When I moved to Shanghai in 2011, I had left a bustling homebrew community in Seoul, South Korea. Many of the people in that club now run bars and breweries in Seoul, too. So, when I moved to Shanghai and saw that there was almost no hombrew community, some friends and I banded together to try to offer as much information as possible to the Middle Kingdom. Thats when myself, and two friends started HomebrewShanghai.com While we never had an official meeting, we did have a message board that expats around China used to try to coordinate the acquisition of supplies.
At its height, HomebrewShanghai.com was linked by an article in the Wall Street Journal on homebrewing in Asia.
After I left China in late 2013, I let the domain expire and it was used by a number of domain squatters and even a Chinese beer site. However, it looks like its previous owners also let it expire, and I jumped on the opportunity to reclaim it.
In the time that that I let the domain expire, I republished a number of articles authored by myself on this blog so people can still take advantage of the info. Much of the original content was lost.
However, now that I’ve reclaimed the domain, I still want people to be able to use the information I initially provided. There’s only about three articles published now, but I plan on using Archive.org’s Wayback Machine to bring back the articles written by my friends Danny and Jesse.
You can view the few existing articles here.
I got your contact information from a home brew site listing you as a contact for a home brew club in China.
Who are we? Min Wang was trained a a doctor in China until immigrating to the US 14 years ago. I am an entrepreneur, academic and lawyer. More about me on WIKIPEDIA. Min and I started a small business in the Spring of 2017 offering an INGREDIENT KIT for home brewers comprising hops, malt, yeast and sugar for brewing 5 gallons.
We named it the QUADFECTA. This package will be available online on EBAY starting July 15 followed by a listing on Craig’s List, AMAZON, then our own online site. We believe it is the LOWEST COST ingredient package. It is offered at $29.95 plus shipping.
We live in Idaho. Idaho is the 3rd largest producer of HOPS and the second largest producer of MALTED BARLEY in the UNITED STATES. We live near these hop and barley farms. We have met the farmers. We saw the crops growing. We saw the crops being harvested, then processed. We saw the packaging, then the cold storage. The hops we sell have been in cold storage since they were processed and within days of being harvested. The malt farm has been in the family for over 60 years. These farmers are our exclusive suppliers.
Initially, we will focus on the HOME BREWER market in the US for these products. Most hops sold to home brewers do not carry the YEAR of harvest even though we all know that hops degrade over time. A 2013 hop is only worth about half of the current years’ crop. We only offer the current years’ crop.
We have acquired a few pounds of 2016 hops. We intend to test our marketing strategy on line with these until the 2017 crop becomes available in September or October 2017.
Meanwhile…Once the marketing strategy is validated in the US, we intend this offering to migrate online to the Chinese home brew market.
That’s why we are writing you. We seek a collaboration with an existing Chinese based home brewer who can introduce us to other home brew clubs and the broader Chinese home brew market.
Min and I attended the 3rd Annual Beijing Craft Beer Festival in March of this year and we plan to return to China before the end of the year to promote this new business. More about our company at http://www.boisepaloalto.com
Regards
RJ Twilegar