Great Leap Brewing is where Beijing's craft beer story begins. Before it opened in 2010, the city had no craft breweries at all. It was founded by two Americans, Carl Setzer and Dane Vanden Berg, in a courtyard brewpub hidden in Doujiao Hutong, one of Beijing's old alleyways. Its name plays on the Great Leap Forward of the Mao era.
From the beginning, Great Leap set out to brew beers with a Chinese identity, using local ingredients: Sichuan peppercorns, honey from an apiary near the Great Wall, oolong tea from Fujian and hops grown in Qingdao. Its success helped turn Beijing into the incubator of China's craft beer scene.