In a blow to Hong Kong’s biggest annual craft beer festival, the majority of the city’s craft breweries have opted not to participate in this year’s seventh edition of Beertopia, citing increased costs and a shift to a more commercial ethos among reasons for the decision.
The Hong Kong Brewers’ Guild revealed yesterday that 12 breweries — including prominent names such as Young Masters Ales, Moonzen Brewery, Gwei.lo and Yardley Brothers — would boycott the event, an announcement that comes six weeks out from the start of the two-day festival at the Central Habourfront.
“Beertopia has previously been one of the calendar highlights for local Hong Kong breweries… However, the increased cost of the event to Hong Kong’s craft breweries would necessitate exceedingly high prices for end customers,” reads the announcement posted on Facebook.
“Collectively, the Guild feels that the ethos of Beertopia has shifted away from its original focus on the enjoyment and promotion of craft beer. Whereas large international producers can afford the newly raised event costs by serving industrial-scale beer, local Hong Kong brewers have no financially viable way to participate in Beertopia.”
Speaking with Coconuts HK, one of the guilds’ members, Rohit Dugar, founder of Young Master Ales, said the group agreed about a month ago to forgo the festival, which has been run since 2012 and last year drew 12,500 attendees.
He said it was decided to release a statement this week, as marketing for the event had not made it clear the majority of local breweries had cut ties.
After a 50 percent spike in booth fees, Dugar said participating had become “economically prohibitive” for many local breweries, while many felt the festival was becoming “a little bit more commercial.”
He said the guild had approached organizers to find a solution, and had been willing to absorb the increase if the festival lowered ticket prices, but found them unwilling to bend.
“For most of us, it’s not supposed to be a profit-making event anyway, we want to share our work with consumers. The problem is essentially that consumers coming to the event will have to spend a lot of money and it would restrict the target audience to quite a degree,” Dugar said.
“We felt if they had been flexible about the cost structure, and structured it differently, we could have had a situation where everybody wins… but they decided to pass on all the risk to the vendors… and that’s really not sustainable.”
A significant turning point, he added, came two years ago when organizers raised the commission taken by the festival on beer token sales from 20 to about 40 percent on the last day of the festival, a move he said was “not in the spirit of the festival.”
More specifically, vendors continued receiving HK$10 per token sold after 2016 price increase that saw the cost to attendees jump from HK$12.50 per token (8 for HK$100) to between HK$14.3 and HK$16.6 per token (6 for HK$100 or 14 for HK$200).
“The organizer is collecting the money from all the angles, but ultimately that means that the consumer loses and does not have a quality experience,” Dugar said.
In a response, Beertopia founder Jonathan So told Coconuts Hong Kong that the rise in booth fees was because venue costs had increased by 50 percent — due to both to a rise in the site rental fee and the high cost of booking it in October, rather than September — when last year’s festival was held.
“This is not something we had any decision or flexibility around,” he said in an email.
He said the 2016 rise in token prices was in order to offset lower ticket prices and, that this year, the festival had actually reduced the cost of entry, a consequence of which was the rise in booth rental fees.
“It’s definitely a shame that some of the previous vendors are not participating, but we are very excited about the new local craft breweries from both Hong Kong and Asia joining us this year, many of which are making their debuts in Hong Kong. We hope that message isn’t lost!’
The full list of the boycotting breweries includes Black Kite Brewery, Citi Brew HK, Gwei.lo, Heroes Beer Co, Kowloon Bay Brewery, Lion Rock Brewery, HK Love Craft, Mak’s Beer, Moonzen Brewery, Tai Wai Beer, Yardley Brothers, Young Masters Ales.
Local craft beer outfits with beers still at the festival include Hong Kong Beer Co, Innocence Brewery, Deadman and 24M Co.
So also pointed to Hong Kong Yau, a collaboration between Carlsberg Hong Kong and New York’s Brooklyn Brewery that is brewed in the city.
It’s these types of craft beers, however — ones backed by international brands — that Dugar said were making the festival more commercial, a trend he added was happening in the industry more broadly.
“Beertopia was one event, very unique in Asia, which had small to no presence from the large commercial players. It makes it a little bit more unfortunate that even that event had to go in that direction.”
A few of the breweries participating in Beertopia are backed by international players, including the Australian Beer Co. — a joint venture between Australian winemakers Casella and Coca Cola Amatil, Lithuanian brewery Švyturys — controlled by the Carlsberg Group.
But, rejecting accusations of going commercial, So said the festival’s focus has not changed.
“If you take a look at our beer list on our website, you’ll see what we have this year, including several new breweries in HK and the Asia region. We’ll have close to 300 beers that are all craft actually, which we’re excited for people to try,” he said.
Beertopia will run Oct. 5-6 at the Central Harbourfront.
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