2019 was a year that really packed a wallop for international craft beer weirdness. Asahi bought out Budweiser (and ZX) in Australia, Kirin bought New Belgium in America, a boxed wine company bought Ballast Point via a taproom in Chicago that had nineteen Yelp reviews, Carlsberg did a deal with Jing A and than the […]

This might be an odd thing to write a blog about, but I’m writing this as a love letter to an industry I love and a farewell to a company that makes me proud. This might be my last blog as an employee of Great Leap Brewing. I’m moving back to lead an exciting new […]

I attended a conference in Bangkok a week or two ago and listened to a panel discussion. After it was over I walked up to one of the panelists. Well, not technically the panelist, but his business partner. The panel discussion was about something like, “who will make Asia’s craft beer?” Now, let me be […]

Great Leap Brewing has been witness to a lot of growth in China craft beer; some good, some cancerous, some just growing pains. One of the things that is cringe worthy has to do with the obsessions related to awards. Three or four things validate Chinese craft beer in 2019: collaborations with foreigners, invitations to […]

Now it’s time for something positive, dare I say, historic. We don’t brag about ourselves enough at Great Leap Brewing. We don’t brag because we don’t want others to feel the way we did when we had nothing and others shoved it in our face. Many people that follow us don’t know that we win […]

Chairman Mao, in all his wisdom， once said, “Women hold up half of the sky.” However, seeing the commercialization of major consumer goods establishing events on March 8th (International Women’s Day) every year, can be heartbreaking. From their first breath and first moments crying, the first sentence that many little girls hear in their lives […]

Ok. 2018 was a long year for a lot of craft beer brands in China, and all for different reasons. Some overhyped and overheated their brands. Some fell victim to changing markets and tastes. Even more realized the bitter truth that renting high priced real estate and installing mini factories onsite isn’t a sustainable model. […]

Last year, I constructed a blog predicting five things that would happen in Chinese craft beer in 2018. Some didn’t happen the way I wanted them to, and some happened in a far more spectacular and horrible way than I could’ve imagined. Nevertheless, the most important thing is that things happened in 2018, and because […]

From November 16-18, 2018, thirty-six independent Chinese craft breweries came together and held the first Craft Brewer’s Association of China beer festival in Beijing. There have been plenty of other beer festivals with similar compositions over the last couple of years. Some are attached to larger events, some highlight Chinese craft alongside imported beers from […]

Three years ago, a small group of Chinese craft brewers met in a small second floor conference room at a restaurant in Nanjing. What we were discussing was something of such future importance that were we aware at the time we would have taken ourselves much more seriously. This was the start of China’s first […]

By Carl This blog will now be the home of any updates relating to the main topic. If you haven’t read the blog concerning the main topic, please click here. Update (September 27, 2018) When I first posted this blog back at the end of July, I made the following statement: “The bloat of the […]

Between sessions of our Beijing Invitational Craft Beer Festival, I decided it was worth doing a panel discussion about the future of international craft beer in the context of Anheuser Busch InBev’s recent acquisitions and their pledge to disrupt global craft beer’s development. An article discussing the panel discussion written by SupChina can be found […]

A couple weeks ago we held a beer festival in Beijing. The reaction from the growing craft beer community was not surprising. Some accused us of racism because at the end of the sessions we asked people to leave, some people got really hammered and had a good time, and some people tried to steal […]

Regardless of the industry, industry professionals in China love rumors. Craft brewing is no different. A prediction is a rumor that hasn’t started yet, so, let’s predict some shit.   1.More breweries will open that are themed after gargoyles, Satan, demons, etc. The naming of breweries in China follows trends of international craft beer brands […]

It’s been a minute or two since I wrote a blog addressing anything other than our most familiar situations. The acquisition of Boxing Cat by Brazilian brewing giant Anheuser Busch InBev has permeated just about every aspect of the Chinese craft brewing industry for the past four months. There isn’t a lot more I can […]

In 2009, I started home brewing. The first beer I brewed would turn into the Pale Ale #6. It was an amber colored beer that was brewed out of necessity due to a lack of raw materials. Local malt, local hops, whatever yeast was available at the time. It’s one of the simplest beers we […]

So, its Thursday, March 2nd. About half past six. I’ve received a countless amount of messages all asking me the same question. “Is it true that ABI just bought Boxing Cat?” I’ve known since Tuesday February 28th. Lee Tseng called me as I was walking to my favorite pork rice joint in the world. He […]

I like Numbers. Not the TV crime drama, that show sucked. I like actual physical numbers. We use them for loads of stuff. When you deal in a consumer commodity like beer, your industry lives and dies by numbers. Consumption statistics, revenue, volumes produced vs. volumes sold, you know, numbers. Fucking A. Recently my industry, […]

What is contract brewing? Contract brewing is when a brewery is either selling more beer than it can physically produce and needs to supplement capacity elsewhere to meet demand, OR a beer brand cannot or will not fund its own production facility and instead chooses to pay someone with the existing fixed assets to brew […]