I’ve written about many customers; this time, let’s talk about a brewmaster.
At my bar, the brewmaster sat absorbed in his beer. Two new customers, a man and a woman, entered and sat beside him. The man had dyed blonde hair, the woman purple. As soon as they sat down, they asked me for recommendations.
I pointed to the blackboard behind me. It listed our bar’s top ten craft beers, updated daily.
“How about the one at the top?” I suggested. The top one was the CALVIN Blanket. CALVIN is the brand name, offering sixteen types of beer. Blanket, a Monk Fruit flavoured IPA, was in vogue.
“Why is it called ‘Blanket’?” asked the woman with purple hair, her tone reminiscent of a strict school disciplinarian.
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
The blonde man joked, “Running a bar and not knowing what you sell?”
“Just like governments unaware of the plight of the people. Such things are not uncommon. Do you like politics?”
With a glimmer of annoyance in their eyes, their mood for confrontation deflated. Instead they ordered two Blankets, retreating back to their own world. Meanwhile, the brewmaster maintained his silent vigil over his beer.
“Sorry, I didn’t recommend your beer,” I said.
“No problem.”
His beer was ranked second.
Matt was forty-two that year. He had been brewing since he was eighteen—a journey of twenty-four years. Six years ago, he established his own brewery, named “Home,” producing only one beer, also called “Home,” affectionately known as “Home Home.” During my time at the bar, Home Home had always been a solid second in the rankings. CALVIN Blanket jumped from third to first, then dropped to eighth. THE SUN Ale shot to the top as soon as it was listed, only to vanish within a week. Yet Home Home remained at second, neither advancing nor retreating.
Every two months, Matt would visit the bar, inquire about business, and then order a Home Home. He would lean over the table, staring at it as if it were a Hollywood blockbuster.
“The speed of the bubbles rising to the surface,” he said. “That decides if the beer is crispy.”
“Can’t you just watch it at home?”
“No, it’s not the same. The way beer is transported from the brewery to your place and to my home, the time it takes, the process it undergoes—all these factors affect the quality of the bubbles.”
Matt’s philosophy of brewing boiled down to one word: stability. Other brewers weren’t like that; they mostly revelled in uncertainty, enjoying the addition of fruit peels, coffee beans, dried plums—creating all kinds of quirky and exotic beers. Home Home ignored these competitors, indifferent to time, its goal being to remain consistent.
A decade of consistency in craft beer—was it any different from industrial beer like San Miguel or Carlsberg? Some might wonder. Such remarks were an affront to Matt. Indeed, industrial beers are stable. The Carlsberg you open today tastes the same as one opened ten years ago. But this is because industrial beers use additives to suppress all variables, a kind of papering over cracks. Craft beers have no additives; their pursuit of natural stability relies on craftsmanship.
Don’t think stability in taste means stability in process. Malt, hops, yeast, water—all are natural elements. Each batch of ingredients inevitably has differences. And beer is fickle; the smallest variation can lead to a significantly different brew. Achieving the same taste with different materials requires constant adjustments in the brewing process. That was where Matt’s skill lay. Upon receiving a batch of ingredients, he would assess whether they were raw or ripe, moist or dry, pure or impure. Factoring in the season and weather, he would meticulously tweak the brewing process based on his experience and theory to accurately recreate the target flavour.
Matt’s quest for unchanging consistency in his brewing was a dance of adaptation: not by maintaining static responses in a dynamic world, but by embracing change to achieve constancy.
It’s commonly said that just as the craft beer is, so is the brewer. I believe that. Matt had two girlfriends in his life. The first found him dull and boring, forever dining at the same restaurant; she left him after six months. The second accused him of lacking ambition, saying Matt’s refusal to expand his business to the mainland was due to a fear of investment risks; she stayed one month longer. They didn’t understand that, for someone like Matt, stepping from the solitary universe of one to the shared world of two was a monumental leap, demanding immense resolve; thus, any failure would be brutally painful.
All these were tales of the past.
“Anyway, I’m in my forties. Before you know it, it’ll be fifty, then sixty…” he said.
“Don’t you want to settle down?” I asked, placing a plate of freshly fried chips in front of him.
“A little.”
“How about trying to make a new beer?”
“That’s not for me to decide.”
“You don’t have a boss, nor investors.”
“But I have customers, customers with whom I’ve built relationships over many years,” he said. “Flavour, you see, is a sensation.”
“Hmm.”
“Sensation is tightly bound to experience. So when you sip a beer, you’re not just tasting the beer itself, but a string of memories associated with that sip. No matter how the world changes, how past memories become unreachable, drinking my beer can transport you back to the same time and place. This is my promise to my customers, not to be broken lightly. Like a promise to a woman, to love her for a lifetime, changing your heart is not a matter of your own volition.”
“Another customer once told me something different. He said life is fleeting, and one should embrace new experiences while they can…”
“Life is fleeting, indeed.”
“That’s what he said.”
Matt drained his glass. “Life is fleeting, whether you make a thousand types of beer or just one. Since it’s all a fleeting life, why not just make one type of beer?”
I refilled his glass, with Home Home, of course.
Two years ago, I moved to Tokyo, and since then, Matt and I lost touch. Occasionally, he drifts into my thoughts, leaving me to wonder how he is doing. Yet, that’s how it is in the internet age: Sometimes you suddenly remember someone, curious about their lives, but you don’t find out.
Three months ago, I returned to Hong Kong for some business. Each time I go back to Hong Kong, it seems different. And so is the list of best-selling craft beers on the blackboard, which is, as usual, constantly changing. The CALVIN I once recommended was nowhere to be found. Not just the CALVIN Blanket beer, but the entire brand had vanished, closed down or sold off, I couldn’t tell.
But the second place remained.
Home Home, by Matt the Brewmaster. My old colleagues said he still visits the bar every two months, and I am telling you: He still doesn’t have a girlfriend.