Beers in Beijing: General Observations

Great Leap Pub in Dongzhimen

When it came to the craft beer industry in China, I was flying blind. Beyond Tsingtao, I knew very little about what China had to offer. I was arriving for a two-year stint as a trailing spouse, following my wife’s job as it brought us to the Chinese capital–our first overseas posting.

A few friends with a little more experience than me had told me there was a craft beer culture, but it had been years since they tasted any beer from Beijing or China more broadly. Another friend mentioned that he packed a suitcase full of craft beer to bring with him.

As I tried to research on my own, using Google’s search function and asking a few friends in the DC beer scene with a broader range of contacts, I didn’t come up with much more than I already had.

All signs pointed to this being a less-than-favorable craft beer experience.

Suffice it to say, the signs were wrong. In fact, the craft beer industry in Beijing and China is quite robust, mature, and producing high-quality craft beer on par with anything I have consumed in the US. Despite that, the beer culture remains vastly different from what you can find across in the States. This stems, in large part, from differences in tastes, practices, and purchasing trends.

As luck would have it, our apartment complex in Beijing had a craft beer bar. And, as one would imagine, it’s been my launching point for exploring the scene here and across China. The owners curate their tap lineup almost exclusively with Chinese craft beer. But more than that, they’ve been a resource for me regarding local breweries and events catering to those who look for well-made craft beer.

I’ve become a regular customer and many of my insights or observations below stem from conversations with the owners and several regular patrons.

Arrow Factory Brewing. New Leaf IPA and Liangma IPA.

High-Quality Craft Beer

Not all craft beer is created equal. Just because it’s made in a small factory by some local fella with a mustache and a man bun doesn’t mean it will be good. Beer, like any product, requires skill to make. Those skills are honed and crafted over time.

Because I was unaware of the craft beer industry here in China, I was blown away at the level of quality being produced across the country. Thanks to my friends at Foam Lab, I’ve been able to sample craft beer from nearly every corner of the country–Wuhan, Chengdu, Hainan, Shandong, Shanghai, Xian, and much more.

In almost every case, the beer has been on par with nearly every other craft beer I’ve had in the US. While I haven’t had anything to top a freshly poured pint of Pliny the Elder from the Russian River taproom in Santa Rosa, I’ve had some damn good beer worth noting.

There was an anniversary beer from Number 18 Brewing. A double dry hopped IPA at 6.3% ABV called Jump into the East Lake. Hands down, that’s been the best beer I’ve had in China and is on par with Ballast Point Sculpin IPA or Bell’s Two Hearted, two of the benchmark craft IPAs now found across the United States.

Or the locally made Liangma IPA from Arrow Factory, reminiscent of Racer 5 from Bear Republic. And then there’s the Moon Jelly IPA from Slowboat, easily the best beer I’ve had from any of the Beijing breweries.

The bottom line is the beer here is good and not hard to find if you know where to look…and even if you don’t.

Desire for Import Craft Beer

No matter how much I tell folks here that their beer is good, high quality, and worth all the praise it gets, there’s still a significant market for American or non-Chinese craft beer. There’s a belief that imports are still the gold standard.

The belief is that because the US and other ‘Western’ countries were at the forefront of the craft beer industry, China still lags behind. And that lag means craft beer from the US, Australia, New Zealand, and other places are still preferred to those from China.

There’s also a sentiment that having imported craft beer at your bar adds to your seriousness as an enterprise by increasing exclusivity to your tap list. Thus, there is a small section of the craft beer culture here that sees imports as a sort of virtue signaling. The same kind of signaling we found in American craft beer culture over a decade ago when imports were preferable to the brands that have now become the American standard for craft beer.

This may die out at some point in the future as more folks here come to accept that the craft beer being produced here is, on aggregate, on par with whatever is being made abroad. And maybe that’s already happening, as when I attended a craft beer festival a few weeks ago, the tents showcasing imported craft beer were almost always ignored.

But the fact remains, as I experienced a week after that beer festival, some places in Beijing exclusively sell imported craft beer. And while it is high quality, the price point for that beer negates whatever value that pint may bring. This lends credence to the idea that that place cares more about the exclusivity of having imports than the idea of offering high-quality craft beer.

High Price Points

As you can imagine, craft beer is more expensive than its mass-produced cousins. It makes sense–economies of scale and whatnot. Chinese price points confirm that. But, given the difference in purchasing power and income levels in relation to the US, the price of craft beer and the difference between it and the price of macro beer (Tsingtao, Yanjing, Harbin, etc) was pretty shocking.

Yanjing’s big green stick. Beijing’s less famous answer to Tsingtao.

I can buy a 600 ml bottle of Yanjing for roughly $.80 at a 7-11, grocery, or our neighborhood’s version of a bodega. However, a locally-made craft beer will run me closer to $6.15 and sometimes much more. If I buy a tall boy of my favorite IPA direct from a local craft brewery, that’s likely to run me $9.60 per, even if I order more than one.

If I extrapolated those price differences to the US, where a single tall boy of Budweiser is $2, those same categories of craft beers would run me $15.35 and $24. Which, in reality, isn’t the case at all. It’s closer to $2/$4/$6.

Again, this lends credence to the idea of exclusivity. That craft beer isn’t yet for the masses but primarily for folks in higher economic brackets. I suppose it isn’t necessarily different than in the US, but craft beer tends to be accessible to everyone, at least at some level in the US. In contrast, the prices here shut the door on anyone outside of higher-income earners.

Regarding beer on tap, prices have tended to fit into the 35/70/140 yuan pattern–locally made or international macro/local craft/international craft. There will be some variation (plus or minus 10 yuan in either direction among the categories), but in general, this has been my experience. To put that into dollars, it’s $4.80/$9.60/$19.20. This further adds to the exclusivity and pricing folks from lower down the income levels out of the market.

Yes, I did buy a beer for 140 yuan a few weeks ago. I’m confident that’s the most I’ve paid for a nonsporting event beer. It wasn’t even a full pint and while it was good, it wasn’t $19 good. And to make matters worse, the American craft brewery that brewed it sells a four-pack of tall boys for three dollars cheaper. While I understand that the inclusion of tariffs, rent, and labor means a premium must be charged per pour, I’m not sure I believe the added costs get us to that price point.

Conclusion

This is not meant to be a definitive piece about craft beer culture in Beijing. These are observations that require further examination. Which, of course, I’m happy to oblige. More research means more beer, and as the current trend goes, the quality control of the local stuff has been quite good.

That means I’ll be looking for bars that sell the stuff made by brewers here in China. Even though I’d love an Oktoberfest from Silverbranch or Port City (seriously, I’d do a keg stand of that right now if I could source it), beer isn’t the same if it isn’t local.

What is clear to me is that the local craft beer culture is producing high-quality beer on par with whatever is being made abroad. But where craft beer in the US is accessible to the masses, even at a premium that many may find dear, it remains a closed door for much of China.

If the industry could find a way to reach a level of production that can drive down input costs or canning/bottling costs, there could be an even bigger market explosion. And that’s a good thing.