There are some great brewers in China including my good friends Slava Aleinik and TJ Weber who own Daybreak Brewing (Shenzhen) in the South of China. A lot of commercial brewers in China started out in homebrewing, and these guys weren’t an exception.

They met through Shenzhen homebrewers club. It’s similar to the 90’s in the US in this regard. For example, Great Leap Brewing of Beijing and Humdinger in Kunming were both started by homebrewers.

There’s a thriving homebrewing scene in the Shenzhen. Who communicate primarily through a WeChat group. There are similar ones in other cities like Shanghai too.

These groups discuss how to access raw materials, share tips and tricks on how to make beer. As well as meet up for bottle sharing session.

Where as a group, they can pinpoint flaws and trying to find solutions on how to make those brews better.  There’s a comradery in homebrewing communities across China.

As it’s still a very niche pastime with these groups acting as communities to lift each other up, encourage and make everyone feel included.

How Did Daybreak Brewing Come Together

Back in the day Slava had a small bar. If you know the city it was near the Mission Hills golf club in the north part of Shenzhen. There he was brewing beer for sale over the bar.

Some of those recipes later became Daybreak’s core beers. For example, Bumblebee American pale ale (APA) and a coconut milk stout.

TJ whilst in China also spent some time brewing a Bear Pond Brewing in Wuxi with another good friend of mine Derek. He is known in the expat brewing community in China.

The two guys met at one of these home-brewers meetups. It was actually a small competition, everyone tried to make a Punk IPA clone (Brewdog). They bonded over beers and soon became good friends.

Why The Name Daybreak Brewing?

The bar mentioned above was not originally designed to be a brewery. As the electrical supply wasn’t great.

Slava wasn’t able to brew during normal business hours otherwise he’d caused a blackout on the whole street (lol).

So, he had to brew before all the neighbored businesses turned on the air-con and fired up their kitchens.

This meant Slava would start his brew days slightly before the sunrise.

It may sound troublesome to most. However, for our committed brewer it soon became a habit to enjoy the moment of daybreak after mashing the grains in.

One of regulars of his bar once referred to Slava as “The Daybreak Brewer”. The name stuck and it felt natural to call the brewery such.

Growing Pains and Overcoming Adversity

Eventually Slava’s small setup wasn’t enough to cover the bar needs and he started to look for other solutions. While visiting one of the places that provided contract brewing service. TJ and Slava saw a 500-liter brew kit collecting dust in backyard of the facility.

This encouraged the fellas to think bigger. If they wanted to grow and “go pro” this old kit could well be the solution to make their dream a reality.

It could be bought on a budget and get them started. Still, they had to spend some time wrangling the kit to fit their needs. Dedication and sweat were never in question and they were able to officially launch Daybreak Brewing in September 2021.

Expanding The Brewery and Finding Customers

Opening a production brewery in China is infinitely harder than opening a brewpub. Getting those licenses can be tough. I’ve known people fail at this early stage.

The guys had a workaround which would help them get up running and quicker, cut through a lot of the red tape plus, save a ton of money.

They rented a space in another brewery to house their equipment. This allowed them to brew beer under the license of the host brewery.

What this meant was they had a commercial brewing system AND were legally able to sell beers to bars and customers…they were on a roll.

The Ethos of Daybreak Brewing

Slava and TJ have simple concepts when it comes to the beers, they brew…

Believing in brewing classic styles, although with the occasional twist. Their heavy peated lager for example is an experimental beer which became a core.

Daybreak’s current range included a NEIPA, West Coast IPA, APA, the coconut milk stout we mentioned earlier and “Hatredcopter” a west coast pilsner.

My Favorite Daybreak Beer

My personal favorite is the classic Czech pilsner which was the brainchild of Slava. Most pilsners in China are low IBU (bitterness). So, not true to the style.

However, Daybreak pilsner is 40 IBU’s of pure angels dancing on your tongue. It’s clean, but with smooth maltiness which rounds off well. It balances the bitterness for a truly crushable beer.

It’s really in-keeping with their “beer-flavored-beer” ethos. When some other craft breweries in China try to make beer which doesn’t taste like beer. With fruited sours and milkshake IPA’s.

I wanted to showcase Daybreak Brewing because I love their concepts. The dedication to making classic styles using quality ingredients to make these beers sing.

Their beers are simply tasty having you coming back for more. You can drink Daybreak beers all over Guangdong, Dali (where they have a small taproom), Beijing and Changchun.

Daybreak are one of my favorite breweries in China and if you ever get a chance to drink their beers…please do, as you’ll be happy you did.