I just noticed on the can that "百威“, Budweiser, is the parent company, so you are undoubtedly right about the fact that it is certainly not a micro-brew. Before coming to Beijing I spent twenty years in Seattle and some of those early micro-brews became regional brews over time. In regards to the Brits and the Continentals many have long been available here, with the lighter tasting Germans and Belgians perhaps more acceptable to the Chinese palate. I am picky, and I must say that it was a fresh and tasty IPA.
What about Chinese craft brews? Surely this will happen if you do not have them already.
There are several, a number of which I have yet to taste. Here in Beijing there are four I think; Stone was scheduled to open a new brewpub in March...but we all know what was happening then...they bailed and returned to the US.
There is an American here who has three locations with some good brews: Slowboat Brewery. A few days ago I went to small place back in a hutong that just imports the very best on tap where I had a porter that placed in the top 10 at the world championships....it tasted like it was brewed from caramel...but in a good way, if you can imagine that....
How does Goose Island match up to the competition back home? I have been here so long that I have lost track of the front runners other than Founders, whose Breakfast Stout I was able to get a case of a couple of years ago...I make it back to Seattle once every 3-4 years and the last time there I went to the Elysian near the baseball stadium...their Dragon Tooth Stout was excellent.
.
Even a cursory glance at Rick Sanchez's informative post shows how profoundly the scale of craft-brewing has changed; however, as the attached ratings show, the beer in question is decent enough to be mistaken for a "micro-brew"...When I first came here eighteen years ago one could occasionally find a year-old bottle of Samuel Adams stored at room temperature on a grocery store shelf that tasted like it had been filtered through an old pair of tennis shoes.....That IPA was fresh and crisp...served alongside a beef stew made with organic spices from my wife's family farm down in Sichuan, it was absolutely delicious. More to the point, it was recently brewed in a city that a mere five months ago was cowering in fear and locked-down under quarantine...happily not the case today.
Used to love me some Honkers. Easy drinking brew with a super balanced palate. Had the pleasure of living close to a bar that had it on cask! Have been searching for it for sooo long. I agree it might be discontinued =(Was always a fan of their Honkers Ale, can't find it anymore, might have been discontinued,
Craft brews have exploded in the U.S., I live in the Buffalo area of New York, seems like there's a new brewery opening every week.
Yes, not a microbrew, but look at the label and you will see that it is 5.9%, and at 15.5 has a high specific gravity. In the Chinese is one more important detail: only a nine month shelf life. Almost all the imports here are allowed a year to eighteen months; so this beer was "flash" pasteurized (or perhaps unpasteurized) and as packaged on June the 1st bears as much resemblance to my grandfather's Pabst Blue Ribbon as a vintage 78 does to a 24/96 download. You are correct; no longer a "craft beer", but what to call it? A mass produced "traditional" beer? Are Sierra Nevada's nearly million annual barrels of beer now considered mediocre? As for "where I am located", if you had carefully read the thread you should have delved that exceptional beers (and brewpubs) are here: I would put Founder's Breakfast Stout up against anything in the world. In conclusion: a decent ale and a fitting celebration of Wuhan's return to normalcy.
Just my opinion, but if the same brewers are allowed to offer their best, why is it no longer a "craft" beer?
