Tapping bigger markets

The 8x8 Brewing Project was initially conceived as a platform for pushing the boundaries of craft beer brewing through collaborations among breweries from around the world; now it has grown into a platform for breweries to develop new markets.

The Chinese craft beer market is still in its early fermentation stage making up less than one percent of the local beer market share, whereas it's about 20 percent in the US, and five to ten percent in Europe and Australia, noted Acker.

"China is kind of the next frontier for craft beer. There's a huge beer drinking market. People like beer here but what they are familiar with are only Yanjing and Tsingtao. The whole craft beer world is looking at China," he explained.

Chinese beer importers have heeded the past two 8x8 Brewing Projects. The beers of past 8x8 players, such as Portland-based Gigantic Brewing and Parallel 49 Brewing from Vancouver, have been introduced to the Chinese market.

This year's participant, Collective Arts Brewing, a Canadian craft brewery famous for fusing arts with the craft of brewing, has released four beers in China with packaging featuring the artworks of four Chinese artists.

Felix Zhang, a craft beer industry insider from New York who plans to open a beer distribution company in China, also attended the event.

He said the beer festival is special and fun compared with other festivals, as it highlights the idea of collaborative brewing.

"Both the culinary and brewing cultures that paired breweries are steeped in are so different, and their collaborations did bear many surprising fruits," Zhang said. "For example, Guangzhou's ET Brewing and its New York partner Graft incorporated the techniques of brewing beer and cider, which impressed me a lot."

The New Yorker said he will surely keep an eye on Chinese craft breweries and look for chances to introduce and promote Chinese craft beer around the world through beer festivals and collaborative brewing. The aim is "to showcase beers of distinct Chinese flavors and integrate Chinese brewers into the world craft beer community."

Yang Xiaoyu contributed to the story.