beer labels before we did, but Hong Kong is really doing its best to catch up right now,” says Jeff Boda of Hop Leaf. “Hong Kong has some really good stuff now—it just skipped ahead and started getting great bottles right away.”

So why have beers taken off in such a big way? For one, our experts see the uptick as the next logical step in a market accustomed to good food and good wine. “Hong Kong people are attuned to quality products, especially for a city synonymous with an excellent food culture,” says Tracy Gan from The Bottle Shop. “We’ve seen this phenomenon for better coffee, better wines or better spirits, so it’s not a surprise to us that people are now aware of better beers.” Shakib Pasha and Shaheen Budhrani of BestBev HK agree. “The wine market is mature and beer and cider are next.”

Distribution by Draft

While there are plenty of great online stores offering home delivery to consumers, the best way to crack the market is to get businesses supporting the trend. “It is still an uphill battle to convince a bar or a restaurant to take better quality products. But increasingly, as consumers demand better beers, we see passionate restaurateurs and publicans approach us for better products,” says Gan. Goldberg and Pasha both remember going door-to-door trying to convince wary restaurants to try their stock. “I spent a lot of time pounding the pavement and trying to get bar owners and managers to taste our beers,” says Goldberg. Luckily, the products speak for themselves. “Once someone tries it, the beer sells itself,” agrees Pasha. Small businesses latched onto the trend, and bigger companies are starting to follow. “Now we have more than 50 hotel, restaurant and bar accounts and people regularly reach out to us to request specific beers,” says Goldberg. “It is so much easier for consumers to find craft beers than it was a year ago.”