Jing-A Celebrates One Year of Beers and Bands With 2020 Bie Nao Grand Finale Tour, Nov 21 at Omni Space
Rock n’ roll and beer go together like The Beatles and fainting teenage girls, so it’s no wonder that breweries either team up with, or brew beers inspired by their favorite bands. From West Berkshire Brewery’s collaboration with 80s synth-pop duo Soft Cell to Motörhead’s Bastards Lager by Swedish brewer Krönleins Bryggeri, it’s a brilliant idea that we can honestly never have too much of. Okay, maybe Midtown Brewing Company and Kid Rock’s Badass American Lager was a step too far, but you get the point.
At any rate, when Jing-A announced earlier this year that they would be hooking up with bands across China’s indie spectrum to create limited-edition brews coupled with tours under the banner Bie Nao, it was much to the delight of beer and music fans both in the capital and throughout China. To celebrate the close of a wildly successful first series, Jing-A has been hosting the Bie Nao 2020 Grand Finale Tour, which ends this Saturday, Nov 21, at Omni Space.
Ahead of the show, we caught up with Jing-A founders, Alex Acker and Kristian Li, to find out more about the Bie Nao concept, how they decided to work with the bands that they did, and what 2021 has in store for the Beijing-based brewers and China’s indie music scene.
First and foremost, what in the hell is Bie Nao and how did it come to be?
Bie Nao is “craft music” meets “indie beer” – mashing together our favorite Chinese underground bands with new beers inspired by their music and ethos.
We’ve been going to shows for years, and we’re huge fans of both Beijing’s indie scene and the broader Chinese music underground. I guess we saw a resonance between how we approach brewing, and how bands approach songwriting, and Bie Nao really came out of that “what if” question: What if we brought the bands and the beers together for a collaboration?
In practice, the idea is simple: We get together with indie artists, brew a beer with them, and take the beer and the band on tour together! We’ve done two national tours so far – eight shows (and one livestream) in five cities.
Which bands have you worked with and can you tell us a little bit about their beers?
So far, we’ve worked with SUBS in Beijing, Chinese Football in Wuhan, South Acid Mimi in Kunming, and The Hormones in Chengdu. For each beer, we shot a five-minute documentary that goes into the band’s story and the beer’s creation. You can watch all of them on the Jing-A WeChat account (ID: jingabeer).
We’re really excited about all the beers. With SUBS in Beijing, we brewed a candy floss IPA called Boy Toy, which was the name of a pioneering punk rock dive bar in Wuhan that singer Kang Mao opened back in the late 2000s.
With Chinese Football, we brewed a Yuzu-powered Berliner Weisse called Summer Fling, which is the title of their new single that was written during the Wuhan lockdown.
The Hormones in Chengdu wanted to create something dark and ominous, and we obliged with a Sichuan Pepper Black IPA called Darkness of the Light. South Acid Mimi in Kunming took us around their favorite local markets and we created – while very hungover – a true Chinese-style hair of the dog beer called Back to the Dragon. It’s a wheat beer with local Yangmei!
Speaking of the beer, which one is your favorite?
The Chinese Football collab, Summer Fling, is probably our favorite. The Yuzu farm we sourced ingredients from was incredible, and the citrus notes really shine.
I’m sure it’s something of an honor to collaborate with Jing-A on a beer and participate in this project. Likewise, I can only imagine it was incredibly difficult to pick so few bands out of the rich tapestry that is China’s indie music scene. All of which begs the question: How did you decide to work with these bands?
For 2020, we worked with the music promoters Split Works and their affiliated music publication Wooozy to curate the bands. We wanted diversity in both geography and sounds, and between punk rock and synth-pop with a bit of emo in between. I think we did okay!
Following up on that, is this a series you’re going to continue doing? It seems like it could be virtually endless!
We’re going to do a series of intimate shows over the winter inside Jing-A! We’re calling it Bie Nao Sessions – either acoustic or soft electronic live gigs featuring local Beijing bands and songwriters.
The first show is on Dec 17 at Jing-A CBD, with Lost Memory Machine and Sourtower. You heard it here first!
The last stop of the Bie Nao 2020 Grand Finale Tour comes to Omni Space this Saturday. What can people expect from the show, other than some solid tunes followed by a rough morning after?
You can expect to find the special collab beers on tap at the show! Outside of Beijing, the shows are one of the few places you can drink these beers, and what better environment to try them than with the music that inspired them. There’s also special Bie Nao merch – t-shirts, beer patches, stickers, and more!
Looking back, the very first event was over the summer when SUBS played Jing-A Longfusi. As one of the first live concerts post-COVID-19, people were thrilled to get out in the sun and party. Unfortunately, however, the neighbors weren’t as thrilled. What happened that day?
It was an improvised experiment – combining a livestream with a live show – and as experiments go it was successful. We complied with a request to stop the live music after SUBS’ first 20-minute set, but the party didn’t come to an end – we had DJ sets and beers and outdoor summer vibes well into the evening.
The next Bie Nao show didn’t come until October when Chinese Football played Yue Space. Did you initially have plans for more shows, more bands, and more beers throughout the year?
Yeah, the original schedule was once a quarter – and the pandemic pushed everything back by about half a year. We’re still doing four bands in 2020, just packed it together into one all-star lineup!
What can people expect from Jing-A and China’s music scene in 2021?
We’ve been blown away by the reception to Bie Nao, and we had so much fun brewing and hanging out with all our favorite bands. We’re currently working on what form the series will take in 2021, but rest assured it’ll involve more shows, more beers, and at least one special surprise collab.
Catch the Bie Nao 2020 Grand Finale Tour featuring SUBS, South Acid Mimi, and The Hormones this Saturday, Nov 21. RMB 180. 7.30pm. Omni Space
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Images courtesy of Jing-A
