Craft-beer breweries are enjoying growing demand for their products. Pan Dinghao (left) casts a critical eye over his brewery's output at the Panda Brew in Yiyang, Hunan province. He founded the venture in 2013. (Li Ga / Xinhua)
While more than half of the offerings are from established brands or breweries around the world, the Shanghai outlet has also some local brews, including Master Gao, one of the earliest craft beer brewers in China, based in Nanjing, Jiangsu province.
Gao Yan, founder of Master Gao, estimated that there are upwards of 60 craft beer breweries in China now.
"The oversupply of industrialized beer in China has led the (central) government to adopting a rather strict policy about allowing craft breweries to operate. But still, we have seen a growing number of brewers especially in big cities," said Yin, adding that the quality, though, is still quite low.
Yin noted that the company is planning to open another three taverns in China by 2018, and a second one in Shanghai.
"Shanghai is like the testing ground for food and beverage. If you don't succeed here, you are hardly going to make it elsewhere in China."
Competition has been stiff. Aside from Western restaurants, bars and supermarkets, a local grocery store operated by a Shanghai businesswoman, who has been lovingly nicknamed "Beer Lady" by the expat community, has a whopping collection of 200 types of bottled beer.
But Yin is confident that the market is large enough to have "more beer ladies".
Euromonitor estimated that in 2015, China's high-end beer market, which is mainly dominated by craft beer, increased by 20 percent, but this still accounts for just two percent of the general beer market.
Average beer consumption in China is 34.2 liters per year, slightly higher than the world average of 33 liters. But analysts predict that tastes are about to change with more opting for more refined and expensive beer.
And by 2017, China is likely to overtake the U.S. as the world's largest consumer of beer, according to Euromonitor.
"The way young Chinese people enjoy beer is so different from their parents' generation," Yin said, pointing out that beer is drunk in larger glasses and quantities today.
In fact, young Chinese are not only displaying a growing interest in sipping craft beer, but also brewing their own beer.
Li Wei, president of the Beijing Home Brewing Society, estimated that more than 20 provinces and cities now have their own societies for homebrew lovers, and the number of homebrewers is estimated at more than 10,000, about one-sixth that of the U.S..
