WOOT! First place at the 2012 Beijing Craft Beer Festival

I got the greatest news this weekend, me and my brewing partner took first place at the Beijing Craft Beer Festival! I really had no idea we would do any good, for me it was just cool to be able to say we had an entry. The festival was really well attended, and there were several local craft brewers there including Boxing Cat, Slow Boat and Great Leap. A couple of the guys completely ran out of beer.



All home brewing in China is done using the all grain method, at least as far as I have seen. But our winning beer was was brewed using the Black IPA kit from Northern Brewer. My wife was in NYC on business and Northern Brewer shipped this kit and a ton of other equipment to her hotel, and she was a trooper carrying it back home.



Yin Hai is a great friend who rents a small space called a hutong so he can brew somethere and keep out of trouble with his wife. We have nicknamed it the Brewtong and while I can brew at home, this brew was done over at his place. It is great fun brewing with this guy who has to be the biggest homebrew/beer fanatic in China.

I am sorry to say we did not follow the instructions for the Black IPA kit exactly. Due to time constraints and just not wanting to mess up what we had, we ended up skipping the entire secondary fermentation process. You just have to realize that homebrewing in China is in its infancy and we are still struggling with getting everything precise. There is ZERO automation of anything, and even our brewpots do not have valves. But we will improve, and learn, and I am certain things will only get better and better.

Nice work. Congrats!

Great stuff, now send some of that North of the Border!

Great! That's amazing you won first.

I've hung out in the Beijing hutong. Fun stuff, but tight living conditions back there, hidden behind walls built along the main corridors when they were preparing for the olympics.

Congratulations!

passedpawn said:

I've hung out in the Beijing hutong. Fun stuff, but tight living conditions back there, hidden behind walls built along the main corridors when they were preparing for the olympics.

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Yes it is crazy. We have to walk sideways about 40 yards down this alley to dispose of the grain.

Congratulations! However I am somewhat worried that if 1B Chinese acquire a taste for IPAs I will never be able to acquire Simco and Amarillo again.

It's funny you say your pots don't even have valves. Most of the equipment I have bought along with valves came direct from china, you would think it would be easier to get there.
Also congrats!

JRems said:

It's funny you say your pots don't even have valves. Most of the equipment I have bought along with valves came direct from china, you would think it would be easier to get there.
Also congrats!

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So much stuff there is made for export. I helped set up a factory there and I had to buy tools here at Sears and ship them to the factory. Crazy.

grats!!

JRems said:

It's funny you say your pots don't even have valves. Most of the equipment I have bought along with valves came direct from china, you would think it would be easier to get there.
Also congrats!

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You can get them there, but the equipment at the Brewtong is pretty primitive. I shipped over triclamp fittings and ferrules, and picked up some nice pots but I held off on the welding until I can get a better idea of what I want. I really like the E-HERMS setups and 220V is standard over there. I have some things being sent to my home in Chicago and I will work on getting an HLT going, then probably ship just the components back for my next trip.

The stoves are really small over there, and the kitchens are normally tiny. Even in my kitchen there is no A/C or ventilation other than a window. Going electric would allow us to put the brewing setup out in the main room where it is much easier to work. I would guess the kitchen at the Brewtong is probably only 5 feet wide, though it is maybe 20 feet long. Really bizarre setup.