E-Malt.com News article: Hong Kong: Hong Kong Beer Company relaunched by new owners

Hong Kong Beer Company Limited, established in 1995, was acquired in August 2013 by Devin Otto Kimble and Daniel Flores, the founders of Singapore's multiple award-winning Brewerkz Restaurants & Microbreweries. Brewerkz was a pioneer of the local craft beer movement when it opened in 1997 and since that time the Singapore beer industry has grown to nearly a dozen breweries and all but one of them specializes in making craft beer. Looking to be part of the same kind of vibrancy in the local Hong Kong scene, the new owners have re-launched HKBC and put in place a team with over 100 years of craft beer industry experience in Asia and the United States, Menafn reported on March 13.

"For over a decade, Daniel and I have been looking for the right opportunity to enter the Hong Kong market and are thrilled to be part of the great group of craft beer people now involved with this historically significant company," says HKBC co-owner and director Devin Otto Kimble. "We believe Hong Kong's craft beer scene is becoming the most exciting in Asia. A wave of imported craft beers is now washing over the market and a couple of new local microbreweries have opened in recent weeks with several more in the planning stages. Our goal is to transform Hong Kong Beer Co. into a world-class brewery and become a significant part of the rising tide of craft beer in Hong Kong."

Originally called South China Brewing Company when it was established in 1995, the company's name was changed to Hong Kong Beer Co. in 2003. South China Brewing Company was Asia's first packaging craft brewery. Nineteen years later, Hong Kong Beer Co. is still one of only three craft breweries operating in Hong Kong, which has an affluent population of 7.5 million and over 50 million annual tourists, and one of the few in the entire Pearl River Delta, a region with over 60 million inhabitants. For contrast, consider that Portland, Oregon, a city of 600,000, boasts over 50 craft breweries and has earned a reputation as a craft beer mecca.

19 March, 2014