[CRAFTBEER] Local craft beer research

Craft beer 

=  a beer made in a traditional or non-mechanized way by a small brewery. 

What interests me

To me local craft beer's packagings are always so colourful and modern. I am always attracted to their colourful packaging. Apart from their colours, their design always says something about Hong Kong's culture. I feel like their branding always surrounds the theme of promoting Hong Kong culture and history. As they are local brewed, local culture is also promoted in their branding and packaging. 

 

https://www.cntraveler.com/story/inside-hong-kongs-craft-beer-revolution 

The rise of local craft beer in HK

• Just a few years ago, the vast majority of bars only stocked boring, big-batch commercial beers like Carlsberg, Heineken, and Tsingtao.
• Five years ago, the territory’s local craft beer market boomed, jumping from two breweries in 2013 to more than 35 in 2018.
• Hong Kong received six gold, four silver and six bronze awards in the Asia Beer Championship 2020
• Young Master founder Rohit Dugar couldn’t find any quality beer in Hong Kong, he wanted to go beyond the small expat market, which was driving demand at the time, and create true Hong Kong beers.
• He began his craft beer journey by teaming up with a few beer-obsessed partners and opened TAP - The Ale Project in 2014 in Mong Kok
• Young Master’s projects pushed Hong Kong’s craft beer market forward—not just in terms of availability, but also variety 
• Young Master releases a new beer in its experimental ‘Days of Being Wild’ series every few months. Instead of using wild yeast and traditional spices, the brewers reach for locally sourced yeast that is typically sour and funky. 
• Famous flavour: citrus. Took inspiration from a local salted- line soda drink. 
• Usually name their beer with unique names that describes the taste of the beer 
• "We feel it’s part of our responsibility to showcase the many things that beer can be."   
• Promoting the variates of beer flavours 
• Experimented with different kinds of yeasts to create different flavours 
• Many breweries stress on the idea of experimentation is the key to creating exceptionally unique-tasting beers. 

https://www.timeout.com/hong-kong/bars-and-pubs/the-rise-of-hong-kongs-craft-beer-scene 

• create beers drawing on Hong Kong’s heritage; unique to our city and not another arbitrary, culturally agnostic product. 
• “Half my customers are expats but the other half are locals, half male and half female, who had never heard of homebrewing. It’s a new hobby for them,”
• “Temperature control is tough here. The water is really soft in Hong Kong, which means I can’t make the same kind of IPA as I could in LA… but that’s part of the fun,” 
• The taste of local craft beer reflects the temperature of Hong Kong, each flavour represents the outcome of different local found yeast and the humid weather in Hong Kong. 

Due to the rise of the local craft beer industry, a lot of different breweries has their own statement piece. 

• Citibrew, famous for their This City is Shining Earl Grey Porter 
• Double Haven Brewing, famous for their Dragon Water Spiked Seltzers

—————

As Korea has also won a lot of awards in the competition, I briefly looked at their packaging design.

 

• After looking into their local craft beer packaging designs. It is discovered that one of their famous craft beer brands, ARK, likes to use tiger as their main asset of their designs. 

• The tiger is strongly associated with Korean culture and is seen as representative to the identity of Koreans. 
• symbol of strength and power and often seen as the guardian spirit and protector of the Korean people. 
• Tigers are often featured in many Korean folktales and stories.
• This reflects that culture and history is used as their main design direction. 
• As local small and independent beer breweries are considered as “craft beer breweries”, being "local" is one if the biggest characteristics of craft beers. Therefore, using a significant icon and branding direction that represents their country would best represent a local craft beer brewery. 

Local craft beer branding and packaging designs in Hong Kong

Foam Beer Brewery  

• Famous for their eye catching packaging designs that attract people from purchasing  
• Takes inspiration from traditional Chinese snack packaging 

Gweilo   

• Name taken from a saying in Hong Kong “gwai lo Leung cha” which means “westerners’ herbal tea”.
• As westerners has an image of beer lovers, “gwai lo Leung cha” refers to “beer”.
• Is it known for the unique sourness in their beer
• They went for a clean and simple direction for their branding, makes their packaging easy to read and recognisable, also timeless. 
• Using black as their permanent background colour and neon coloured words as the foreground. Clean and neat, yet gives off a modern and playful vibe. It matched with their introduction, being easy to drink and fun to share. 

Oh! CBD Beer HK 

• Hong Kong has been taking smaller steps towards popularising CBD products, as edibles such as CBD coffees are starting to become popular in lifestyle cafés such as Winston’s Coffee, Elixir and Elephant Grounds .
• First CBD beer in Hong Kong which entered the market in early 2020. 
• Having a trippy branding that represents “weed”, as CBD is is one of the components in weed, and weed has a common impression of “getting high”. 
• As CBD is newly introduced to majority of Hong Kong people, it reflects the majority’s misconception towards CBD 
• While CBD is the relaxing component in weed that soothes people’s anxiety, many people mistaken it into something that makes people excited and high. 

Young Master Brewery 

• The first ever local craft beer brewery 
• Has a significant branding with their red pants logo 
• The pair of pants and. The slip ons reminds me of Bruce Lee, Hong Kong’s kung fu icon’s iconic outfit, but in red 
• Uses a traditional icon, but adding a little tweak by changing the colour. Recreating and modernising the old and vintage vibe. This corresponds to their image of being the OG amongst the local craft beer industry, yet still could fit in well in contemporary field. 
• Also symbolises a large variety of audience. 
• The logo changes colour according to different flavours’ on their packaging 
• flexible and adaptive 

YAU

• Significant logo with all products having their logo printed at the centre
• Bright colours used in their branding mainly blue and pink as main colours to create a strong contrast that is catchy 
• With bold graphics and illustrations on their website as wells the neck of their beer bottles 
• Gives a raw and playful feeling, a young and energetic vibe, targeting younger audience 
• ““YAU” proudly represents the Hong Kong spirit of friendship and community, brewing three craft beer flavors with local ingredients. We also collaborated with the local design trio BrainRental Lab for packaging design, creatively showcasing Hong Kong's unique culture. We will continue our commitment to supporting local creatives.”
• Being collaborative and supports the local creative industry  

Thoughts

• Idea1: Rebranding oh!cbd
• oh!cbd is quite itneresting to me as I think the branding  kind of reflects people's misunderstandings towards CBD.