Beijing hosts China-US beer fest ahead of Trump visit

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Chinese leaders are always talking up international cooperation, so with President Donald Trump’s state visit to China scheduled for this week, they should have been especially happy with the collaboration between Chinese and US brewers on display at a beer festival in Beijing at the weekend.

The 8x8 Brewing Project paired eight breweries from China with eight breweries from the Pacific Northwest region of the US, with each couple making a beer to be presented at the festival.

Around 1,600 people attended to hear the stories behind the beers from the people who brewed them.

/Jing A‍

All those involved were craft breweries, generally understood to mean independent operations producing small-batch beers of uncompromising quality.

Standing in contrast to mass-market brands, craft brewing has been booming around the world, including in China.

Trump’s visit is expected to focus largely on China-US trade cooperation and the Chinese breweries are likely to have benefited from the experience of their counterparts in the Pacific Northwest, one of the birthplaces of the craft beer movement.

Many of the earliest craft breweries can be found in western states like Oregon, which has hundreds of the more than 5,200 craft brewers the US Brewers Association says exist in the country.

China boasts far more modest numbers, but names like 8x8 organizer Jing A have been brewing up a storm in the past few years, as keen as US brewers to harness the latest trends in this voguish industry.

Collaborative brewing is one such trend, a way for brewers to bounce ideas off each other and jointly promote their products.

"We’re about five years in as a brewery. We’ve been joining a lot of other festivals in that time, here in China and overseas. We felt like it was the right time to give back and do our own festival, but we wanted to do something a little bit different. We really love collaborations, the idea of bringing two breweries together and the exchange of ideas," said Jing-A co-founder Alex Acker.

Another latest trend is sour beers, an extreme style which adventurous drinkers have been thirsty to try after the initial craze for India pale ales, or IPAs – strong, very bitter beers packed with the hops that define a beer’s taste. The 8X8 festival was heavy on both sours and IPAs.

"IPA was a big trend, and it still is. But I think sours are the next big thing in China, just like they were in America," said Alex Ballard from Bubble Lab in Wuhan, whose festival beer was a very alcoholic "triple" IPA made with Cloudburst Brewing in Seattle.

"People’s palates are becoming more sophisticated, they want more unique things. Sour fits that category," Ballard explained.

/Jing A

Customers at the festival on Saturday seemed to be enjoying what they tasted.

Brothers Li Hang and Li Xiao from Lanzhou in China's northwest Gansu Province criticized most Chinese beers as "industrial".

"Craft beer, on the other hand, is very natural. And an event like this gives us a chance to try a variety of beers. It’s a fantastic experience," said Li Hang.

This was the inaugural 8X8 event and Jing A intends to run more, pairing Chinese breweries with counterparts from a different region around the world each time.

With initiatives like these, craft beer is likely to become more and more popular in China.

Marco Chao from Bubble Lab predicted, "There’s a lot of room to grow. The growth could be so much faster [than in the US]. When American craft beer started, they had no examples. But we have a lot of examples to draw on. I think it will speed up the process."

When they meet in the next few days, business-minded politicians Xi Jinping and Donald Trump might want to raise a toast to international partnerships spurring a vibrant new market in China.

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