Craft beer brewery Stone Brewing opens first Asia outpost

Located in a charming old warehouse that used to be occupied by one of China's most prominent pharmaceutical companies, the Stone Brewing bar and restaurant in a quiet neighborhood in western Shanghai is the brand's first outpost in Asia and a demonstration of how far an independent brewery can go despite not being backed by major parent companies.

The brewery's facility in the city is equipped with a state-of-the-art tap control panel, the first in Asia, that allows for the calibration of carbon dioxide and nitrogen mixes so that the beers taste exactly as they should. The brewery has also developed an uninterrupted cold chain delivery system that would allow it to transport its beers to China at a consistent temperature that ranges between 2 and 8 C.

Stone Brewing's co-founder Greg Koch is well-known in the beer industry for his refusal to sell out to "Big Beer" entities. In fact, Stone Brewing even set up True Craft, a $100 million craft beer angel investor, in 2016 to help small breweries with funding so that they do not have to give up majority ownership to grow.