Features

Shanghai surprise

30 Oct 2012 by BusinessTraveller

China isn’t the most obvious place to find top craft beer, but Tom Otley manages to discover some beguiling brews. China holds many surprises, but a modern microbrewery run by a New Zealander is one of the more pleasant. Take a trip to Shanghai, stay south of the Bund in the ever-expanding Pudong district, with its awesome skyscrapers and sweeping arterial roads, and at the back of the Brew, the bar of the Kerry hotel – itself a new brand introduced by the much better-known Shangri-La – you’ll find something truly remarkable: craft beer.

The bar gleams. There is up-lighting and down-lighting and side-lighting against louvred walls and, above the bar, glasses hang suspended like an art installation. Still, stunning bars aren’t that unusual in Shanghai. What makes the place special is what it serves, and the precise descriptions.

I’ve drunk lots of Pilsner, but never with a note like this: “The Pilsner uses Czech hops and has citrus fruit and pine needle hop notes, 4.9 per cent.” Further down the menu, I learn that another of the beers has been made with organic German barley, a Bohemian Pilsner uses New Zealand varietal hops and a Belgian white beer is “made with local tangerine peel and coriander”.

Beer may be made from water, malted barley, hops and yeast, but then think of the ingredients for wine and the variation possible. Looking through the ale menu, it’s clear this is more than a gimmick, and there is real infectious enthusiasm here – courtesy of Leon Mickelson, a certified brew master from the UK’s Institute of Brewing and Distilling, who has brewed in his native New Zealand, Australia, the UK and now China.

This last might be considered a bit more of a challenge, but the Chinese do drink a lot of beer, although not much of it can be considered “craft” or artisanal. That presents an opportunity – and a challenge. The opportunity comes because in the US, some 7 per cent of the beer market is craft (in the UK, it’s probably 3 or 4 per cent). Apply that to the Chinese market, where the population is 1.3 billion Chinese, and there’s money to be made.

The challenge is that the market isn’t there yet, and to make the beer, Mickelson has to import many of the ingredients – from the barley (from Germany) and the yeast (five different types used, sourced from Belgium and America) to the hops (sourced from the finest hop-growing regions of the world – mainly in Germany, according to Mickelson).

The job is, therefore, one of education, hence the brewery on-site and in sight. There are two floors, the upper one being the fermentation cellar and the main floor the bar and brewhouse. Tanks are polished and connected with a tangle of pipes that might seem incongruous when making such a timeless drink, but the mix of old and new is appropriate.

Whether you term them craft beers, real ale, artisanal or even bespoke, there’s little doubt that the recent focus on provenance in food has played to real ale’s advantage. Naturally made, frequently organic, often small scale and reflecting the locale, real ale has come of age. Mickelson might have to import the hops, but for the Razorback Cider he relies on locally sourced Shandong province culinary apples.

The brewery focuses on batch brewing, which means 1,200 litres at a time, which allows Mickelson to experiment constantly and introduce new ales. In fact, it’s the seasonal nature that particularly impresses. Sometimes you travel so much you forget the time of year, so to be presented with Pumpkin Pie Ale in October was a nice surprise.

Still, there are seven on offer at any one time, and the best way to try them is a full tasting in 120ml glasses, which arrive on a wooden tasting paddle. On my visit, the choice was Skinny Green, a Pils, White Ant, Indian Pale Ale, Dugite Vanilla Stout, an ever-changing seasonal “Mash” brew, and Razorback Cider. All of these were served in custom-made glasses with a double internal skin to help retain the temperature they are served at.

Mickelson terms Skinny Green “clear, low carbohydrate, organic, 4.5 per cent [with] moderate carbonation to enhance the fresh green-hop aroma, which give spice that carries through on the flavour”, while White Ant is “50 per cent wheat malt, 50 per cent barley, cloudy, [with] clove characters, yeast from Belgium to give a sharp acidic flavour, coriander to help lift the traditional Belgian clove character, and orange peel which gives a refreshing lemon character”.

The silky, nitrogen-infused Dugite Stout was one of the group’s favourites, made with vanilla pod, milk and coffee stout – but perhaps that’s because by then we had drunk so much that we needed a dessert-like drink. Since we were then going upstairs to the hotel’s steakhouse – The Meet – we sharpened up our act with a final glass of that 4.5 per cent Razorback Cider, which was crisp, dry and champagne-like, allowing us to toast our brew master.

Mickelson’s isn’t the only microbrewery in Shanghai – there’s the Boxing Cat, a US-style microbrewery, the Dr Beer, and the Shanghai Brewery, to name just three – but if you find yourself in Pudong on your next trip to the city, it would be worth seeing what’s on the menu.