Beijing Craft Brewers Win Big at Australian International Beer Awards
Beijing’s bar scene got a big ego boost last week courtesy of suds lovers in the Land Down Under. On May 16, the Australian International Beer Awards (AIBA, which dubs itself “the world’s largest annual beer competition judging both packaged and draft beer”) awarded multiple medals to craft brewers from the Chinese capital.
In the extensive competition – more than 2,594 different beers from around the world entered – local big names like Jing-A took home eight of those prizes (six silver medals and two bronze), Great Leap seven (two silver and three bronze, along with a pair of design awards), and Slow Boat one (bronze).
What’s more: relative newcomer brewers Beersmith also took home four medals. Clifford Weiner, general manager of Hotel Jen, which houses Beersmith, tells the Beijinger: “It’s brilliant to see that Beijing altogether won so many medals, not only us but also other breweries. It speaks to the high level of brewing here. It will never get boring to drink craft beer in Beijing!”
The Jing-A team was also heartened by its haul. Speaking to us after the win, Richard Ammerman, Jing-A's head of marketing, tells us: “In the past, our hoppy beers tended to be the strongest performers. Now we're receiving praise across a wide variety of styles. Some of these have been staples at Jing-A for a long time, like the Mandarin Wheat, and we've spent years fine-tuning the recipe. Now it's gratifying to see that work pay off.”
NBeer – which got its start in Beijing and is still based here with three locations in the capital, but now does its brewing in Sichuan – also got plenty of hardware. Owner Yin Hai says: “We entered 11 beers, all the beers that we have right now because we thought they’re all pretty good. And all of them got medals this time... It’s great to show the world that good beer is being brewed here in China. And it’s also good for marketing here because Chinese people trust these types of international awards.”
Shanghai’s Boxing Cat also triumphed with three medals. But it was the only Pearl City brewery to make the cut, and its total was dwarfed by the 18 medals taken home by brewers in the capital. Breweries from Australia and New Zealand dominated the major trophy section. However, it was a pair of southern rivals that broke into that upper strata: Taiwan’s King Var Group won Best European Style Lager for its Buckskin Munich Helles, while Bravo Brewing’s Infinite Guide Gose was awarded Best European Style Ale.
Beijing’s strong showing is a particularly welcome development after the capital was completely shut out of cocktail-oriented Asia’s Best 50 Bars list a few weeks back. As for deciding which is your personal favorite, we recommend grabbing yourself a pint and perusing the lengthy list of winners here.
Read: Asia’s Best 50 Bars Does Beijing Dirty, Fails to Mention a Single Bar in the Capital
Correction: An earlier version of this blog misstated the number of awards Great Leap won. It has since been updated.
More stories by this author here.
Email: kylemullin@truerun.com
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Photo: rasofvic (via Instagram), rasv.com.au, jingabrewing.com
