Hong Kong’s biggest craft brewery Gweilo Beer to start production at the end of this month
Founders of start-up that began operating from a spare bedroom in 2015 are about to open a state-of-the-art operation in Fo Tan that can turn out 6,000 cans per hour and allows them to vastly expand their range of beers
The transformation of Hong Kong craft beer company Gweilo Beer, from humble beginnings operating in a spare bedroom to a purpose-built, 1,300-square-metre (14,000-square-foot), US$5 million brewery is almost in the can.
Brewing trials began on February 8 and tests are almost complete on a state-of-the-art, US$1.2 million Italian canning machine, capable of producing 6,000 cans per hour. The facility in Fo Tan, in Hong Kong’s New Territories, will be Hong Kong’s largest craft-beer brewery and one of Asia’s most advanced. Full-scale production is slated to start at the end of this month.
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Moving to its own brewery is necessary because Gweilo – which Ian Jebbitt, 33, co-founded in 2015 with his wife, Emily, 34, and their friend Joe Gould, 35, who are all British – could not meet rising demand at the shared premises it was using.
Ian Jebbitt says: “There’s growing interest in craft beers – beer with no additives or preservatives, made in smaller batches with traceability, and created with a bit of love and passion.”
Since October, brewing equipment from Canada, a bottling machine from Germany capable of producing 3,000 bottles an hour, a centrifuge from Sweden, a custom-made chiller from the US and the Italian canning machine, have been shipped and installed.
