The Deep Dish: Find the Significant Other for Your Pizza With Beers From Drinking Buddies

The Beijingers | Sep 11, 2017 1:30 pm | Add a comment | 1012 reads

In the lead up to our September 16-17 Pizza Fest in Wangjing Soho, The Deep Dish will be previewing a few of the restaurants that you can expect to see slinging their thick, gooey, and tomatoey slabs of doughy goodness. Now that you're hot and dribbling, let's go!

Life comes in pairs regardless of which side of the world you are looking at. Day takes the night, summer is complemented by winter, and our pizza dreams are not complete without the help of a good brew. To save us all from generic RMB 5 lagers, Drinking Buddies (check out the blog about them here) are bringing their majestic selection of unfiltered and unpasteurized beers to accompany your pie. They focus on imported brews from around the world, distributing them to stores around Beijing (and China) or through a subscription service, for which a new selection of beers is delivered right to your door every month (I sense trouble). If finding new breweries is your version of a treasure hunt, head down to their stall (no clutch bags! How else are you going to have a slice of pizza in one hand and a craft brew in the other?) at this weekend's Pizza Fest.

One of the co-founders, Jennytha Raj, said that Drinking Buddies are now impatiently waiting for a new batch from Italy that will prove that it's a country for beer as much as one for wine. With the National Day holiday coming up, Drinking Buddies are compiling boxes with beers from China (that will, for sure, not include Snow Beer). Part of a special promotion, the next 3 members who sign up will receive a free t-shirt from Jing-A, along with some other goodies. Jennytha told us more about what to expect from our new Buddies at the Pizza Fest and beyond.

TBJ: Drinking Buddies provides customers with products that cannot be found in a number of stores in Beijing. How was the idea born?
Jennytha: We specialize in importing small-batch, unique craft beers from around the world. They all come from super small, independent breweries that haven't exported to China before (some have never even exported at all). We help these breweries introduce their beers into China for the first time, buying directly from the breweries themselves.

At the same time, we do this for our Drinking Buddies here to be able to try beers from all over, discover new styles and characteristics, learn about new breweries, and simply just be able to drink some really great beer from around the world. We also try to educate in beer as much as possible along the way. We do this through our monthly beer discovery club and subscription boxes.

I actually grew up here, way back when ... before all the microbreweries cropped up and there were never any quality or unusual alcohol options to choose from, so this idea or some form of it had always been simmering. Too often you find the same selections everywhere or falsely premium options, and after going back to London, I was so used to having too much choice; quality options and an abundance of new beers to discover everywhere (and spirits, and wines and everything else!), that I felt that experience and availability should be here too!

Then, back in November 2015, there seemed to be a growing demand for craft beer, spurred on by Xi Jinping's visit to the UK – and it seemed about the right time to take action on the idea!

TBJ: What's your favorite beer or kind of beer?
J: Ooh, this is a tough question. Probably Black IPAs, but I just spent all summer drinking sour beers abroad and really enjoyed them!

TBJ: Any best-sellers and or particularly strange beers in your stock?
J: From our last import, the 8 Degrees Nomad (an IPL) has been really popular. Really tropical on the nose with a nice hop-punch finish. Cousin Rosie (a pale) from McGargles has also sold very well. A malt-forward pale; balanced malt sweetness against bitterness making it highly drinkable. The brewery just won a really prestigious award so we're super chuffed to have them here! We also like taking Cousin Rosie places (pictured above).

Maybe the strangest for China has been the Tickety Brew range from our first import – the unusual yeast was a bit too 'out there.'

TBJ: What's your ideal pairing of beer and pizza?
J: A really good Margherita and a really good unfiltered lager. You can judge a restaurant or pizzeria by how well they make their Margherita. It's the same with a lager! Both are the hardest to make!

Drinking Buddies will be bringing their bestseller Nomad IPL together with Little Fawn (Session IPA), Fionnabhair (Irish wheat), Uncle Jim (Stout), and a few others to Pizza Fest. The names will surely mean more once you've tasted them and chosen your favorites.