Beijing an emerging craft beer market? Looks that way. Beijing has doubled their western style (i.e. North American style) craft brewery count recently to 2. Slow Boat Brewing just opened in the city, with beers a lot like Sierra Nevada. They blew 4 kegs (all 4 they had) within 45 minutes of opening. All of Slow Boat Brewing’s beers are brewed with foreign ingredients. Boat currently produces around 100 kegs a month, and will soon quadruple that number.
Great Leap Brewing is a Beijing brewpub that opened in 2010. They sell about 300 kegs a month, and use local ingredients. Since opening, Great Leap has gone from being open 3 days a week, to 7 days to keep up with demand.
Combine the early success of these to breweries, with U.S. microbrew imports to China breaking records since 2010 ($546,000) – you’ll probably see a huge growth in the craft section in China in the coming years. In 2010, Chinese drinkers consumed 31 liters per capita, or 40.89 billion liters, according to Credit Suisse. [Blogs.WSJ]
