If you drink beer and live in Beijing, we’re willing to bet you’ve tried a pint of Great Leap. If you don’t drink beer and live in Beijing, we’re willing to bet you’ve at least been to one of their two bars, and perhaps been glared at for ordering a soda.
The point is: since opening in 2010, many Great Leap pints have been drunk and a great many words have been printed about them (not least on this site). The brand’s evolution from hutong homebrew hobby to Beijing drinking institution is the fairytale food and drink success story. So as a third location on Xinyuan Jie opens, what more is there to say? Well, they’ve just started making pizzas. Crisp, fresh, topping-laden and – we can safely say after tasting – downright triumphant ones. And luckily for these pages, there’s a story to tell.
The Little Nunzio, with spicy sausage, chili and fresh basil
“We wanted to do something new for the menu at the third bar and Carl [Setzer, Great Leap co-founder] and I decided on pizza,” reveals Kin Hong, the man in charge of Great Leap’s menus and the brains behind the Taco Bar. “The most important thing about food at Great Leap is that it pairs with the beer – it never outshines it, so to speak. I love [Chicago-style] pan pizza, which is cooked in butter and cheese, but when we experimented it didn’t work with the beer. We made the call that we would need to go to the states and find real New York pizza – which you can’t get in Beijing – with that crispy dough. That cracker-like crunch makes me want to drink the beer.”
Kin and Carl set off stateside but never actually made it to New York. The quest to find their dream pizza ended at the very first restaurant they visited, Pizza Brain. Located in Philadelphia, it houses a small pizza museum and holds the Guinness World Record for owning the most pizza-related memorabilia. Kin explains: “When we sat down we were like, wow: this place is crazy, it’s mad hipster – everyone’s high. I took one bite of their pizza and said: ‘This is it, we found it. The cheese, the base…’ it was exactly what I was looking for.” Luckily for them, Pizza Brain’s owner backed their cause. He introduced them to his craft-beer-loving chef, Daniel Gutter, who offered to share the techniques needed for the ultimate crust.
"Mad hipster." Daniel, left, and Kin outside the new digs at #45; photo by Noemi Cassanelli
“Kin and I hit it off right away,” says Gutter – as he is known to friends. “So next thing I know we’re in the Pizza Brain kitchen learning the art of making dough. Most people think with pizza dough you just throw the flour together, but you need to have proper waiting times in between mixing stages. It’s a process that’s like making bread in a bakery.” So did he need much persuading to travel with them back to Beijing? “I kind of mentioned going to China as a joke, but Kin was like: yep, let’s do this!”
Back in China, work began on the perfect pie to complement the brewery’s liquid selection. Kin breaks it down: “It needed to be crunchy, salty, fatty: all of the things that make us love to drink and all the things we love to eat when we are drunk. In terms of the toppings we really wanted to stick with the approach of Great Leap #12. I don’t want fusion just for the sake of having fusion. We use local ingredients to mimic the flavors of America. We’ve got the classics: pepperoni, cheese, sausage, peppers. Then the ‘new age America’: the veggie one has kale and zucchini, there’s chicken and pesto, and mushroom and ricotta.”
Putting the finishing touches to a pizza; photo courtesy of Great Leap
So is it ‘craft pizza’? As is the case with Great Leap’s beer, Kin tells us, it’s a balance between the art and the science of making a great product. Gutter persuaded Kin to get a deck oven, for example, which uses heat from two inches of slate stone when cooking. It’s a huge piece of apparatus and the first of its kind to be imported to China.
“Then they literally are hand-crafted,” Kin follows up. “No two pizzas will ever be the same, because of the way it’s stretched, the humidity and the temperature. It’s the perfect pairing to the amount of work needed for the beer, in terms of time, technique and attention to detail – as well as with the actual beer itself. It doesn’t leave you with a stomach full of dough so you can have a few slices and leave room for beers.”
So was the voyage worth it? Go judge for yourself. Our verdict – even as self-professed Italian pizza snobs – Great Leap’s are definitely up there with the best in Beijing.
Great Leap Brewing #45 (click here for listings information)
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