A brewing battle

Gao Yan hails Master Gao, which he opened in 2008, as China's first fully licensed microbrewery for craft beer. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Craft beer began bubbling up through the cracks in China about five years ago. But it may still account for as little as 0.01 percent of the domestic beer market - the world's largest with 50 billion liters consumed in 2011 alone.

In contrast, it makes up 6 percent of the Australian beer market and 12 percent of the US market, according to New Zealand's Leon Mickelson, who helped organize the Kerry Center festival in his role as brew master at its onsite brewery, called simply The Brew.

"What is most exciting for me is being in the world's largest market for beer, which is also the largest untapped market for craft beer," he says. "To be one of the first pioneers here is so rewarding. Every day we're moving forward."

Most Chinese still drink cheap, pale and watery local brands like Tsingtao, Yanjing or Harbin. But young white-collar workers in cities like Beijing and Shanghai are increasingly exposed to premium beer at annual celebrations like Oktoberfest and the Kunshan Beer Festival.

"We're definitely seeing a trend switch, where locals are getting into different styles of beers," says Michael Jordan, the American brew master at Shanghai's Boxing Cat Brewery. "Using local ingredients is part of the story."

Jordan and Mickelson seem as much a binding force for Shanghai's foreign microbrewers as Gao is for the Chinese home brewers.

"A lot of the craft brewers here know each other and support each other. It's a real beer community. That's unique," Jordan says.

"The typical Chinese mentality is more like: Why do you want to help your competitor? But we're all small operators, so we have to build this together.

"I think there is some animosity among home brewers with local versus foreign. But I don't really get into those circles much."

With gauntlet-throwing names like Triple Threat, tropical-fruit-infused hops and exotic ingredients, it's little wonder the novelty-starved Chinese are starting to tune in and chug back.

To tap growing demand, Cheerday Brewery plans to integrate a craft beer section into an 82,000-square-meter beer village that is being built in Qiandaohu (Thousand Island Lake) in Zhejiang province's capital Hangzhou. So says Alan Duffy, an Irish entrepreneur who consults for the architects in charge of the project in the resort area - one of the top destinations for domestic tourists.