I was already on my fifth craft beer bar in Hong Kong for the evening. I had looked for non-alcoholic beers in Hong Kong for hours but had found none. Some of the bars had remnants or some traces of NA beers but none of them were selling them at the moment.
I had however seen several beers, like Big Drop Pine Trail Pale Ale and Gweilo Alcohol Free Pale Ale, sold in the supermarkets. That’s why my hopes had initially been high but when I arrived at Craftissimo I had almost given up hope. Well, luckily Craftissimo made my day!
One shelf is still one shelf!
At Craftissimo you have several fridges filled with craft beer. Not sure how many different beers there are but more than 200 and a few taps.
At the bottom of one of the fridges, I found a whole shelf of non-alcoholic craft beers. For example, they had the Drinkin’ The Sun from Mikkeller and Fruit Machine from VandeStreek. I had never even heard of Fruit Machine before, so obviously I picked that one.
I chatted to the guy behind the bar a bit and he said non-alcoholic beers had been selling really well during dry January and February. He also said that from now on they will take their NA beer selection a bit more seriously. He is planning to keep that same shelf alcohol free, but rotate the beers that are on it. That sounds fantastic to me!
Outside space in the back
The interior of the place is basic but looks good. It seems like the most popular place to sit is outside in the back of the building. It’s an outside space in an alley without traffic. That is a really nice idea and something I struggled to find in Hong Kong. In the city in general there is always too little space and most of people end up standing outside in the streets. That was actually a feature I liked about Hong Kong. People are just hanging out in the streets outside establishments and it brings a really nice atmosphere to the nightlife.
I chatted with some people the same evening and they said Craftissimo was one of the first craft beer bars in Hong Kong. They possibly started as early as 2013. Another place that has been around for almost as long is HK Brewcraft. It’s not necessarily a normal bar, but a bottle shop and a shop to buy brewing equipment in Hong Kong. It´s still a pretty awesome place and you can drink on the premises. They also had one non alcoholic Hong Kong beer I wrote a review about. Check out my review of No Limits from Hong Kong Beer Co.
Craftissimo is definitely the best bet when you are looking for a bar with non alcoholic beer in Hong Kong. I liked the place and it has a good vibe.