Immortality: a beer created to celebrate Asian Heritage Month

May is Asian Heritage Month and to celebrate Halitube and Good Robot Brewing Company collaborated to make a craft beer to welcome young Asians into the craft beer culture of Halifax.

The young Asian community didn’t really know about local craft beer. They didn’t visit tap houses because they’re often too shy and they encountered barriers of language, culture, and isolation.

We wanted to introduce them to the community, and beer seemed like a good way to do this because people drink beer together, talk over beer and make friends over a beer.

So when Joshua Council, co-founder of Good Robot, reached out to do a community collaboration, we knew we had the answer: An Asian-inspired craft beer.

We invited a group of young Asians to Good Robot Garden Patio to meet with the owners, executive team and brewers. Together we talked about beer and sampled some of the brews produced by Good Robot.

What we discovered is that some Asians don’t share a taste for bitter beer.

Joshua listened, and we agreed on a drink that was less bitter and more fruity. That is when Immortality Peach Seltzer was born. The Good Robot Team got to work and made a batch.

The story of Immortality comes from a famous book from the 16th-century Chinese Ming Dynasty. We learned this in childhood. The Monkey King goes to the King’s orchard, eats the peaches of immortality, and lives forever.

We tailored the beer to this story and designed a beautiful pink beer can which was It was also sold on tap at Good Robot and it in plastic bags which is a common way to sell beer Tsingtao, China, the beer city where I grew up. It was also sold at The Port by NSLC.

I came to Halifax from China in 2015, and in 2019 I graduated from the Screen Arts Program at NSCC. I loved it here. This was my new home. I wanted to make all new Asians feel at home in Halifax so I founded Halitube, a community organization and media group, to connect local Asians with each other and to Halifax.

The best part of the day was the conversations in the beer garden and the friends that were made over the beer.

We also made a film to capture the experience and to celebrate Asian Heritage Month. We have also planned a series of events to bring attention to the contributions of the Asian community in Nova Scotia.