Brews for Beer Snobs

Like most U.S. college students, I spent many a halcyon university day drinking large amounts of cheap beer, often from a lukewarm keg while my friends held me upside down. This is why American higher education is the envy of the world. But when I graduated, I switched to drinking large amounts of comparatively expensive microbrewshigh-quality beers made by small-scale brewers. This was because, as a college-educated man, I'd developed a discerning palette. And I sometimes had more than $3 in my wallet.

When I moved to Hong Kong a year and a half ago, I feared a...