A New Zealand designer has created a craft-brewing destination in downtown Beijing, Oh Yeah Brewing. Ten years ago, Hannah Churchill moved to Shanghai to build her own independent projects after working at one of New Zealand’s top architecture firms. A year later, she founded Hcreates, an interior design and consulting studio, which is now undertaking projects across Asia, especially in China. Since then, Churchill has completed more than 100 creative works inspired by different cultures
t cultures and communities she has travelled to.
Hcreates is known in Shanghai for specialising in designing contemporary restaurants and bars, including Liquid Laundry, Boxing Cat Brewery, Little Creatures and Osteria De Gemma, along with workspaces, retail stores and yoga studios. Last year, the company was chosen for the new craft brew project, Oh Yeah Brewing, recently completed.
Located in the heart of Beijing’s CBD precinct Guo Mao, Oh Yeah Brewing Beijing occupies an 1115sqm area which formerly housed an aviation-parts factory. A large crisp stainless-steel box is installed on the exterior with the large font lettering bearing the restaurant’s name.
“You enter the brewery through this silvery box and are instantly transported away from the concrete grey of the urban surroundings into a flourishing garden oasis,” explains Churchill.
The central area of the brewery spans two levels with a 10-metre high ceiling, creating a sense of spaciousness. Oh Yeah Brewing features three distinct areas including an indoor pizza garden, a main beer hall located between a stage for live band and large brewing tanks, and a drinking lounge. Hcreate’s design team wanted to create a cozy yet natural space by adding features such as terracotta tiling, concrete plastered walls, earthy-coloured large-format terrazzo flooring and hanging plants.
The pizza garden is distinguished by living plants and solid oak-wood frames, with a large terracotta pizza oven located in one corner. Floor-to-ceiling windows allow the space to be filled with natural light.
In the main beer hall is a retail space where visitors can buy brews to go from a take-away fridge labelled ‘Mini-mart’. A highlight of the beer hall is the double-height brewery with large steel tanks towering above a bar, offering guests a full view of the production process. The restaurant features an open kitchen with a tagline ‘Fresh As’ and a mural of stylised gold-leafed fish above it.
Finally, the mezzanine lounge on the second floor was created as a VIP area, overlooking the main beer hall. Decorated with curved dark-blue and deep-red velvet bench seating, lined with custom-printed silk wallpaper and featuring wall-mounted globe lights, the lounge has a more luxurious vibe compared to the rest of the Oh Yeah space.
Hcreates describes Oh Yeah Brewing as a contemporary place that “playfully mixes traditional textures and surfaces to create craft brewing on a grand scale”.