Nihao and thanks from China

[ptiger]

In mandarin, Nihao means hello.

This is Tang from China, guess very few memebers of HBT are from my place. It doesn't mean we don't like beer, actually we do and do drink a lot! I was born in Harbin, a city in northeast China, where we have the first beer brewery of this country, founded by a German in 1900. Almost all beers you can find here is Lager with abv 3.6%~4.8%, not easy to get Ale except in some bars. Taste was very good, clear body, strong flavor of malt, but after the brewery was acquired by corporate, sigh...

Now I am living in Shanghai, just started brewing at home, my first 5 gallon batch has been in bottle for almost 2 weeks. It's just a rookie recipe, 2-row pale malt, Chinook and Willamette hops, Montons premium yeast.

I actually learned a lot from HBT, explored here for a long time before get in the field. Thank you guys for sharing experience, knowledge and being kind to rookies, cause we all love beer! Cheers~

 

[kmcrae]

Welcome to the forums! I'm mostly a lurker as well. It's a wealth of info, plus it's full of great people.

 

[Ganbei]

Hi Tang,

I'm a new brewer (Mead for now) in China as well. Maybe we can share information about good places to buy equipment, ingredients, etc?

I'm located in Guangzhou, but some of the stuff i bought came from as far away as Liaoning!

Happy brewing!

 

[vhaarr]

I instantly want to ask, can you guys give us a link on tabao or similar to some quality sake yeast?

I don't know if you've tried Nøgne Ø's Red Horizon beer? It's a beer fermented with sake yeast and it is awesome! I always wanted to create some kind of clone

 

[Ganbei]

There is an very big thread on HBT about making rice wine (sake), maybe they have good suggestions there?

A quick Taobao search tells me that 'Angel' yeast is popular to make rice wine in China. But i'm not a native, so what do i know

 

[Cyclman]

Welcome to the hobby, and the group, from Colorado

Awesome to see the global homebrewing community expand!

 

[eddiewould]

I've been to 哈尔滨 before. Very cold (很&#20919. I didn't find craft beer there (just lager) but the dumplings were yummy!

 

[eatmorefrogs]

Nihao! 干杯

 

[Hernando]

Welcome to the forum Tang.

 

[dkennedy]

Welcome. I travel to Shenzhen for work fairly often, good to see a growing interest in quality beer in China.

 

[redblondey]

Hello! I'm in Shenzhen and interested in making my own hard cider and perry. First things frist: I need a full set up. Are Taobao and the local hardware stores the best place to get started in terms of equipment? Or should I just get from Hong Kong or something?

Thanks for any feedback/tips

 

[FatDragon]

Taobao has anything you could want in terms of equipment as long as you don't need big Western brand names, and local shops will carry a lot of stuff that can be repurposed into brewing equipment. I bought my initial kit (minus the brew kettle) through a foreign homebrew shop in Shanghai (shipped out to Wuhan), and while I don't exactly regret it, I kind've wish I had done more research on Taobao beforehand - could've saved at least 50% of the cost by buying locally.

Feel free to PM me if you have questions about specific equipment and don't know enough of the language to find it yourself.

I'm not sure about the variety of apples you'll have available here, though - don't most cider makers use stuff like crab apples and pippins to balance their ciders? Not sure if you'll have any luck with that stuff in China, though fresh hawthorne might be a good crab apple sub.