Great Leap Brewing

Beijing, China

Great Leap Brewing operates three brewpubs in Beijing, two in the Dongcheng District and one in the Sanlitun neighborhood of the Chaoyang District. It makes and sells a wide range of beers at those locations, popular both with the city's Western expatriate community and younger Chinese drinkers interested in an alternative product. When it opened in 2010, it was the first microbrewery in Beijing to specialize in craft beers with Chinese ingredients, and the longest-tenured one currently brewing. Founder Carl Setzer and Dane Vanden Berg, another American expatriate working for an information technology company in Beijing at the time, were frustrated by the narrow choice of beers available in the city. With Liu Fang, Setzer's Chinese wife, they began brewing their own in a former siheyuan on a hutong in the city's Nanluoguxiang neighborhood. That location, still open, has been described as "one of the most difficult bars to find in Beijing." Eventually they expanded to two other locations, and began offering a range of up to 40 beers at different times of year, with an infusion of venture capital. Setzer left his job to run Great Leap full-time in 2011. The brewery has focused on using Chinese ingredients in its beers, including Sichuan pepper and Tieguanyin oolong tea, and branding that draws on Chinese history and culture, in a successful effort to attract Chinese consumers looking for an alternative to the country's national brands.