CRAFT COLLABORATION
Groundbreaking festival showcasing partnerships between Chinese beer makers and the cream of US talent is set to brew up a storm. Li Yingxue reports.
Anew Beijing beer festival promises a three-hour, freeflow tasting of 32 different craft beers and eight collaborations between breweries in China and the Pacific Northwest, together with gourmet food and live music.
And this is just one of four sessions being held at the inaugural 8x8 Brewing Project’s Beer Festival taking place in Beijing on Nov 3-4.
Eight up-and-coming Chinese breweries and eight top craft breweries from the US Pacific Northwest have paired up to brew eight collaboration beers specifically for the festival.
This is the first beer festival in China to focus on collaborative brewing — where two breweries work together to make a co-branded beer that combines their brewing styles, favorite ingredients and expertise — according to Alex Acker, initiator of the project.
Acker is also the cofounder of Jing A, one of the most popular breweries in Beijing, which started in 2014. Acker is surprised by how quickly craft beer has taken off in China.
“When we first started our brewery, probably 80 percent of our customers were from the foreign community, and now that’s flipped the other way,” Acker says.
The 39-year-old from the United States has taken Jing A beers to several international beer festivals since opening, giving beer fans from the US and around Europe the chance to taste beers from Chinese craft breweries.
Absorbing the positive experiences from the beer festivals they joined, Acker and his team came up with the idea of throwing their own brand of beer festival.
“It’s not a typical festival but more like a project, with all 16 breweries becoming more involved in a six-month brewing collaboration.
“Too often, it’s just distributors or sales teams that attend festivals, but we’ve invited the owners and brewers to join themselves,” Acker says. “So, there’s every chance the guy who pours your beer may well be the brewer, and you will be able to talk with him about it.”
Acker’s goal with 8x8 is to build connections between craft beer communities in other countries and the vibrant craft brewing industry that’s developing in China.
For the first event, Acker chose to team up with breweries from the Pacific Northwest, one of the birthplaces of the modern craft beer movement and the location of his home state of Oregon.
Half the breweries attending the festival from the US are in the top 50 rankings of US breweries. Among them, Breakside Brewery from Portland won two silver and two bronze medals at last year’s World Beer Cup, and four bronze medals at the 2017 Great American Beer Festival Awards.
Besides collaborations, each brewery will also bring eight of their craft beers to the festival. “Most of the beers from Pacific Northwest are not available in China, and many of them will cost $30, or even $40 for a bottle,” Acker says.
“For beer fans, it’s not only an opportunity to try some of these amazing beers in China but also to show support for this creative collaboration between Chinese and Western brewers.”
Jing A has been paired with Holy Mountain brewery from Seattle, Washington, which focuses on farmhouse sales. Acker decided to follow their style and bring some of their wild yeast to the collaboration, adding kumquats and Sichuan pepper corns to make their cultural revolution (6 percent ABV) beer.
Brewing for the event began in July, while brainstorming sessions started well before that.
Over the summer, each pair of brewers worked on their collaborative recipes, establishing new relations with each other.
Ben Love, cofounder of Gigantic Brewing from Portland, Oregon, met Acker at the Mikkeller Beer Celebration Copenhagen three years ago, and they’ve seen each other a few times at different beer festivals or when Acker returns home, since then.
When Acker suggested the idea of the event last winter, Love didn’t hesitate to sign up for it.
“Ideas that come from collaborations can be incredible, and I think with brewers coming from different parts of the world, the ideas are even more exciting,” Love says.
Gigantic was paired with Moonzen Brewery from Hong Kong, and Love has been discussing ideas and recipes with his partners by email since May.
“Our collaboration is named Pacific Berry Monster Lambic (5.2 percent ABV), because it adds boysenberry from Oregon and is brewed in Hong Kong, and the monster suggests the ancient gods on the label of Moonzen’s bear bottles,” Love says.
“It’s cool to work with somebody from China, as they incorporate their local palate,” the 39-year-old says.
Gigantic and Moonzen’s collaboration has already been shipped to Beijing for the festival, and Love will meet his brewing partners to reveal the fruits of his labor.
Chang Jui Chao, owner of Bubble Lab in Wuhan, Hubei province, visited his partner’s brewery, Cloudburst Brewing in Seattle, Washington in July, where they discussed each other’s brewing styles. They decided to brew a triple IPA called Bubbles in the Beard (10 percent ABV).
“IPA is not usually so strong, but we wanted to brew a strong triple IPA to enjoy in winter. But the process of brewing such a beer can easily go wrong,” the 30-year-old says.
“I’ve never brewed a triple IPA before, but with our partner’s technical help we made it work,” Chao says. “That’s the beauty of collaboration, where brewers can learn and grow with each other.”
Beijing Homebrewing Society, a non-profit organization with more than 800 members, is partnering the project. Wang Bo, chief of the education department of society is looking forward to joining the event.
“I’ve checked on RateBeer, a website that rates craft beers, and some of the beers from US breweries have achieved top scores,” Wang says. “And, of course, I’m looking forward to the collaborations.”