About Arrow Factory
In 2006, Will and his wife opened the Vineyard Café in Beijing's Wudaoying Hutong, serving home-cooked European food, wine, and beer. At the time, the beer available in China was limited, and while they did their best to source British ales and some of the emerging American craft beers, the selection remained small and inconsistent. As someone who enjoyed good beer and wanted to offer more interesting choices to his customers, Will became increasingly frustrated by the lack of variety available.
This frustration sparked a curiosity about brewing beer himself. He began researching how beer was made and exploring whether it would be possible to create the styles of beer he wanted to drink and serve.
In those days, brewing equipment and ingredients were almost impossible to find in China. There were no specialist retailers, so building a brewing system and sourcing malt and hops required a great deal of improvisation and persistence. Eventually, he assembled a rudimentary setup and began making beer.
By then, Will had also opened Stuff'd, a craft sausage restaurant around the corner in Arrow Factory Hutong. In a small back room, he started brewing 140-litre batches, fermenting the beer in white plastic buckets, controlling temperatures with modified refrigerators, and cold-conditioning the finished beer in a walk-in cold room.
The beer was named after the street where it was brewed: Arrow Factory Hutong. The hutong earned its name because candidates sitting the Imperial Examinations would come there to practice archery and unwind between exams.
As demand grew, Arrow Factory Brewing outgrew its humble beginnings. In late 2014, the brewery installed a professional brewing system at Charcoal, complete with twelve 1,000-litre fermenters. The original brewing space was transformed into a hutong taproom, while Arrow Factory opened its first pub on the Liangma River, serving its own beers alongside classic British pub fare.
What began as a small experimental project in a hutong back room became one of Beijing's pioneering craft breweries, helping introduce a new generation of drinkers to locally brewed craft beer.
