Recommendation for a beer portfolio in a microbrewery?

[hongqing.ma]

As others have said, try to find out what people want and sell that. Business based on a dream of "I really want people to like this thing I want to make" rarely succeeds. I have been to Asia many times but not mainland China. Every place I have been seems to have a stout so that seems obvious.

If you want to try a NEIPA there is a huge thread here - Northeast" style IPA which will get you familiar with the style and methods. It is a difficult style to do well so start with small batches if you want to go that direction. NEIAP has been wildly popular and made brewers a lot of money. I'm guessing that is why you are in business so don't take the haters too seriously. There are plenty of people that will say it is a flawed style or improperly named. That is fun stuff to debate but if you are in business, follow the money.

Very helpful advice! NEIPA will be definitely the popular type here too. As currently I use lower level of hops in the standard IPA , The IBU level is about 40 and the aroma of Citra attracted my customers .

 

[hongqing.ma]

Just before lockdown we were arranging a large scale brewing competition in our local Homebrew club (WEHomebrew.club) the format was brew one beer from the 9 boxes in the pic below and once someone had picked one it was gone.

I always thought it’d make a good menu for a brewpub.
View attachment 688926

This is a very good table for reference! Thanks a lot!

 

[hongqing.ma]

+1, any brewery needs something dark for those people that enjoy dark beers, a friend of mine got into craft because he enjoyed Guinness, so he started to discover craft beers through stouts, I'm sure there's plenty of people who loves Guinness in China, it might be their door to craft beer

Good point! I am hesitating for this quite some time. I will brew an imperial stout as the starter!

 

[hongqing.ma]

Do you know of any other successful brewpubs where you are? If so, try to find out what they are selling. If you already know that wheat beer will be popular, then certainly have that. Try to appeal to a range of different people.



This is great advice. Wheat beer, blonde ale, pale ale, IPA, and dark beer such as porter or stout makes a pretty good start. You know wheat beer is popular, blonde ale or light ale for the lager drinkers, pale ale and IPA are your hoppy beers at different alcohol and hop levels, dark beer for those who enjoy dark beers.

Amber ale to me is more seasonal. Its often a beer that is more popular here in autumn or fall season and we get amber ales that are seasonal releases.

Belgian beers can be a love/hate thing. Some people love them and others hate them. Belgian yeasts are wild yeasts and many have built in spoilage organisms. In a commercial setting you also run the risk of contaminating your other beers when you brew Belgians, especially if you don’t brew on seperate equipment.

A free/rotating tap is also a great idea

I am in the US and I don’t claim to know or understand anything about beer preferenes in China.

Wishing you success

I was in the US some years ago. I am impressed to the larger variety of IPA in the US. As there are few real microbrewery in China, Most of the pub use the beer from other suppliers. Wheat beer and IPA are more popular in China. For the people who look beer as a fashion, Wheat beer is their first choice. For the people who are used to drink alchols. IPA is more attractive. So i can imagine NEIPA will be the potential break point in China.

 

[Random_aussie]

I lived in Shanghai for 18 months, ten years ago. The beer was mostly horrific. Even as someone that was used to Aussie megaswills, it was bad.

I did taste Tsingtao in Qingdao though, during their version of Oktoberfest, and it was nothing like the bottled headache that is Tsingtao everywhere else. It was a genuinely nice, German style beer. Very weird drinking it on the beach, from a plastic bag with a straw out of it, but hey - you have to immerse yourself in the culture. I just wish I got a photo cos no one really believes me when I tell that story.

Once the pandemic is over, will your bar see a western expat crowd? That would maybe dictate a change in your beer selection.

What is the Chinese drinking habit like at your bar? A custom while drinking midstrength out of small glasses over dinner is to finish glasses together. "Kampei" (whatever the pinyin spelling is, sorry for butchering it) is basically cheers + bottoms up. I saw a table of people doing that with red wine, and it ended with vomit in a hotpot.

I'm asking because if people are drinking like that in your bar out of larger glasses, you might need to stock a selection of 3% abv beers...

 

[hongqing.ma]

I lived in Shanghai for 18 months, ten years ago. The beer was mostly horrific. Even as someone that was used to Aussie megaswills, it was bad.

I did taste Tsingtao in Qingdao though, during their version of Oktoberfest, and it was nothing like the bottled headache that is Tsingtao everywhere else. It was a genuinely nice, German style beer. Very weird drinking it on the beach, from a plastic bag with a straw out of it, but hey - you have to immerse yourself in the culture. I just wish I got a photo cos no one really believes me when I tell that story.

Once the pandemic is over, will your bar see a western expat crowd? That would maybe dictate a change in your beer selection.

What is the Chinese drinking habit like at your bar? A custom while drinking midstrength out of small glasses over dinner is to finish glasses together. "Kampei" (whatever the pinyin spelling is, sorry for butchering it) is basically cheers + bottoms up. I saw a table of people doing that with red wine, and it ended with vomit in a hotpot.

I'm asking because if people are drinking like that in your bar out of larger glasses, you might need to stock a selection of 3% abv beers...

Thanks for your suggestions!
The beer culture in China changed a lot compare with ten years ago. People drink different type of beer in my bar. Including some foreigners from Germany. Wheat beer andIPA are more popular for most of the customers. I also prepared some bottle beers from the world. Tap6 of Schneider weiss is also popular here. Most of the customers usually have 1 or 2 cups of beer in the outdoor seat.

 

[OldDogBrewing]

Good point! I am hesitating for this quite some time. I will brew an imperial stout as the starter!

Do Chinese people like big beers? Here in Spain people usually likes beers around 4.5 or 5.5 ABV, only craft people drinks big beers and we usually order big beers at the end of the night so we can sip and talk for a while as if it was wine

But I think that wheat can be your thing as you said people likes that and you have an advantage nobody has mentioned, belgian witts allow for certain levels of spices and in China you have lots of medicinal and aromatic herbs that can work in beer so maybe you can have a tap for spiced wheat beers, maybe you can still use a german wheat strain bit I think you have some room to experiment there as people believes in the benefits of tea and other herbs and you can use that to make beer and maybe get some benefits from the herbs, I have myself tried tea beers at home as I like tea a lot but I haven't been successful yet

 

[bkboiler]

I think some consumers expect to order a pint of awesome beer and others expect a learning and adventure of a tasting...some people are new to the beer journey and some have been at it for a while, so it's helpful to have new beers that are innovative as well as classics...I guess that means--rotation!
Brew new stuff to keep the return customers who like new things...
Some return customers like the same stuff...so make sure it's clear to the customer what's the "regular lineup" and what's rotational.
Other thing on the topic of experience:
some nearby breweries to me take the same base beer and secondary with different fruit or different funk or different yeast. There is obvious cost savings to this approach and a cool "vertical" or "horizontal" type tasting aspect to this beer flight...would have to redefine this term for beer we aging beer is *less* common than aging wine.

I'd define a "vertical" as the same base beer, but different microbes to ferment or different secondary flavorings (like fruit or herbs).
I'd define a "horizontal" as different base beer (hops or malt) with the same yeast.

I'd define a "depth" tasting as the same base beer and yeast with different water...this one is probably only common for homebrewers or in an R&D context to dial in a brew.

Some of these terms are implicitly used at some local tasting rooms already, but not in the common lexicon.

Last thing, it may be different in China, but in the US, there is market consolidation happening even prior to COVID. This means pricing pressure. The breweries that were doing detailed market analysis identified this and invested in high speed canning lines years ago and simplified their lineup...
That means they reduced the number of brands that they spent their marketing budget on--some of which were "rotational" IPAs (i.e. stone "enjoy by" is the same packaging and graphics but a different hop depending on what's seasonal), this gave them freedom in saving money on branding and also saving money on hops contracts.
It also helps to identify one base malt and one house yeast to start and build your beers around that, the marketing thing and the "logistics" and "inventory" need to all support each other.

 

[Qhrumphf]

Your use of "horizontal" and "vertical" is strange. If those are the local terms, then cool.

Most commercial breweries only use a few yeasts. May have one ale strain one lager strain one Belgian strain. Using a different yeast for everything is financially untenable because everything gets repitched. So a different beer with the same yeast isn't a "horizontal". It's just a different beer.

A "vertical" is an aged beer thing. It's a side by side or sequential tasting of multiple vintages of the same beer. Happens a lot with barrel aged beers.

In your context, taking the same beer and changing one or two things (change a hop, change a yeast, add an adjunct, etc) most places would call a variant (and in many jurisdictions is legally considered as such- you may not need to do a new product registration for a variant like you would for a different beer). Tasting variants side by side I guess you call a "horizontal".

 

[bkboiler]

Agreed... @Qhrumphf ...
It's a way that White Labs uses the terms in their tasting room to highlight the yeast...
I agree with your definition of variant, especially since it is respectful of BJCP guidelines.
Just trying to give some marketing suggestions in how to present the flavors so that the customer can pick out similarities and differences...
It only makes sense in the context of a flight.

 

[Qhrumphf]

Agreed... @Qhrumphf ...
It's a way that White Labs uses the terms in their tasting room to highlight the yeast...
I agree with your definition of variant, especially since it is respectful of BJCP guidelines.
Just trying to give some marketing suggestions in how to present the flavors so that the customer can pick out similarities and differences...
It only makes sense in the context of a flight.

I see what you're saying now. The White Labs tasting room is also a different business model. More of an R&D lab than a brewery, with a customer base more comprising other brewers than drinkers. A non-brewer drinker likely won't care why water balance changes the beer, just if they like the result. So the marketing approach seems a bit strange out of the context of something like White Labs.

 

[bkboiler]

Good point. I definitely don't go to White Labs planning to knock back a few...usually to buy yeast and maybe learn something while there...
I wish there was something a lot of local breweries could do differently to not go out of business...

 

[smata67]

How about a lager? Certainly the most popular beer style in the world deserves a nod. And you would want to have a rotating selection of seasonal beers, Oktoberfest in October, a winter warmer for cold months, a lower abv refreshing beer for summer.

 

[InspectorJon]

Suzhou looks like it is between 31 and 32 degrees north latitude and near the ocean. Similar to Savannah, Georgia. I don't imagine it ever gets very cold there. I would think a lower alcohol stout might be more popular than a heavy imperial stout. Save that for a seasonal rotation beer. In the places I have been in Asia, Guinness stout is widely advertised and available. A dry Irish stout would maybe sell more volume than an imperial stout.

Almost every brewery around here has some kind of lightly hopped light colored beer for the folks that come in with friends that are not used to "craft beer". These consumers will ask if there is something like the mass marketed American lagers. In China I would guess that might go something like "do you have anything like Carlsberg or Kronenbourg?" I would think it would be wise to have a blond ale or light lager to appeal to those people. Their money spends as well as those that have a deeper appreciation for beer flavor. I would think you want a place that people can bring their friends and partners to that are not used to highly flavorful or bitter beer.

 

[Random_aussie]

I drank a pint of sichuan pepper (amber? I forget) ale at a local pub a while back. It was interesting and challenging but by the end of the pint it was too much. I do remember thinking that it may have really suited a high abv dark beer.

Could be worth experimenting with, if you think the Chinese demographic is interested in tasting their unique flavours in beer.

 

[hongqing.ma]

I drank a pint of sichuan pepper (amber? I forget) ale at a local pub a while back. It was interesting and challenging but by the end of the pint it was too much. I do remember thinking that it may have really suited a high abv dark beer.

Could be worth experimenting with, if you think the Chinese demographic is interested in tasting their unique flavours in beer.

Pepper beer should be a local speciality in Sichuan. There are big difference in cooking across China. Sichuan food is famous in spicy and pepper with more salt inside. Such as hot pot, smoked meat and sausage . People in Suzhou preferr more sweat and less salfed food. I can imagine if i brew a pepper beer, it would be a strange thing in Suzhou.：）

 

[hongqing.ma]

Suzhou looks like it is between 31 and 32 degrees north latitude and near the ocean. Similar to Savannah, Georgia. I don't imagine it ever gets very cold there. I would think a lower alcohol stout might be more popular than a heavy imperial stout. Save that for a seasonal rotation beer. In the places I have been in Asia, Guinness stout is widely advertised and available. A dry Irish stout would maybe sell more volume than an imperial stout.

Almost every brewery around here has some kind of lightly hopped light colored beer for the folks that come in with friends that are not used to "craft beer". These consumers will ask if there is something like the mass marketed American lagers. In China I would guess that might go something like "do you have anything like Carlsberg or Kronenbourg?" I would think it would be wise to have a blond ale or light lager to appeal to those people. Their money spends as well as those that have a deeper appreciation for beer flavor. I would think you want a place that people can bring their friends and partners to that are not used to highly flavorful or bitter beer.

Absolutely right, when someone join the friends with deeper beer hobby. they normally asked me to serve" light" taste beer. but they dont want to have the normal lager beer like Tsingtao, Snowbeer. A homemade lager might be a good substitution .

 

[hongqing.ma]

How about a lager? Certainly the most popular beer style in the world deserves a nod. And you would want to have a rotating selection of seasonal beers, Oktoberfest in October, a winter warmer for cold months, a lower abv refreshing beer for summer.

Rotation of seasonal beer is a good idea. Octoberfest is not available in China. So it would be attractive to have the Octoberfest beer as Samual Adams Octoberfest in the US.

 

[hongqing.ma]

Do Chinese people like big beers? Here in Spain people usually likes beers around 4.5 or 5.5 ABV, only craft people drinks big beers and we usually order big beers at the end of the night so we can sip and talk for a while as if it was wine

But I think that wheat can be your thing as you said people likes that and you have an advantage nobody has mentioned, belgian witts allow for certain levels of spices and in China you have lots of medicinal and aromatic herbs that can work in beer so maybe you can have a tap for spiced wheat beers, maybe you can still use a german wheat strain bit I think you have some room to experiment there as people believes in the benefits of tea and other herbs and you can use that to make beer and maybe get some benefits from the herbs, I have myself tried tea beers at home as I like tea a lot but I haven't been successful yet

Wheat beer with the taste of tea, a combination of tea culture and beer culture. There are many kind of tea, maybe i can make the first tiral with the red tea with strong aroma.

 

[madscientist451]

If you are in business to make money, you need to make what people want to drink. The highest rated craft beers are very often also high alcohol. So I would serve double IPAs and high ABV stout/porter.
On the other end you should be pouring something similar to miller light. Have something for everyone.
Also have some wine and cider on hand of someone wants that.

 

[Random_aussie]

. Octoberfest is not available in China.

https://www.thatsqingdao.com/qingdao-international-beer-festival/
Maybe Suzhou could embrace something similar? If there are other craft breweries and pubs, get together and announce a mini festival where you all offer some special brews, extended happy hours... involve some local restaurants and who knows? Maybe 10 years from now the Suzhou beer festival will be an international tourist attraction

Seriously though, even if it's just a ploy to attract new clientele to your bar, there's not a lot to lose.

 

[hongqing.ma]

https://www.thatsqingdao.com/qingdao-international-beer-festival/
Maybe Suzhou could embrace something similar? If there are other craft breweries and pubs, get together and announce a mini festival where you all offer some special brews, extended happy hours... involve some local restaurants and who knows? Maybe 10 years from now the Suzhou beer festival will be an international tourist attraction

Seriously though, even if it's just a ploy to attract new clientele to your bar, there's not a lot to lose.

It would be good to have a festival by the craft beer club. Maybe Suzhou beer festival can be a great event too. as so many international people working in Suzhou.