E-Malt.com News article: UK & Hong Kong: Welsh brewery to export its beer to Hong Kong for the first time

A Welsh brewery is making inroads in China with its much-admired stout, Wales Online reported on January 9.

Sam Tam, a director of Trafalgar, a large bar in Hong Kong’s metropolitan Wan Chai district, is thought to have become the first person to strike a deal with Cardiff’s Brains brewery to get Brains Black anywhere outside Wales.

Drinkers in Hong Kong will soon get the chance to compare it to Guinness, one of the most popular drinks among beer-lovers in Hong Kong.

When Brains Black was launched in 2010, Brains hoped it would provide an alternative to Guinness, the market leader in the stout world.

Richard Davies, Brains’ sales and marketing director, said: “From early research we found there to be a real passion for a Welsh stout that could be offered as an alternative to the market leader.”

At the launch of Brains Black, Brains invited former Welsh rugby player Rob Jones and former Ireland international Simon Easterby to a blind taste test between the Welsh beer and Guinness.

The Welshman guessed the Brains beer correctly but the Irishman struggled to tell the difference between the Welsh and Irish beers.

The Welsh stout also performed well against Guinness in taste tests with consumers.

Now, the Trafalgar Bar, based on the North Shore of Hong Kong Island, is to offer regulars and holidaymakers Guinness – Brains Black taste tests in the run-up to St Patrick’s Day in March this year.

Rob McGovern, from Cwmbran, a senior journalist on Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post newspaper, has written about the arrival of the Welsh beer in China.

He said: “Linking the drink to St Patrick’s Day is a marketing coup of the highest order and you must doff a ginger-wig-fringed hat to drinks giant Diageo, the owner of Guinness, for the way that it has made Ireland and Irishness synonymous with its product. But if Welsh brewer Brains has its way, Wales will soon be synonymous with its brew, Brains Black, which is now coming to Hong Kong.

“Perhaps if the beer is as successful as its Irish counterpart, it will prompt the creation of its own Welsh, stereotype-laden festival here to rival the St Patrick’s Day festivities.”

The South China Morning Post organised its own blind taste test this week between Guinness and Brains Black involving Welshsman McGovern and beer afficionados from England and Ireland.

McGovern said: “Our panel was split on the first beer tasted. To the Irish taster the stout seemed like Guinness from a can rather than draught. The difference in flavours made the tasters doubt the brewery was aiming to produce an exact Guinness clone. The beer could become a popular alternative here, helped by the fact it will be slightly cheaper than Guinness.”


10 January, 2014