United by Beer

I think it’s a good start to talk about how Ben Cui and I met. I was at a local bar where one of my co-workers was playing a live-looping concert.

I like bitterness, but seeing as craft beer is few and far between here in China, I was drinking a Brooklyn Brewery IPA. When I was finished, I wanted another, but the bartender told me someone else got the last one pointing to a Chinese guy sitting in the corner of the bar.

I was pretty buzzed, so I worked up the courage to talk to him about my disappointment. What was intended to be friendly banter about beer, turned into a whole conversation about brewing. I quickly learned that he, like me, brewed beer. Even though my drinking Chinese is better than my sober Chinese, it was an interesting blend of language where specific vocabulary regarding beer terms, required a switch to English. I started understanding that even the Chinese did the same.

What’s even more interesting is that many English brewing terms are derived from German. Our conversation was an amalgamation of Chinese, English, and German, and I loved it.

What I loved even more is that beer led me to meet my first local friend.