Best craft beer in Hong Kong

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Hong Kong turned our perception of value upside down. While we almost exclusively ate at Michelin recommended restaurants for pocket change, the price of a pint made us wince. Most of those Michelin restaurants did not serve alcohol. I think this made us appreciate the beers we did drink a little bit more. The bars that we did go to all seemed quite modern and full of expats. We generally try to find truly local bars when we are abroad, but it didn’t seem like this was in the culture in Hong Kong. As a result, the majority of the bars we went to seemed to be bars which served craft beer. After spending four days in Hong Kong, these are our choices for the best craft beer bars in Hong Kong.

Before we get to the beers – if you’re looking for decent value, well-located accommodation in Hong Kong, we stayed at Bishop Lei International House right on the cusp of Central, though technically in Mid-Levels. We paid £139/night before cashback for ultra peak time of New Year’s 2023 into 2024, but taking a look now the price is closer to £100/night for non-peak dates. It was fun starting our day descending the escalators into Central!

Carbon Brews was our local and probably my favourite brewery of our Hong Kong trip. It had the best range of craft beers, and the branding and style of the bar was next level. We loved sitting at the stools and looking out of the window. I don’t even want to think about how much we spent here over the course of four days, for not that much beer. They do have a happy hour from 4pm to 7pm for 20% off though, which softened a couple of the blows.

Ho Lan Jeng was also near our hotel. It is a bit tricky to find, as it’s up an elevator with no signage on the ground floor. You have to walk through what feels like an apartment lobby to get up the stairs. Once you walk in, it’s a sleek and modern craft beer bar full of young locals. They have with a modern Cantonese food menu with lots of Western influence. We opted for some fried chicken and pale ales.

Unlike the rest of the bars we visited which we sought out, Bound was an accidental discovery. We went for a late lunch at Keung Kee in Kowloon only to discover we missed the boat and had to wait until they re-opened for dinner. We spent those couple of hours at Bound. It had a really local Hong Kong vibe, only a couple of local craft beers on tap, and a huge fridge of international bottles. A dawn til dusk type of place, it serves coffee and cocktails too. It felt like the most local bar we visited on the trip, and would definitely recommend it.

Kowloon Taproom and Soho Taproom are two bars under the same ownership in different neighbourhoods. They each had a good selection of local craft beers brewed in Hong Kong. They each had one of my favourite seating arrangements to enjoy in a new city – a bar overlooking an open window into the street. 

Young Masters is a brewery with a few craft beer taprooms across Hong Kong. All of them are self-described as ‘convivial’ (I don’t know why I find this so amusing). We went to The Ale Project Tap while we were there. They had some very mass appeal headline beers of their own, which were all discounted by 20% for happy hour, as well as a wide range of guest taps, too.

Blaze Craft is a craft beer bar in the very thick of downtown Central Hong Kong. While the range of beers here wasn’t our favourite, it was a cool little spot to hang out for a few beers. They did however have our favourite happy hour deal in town which was hard to mess with. Buy one get one (almost) free on Sundays. 

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