中文
Some businesses are planned meticulously from the start. Others unfold like a path — one step leading naturally to the next, each door opening only because the right person happened to be standing in front of it at the right moment. The Madhouse Taproom is that kind of story.
In the second quarter of 2015, Ha Suk was running a snack importing business. A friend suggested he launch his products at Hong Kong Brewcraft, a homebrew supply shop that had quietly become the spiritual home of Hong Kong’s emerging craft beer community. He went. He met Christopher Wong — the man many consider the godfather of homebrewing in Hong Kong. And somewhere between the first sample poured and the last conversation of the evening, a path began to reveal itself.
More than a year of drinking followed. Gatherings, tastings, late nights with people who cared deeply about what was in their glass. Through those evenings, the right partners came together. Slowly, a shared vision took shape. Money was raised, and in 2017, The Madhouse Taproom opened its doors on Yim Po Fong Street in Mong Kok. Not as one person’s dream, but as something built collectively — by founders, partners, staff and a community of drinkers who believed the same thing: that great beer deserves to be taken seriously.
A street full of memories
The location was never chosen by algorithm or market research. The shop on Yim Po Fong Street had been a clinic. Ha Suk had walked past it countless times over many years — it was a street he knew, a street that carried memories. When the space became available, it felt less like a calculated decision and more like the next step on the path.
The positioning had its own quiet logic too. TAP: The Ale Project, one of Hong Kong’s first dedicated craft beer taprooms, was nearby — close enough to anchor the neighbourhood as a craft beer destination, far enough that the two bars complemented rather than competed with each other. The founders of both knew each other well. In 2017, the Hong Kong craft beer scene was small enough that everyone did.
“The industry was friendly,” Ha Suk recalls. “We were all very close, like family.”
Mad for taste — finding the beers
Before The Madhouse even had its liquor permit, the work of building the tap list had already begun. The team looked at what was available in Hong Kong at the time — imports from the USA, Belgium, Australia, Canada, Japan and Taiwan were findable, but the UK was underrepresented and Norway was essentially invisible. That gap looked less like a problem and more like an opportunity waiting to be discovered.
What followed was months of searching together. Deep-dives into brewery websites around the world. Cold emails sent to breweries everyone admired. Sample boxes arriving, group tastings held, votes cast around the table. The criteria were always the same: exceptional taste, great packaging, something Hong Kong had never seen before.
Two beers changed the direction of everything.
The first was Amundsen Brewery’s Apocalyptic Thunder Juice — a hazy, tropical New England IPA from Oslo that tasted like nothing else available in the city. The second was Ægir Bryggeri’s Sumbel Porter, brewed at a Viking-inspired brewpub on the edge of a Norwegian fjord. And then there were Amundsen’s and Ægir’s open-top can — a packaging format so ahead of its time that it stopped the room. Nobody in Hong Kong was doing this. Nobody was even looking in this direction.
Amundsen, Ægir, Bilpin Cider, Peckham Cider and Uiltje Brewery became The Madhouse’s first official distributor partners. The philosophy was set from day one and has never changed: bring in as much different beer flavours as possible every year, keep the tap list rotating constantly, never let the board go stale. Eight years later, that number holds.
Opening night and what followed
The early days brought good staff and good customers — many of whom are still part of The Madhouse story today, even if they have long since moved on to other chapters of their lives. The team was young, enthusiastic and slightly mad in the best possible way, which suited the name perfectly. From the very beginning, it was never just one person carrying the place. It was everyone in it.
Then came the first anniversary.
Customers filled half the block on Yim Po Fong Street. Free flow beer from 3pm. By 7pm, every tap was empty. The doors closed. The closest customers — the ones who had become something more than customers — gathered for hotpot. Drunk and happy and belonging to something together. It is still, nearly a decade later, the night that best captures what The Madhouse is at its core.
“We hope we could be like that at every anniversary,” Ha Suk says.
The people who make a place
Eight years is long enough for a bar to become more than a bar. It becomes a backdrop to people’s lives — and The Madhouse has been the backdrop to more lives than most.
There was Charlotte — a staff member who applied for the job because she loved the food. The Madhouse family watched her complete her degree, start dating, fall in love and get married. Her wedding party was held at the bar. She left for a nursing career and eventually moved abroad. They are still in touch.🫶
There was the loyal regular who chose The Madhouse as the backdrop for their wedding photographs.
There are the regulars who come several times a week — people the team sees and speaks to more often than their own families. Former staff who no longer work there but still come in to drink, because it will always be their place. Customers who have immigrated, who have passed away, who have gotten married and had children and now drink less and less as life fills up in other ways.
“The Madhouse is still the same,” Ha Suk reflects. “The only differences are the people. People changed, behaviour changed, drinking habits changed. But we are still very enthusiastic about taste, beer and food.”
None of this would exist without every person who played a part — founders and partners, staff past and present, vendors and friends, acquaintances who became regulars, regulars who became family. The Madhouse cannot stand without them. It never could.
Through the years
The years have not all been easy. Many things have happened since 2017 that changed consumer behaviour in Hong Kong in ways nobody could have predicted — and the road through those changes has required resilience from everyone involved. The team has worked hard to keep the doors open, the taps flowing and the spirit intact. That effort has always been shared.
The mission, through all of it, has not wavered. The taps still rotate. The evil spam fries still very evil. The staff are still treated like family. The door opens at 3pm every single day.
What “MAD” actually means
People sometimes ask about the name. The Madhouse. It sounds chaotic, perhaps reckless.
It isn’t. It is a house full of people who are mad about something — mad for taste, mad for quality, mad for the idea that everyone who walks through the door deserves a better beer than they expected. That belief has been carried by every person who has ever worked here, poured a pint here or simply pulled up a stool and stayed longer than they planned.
“We are MAD for taste,” Ha Suk says. “We bring in good beers all the time. Other places don’t.”
It is a simple statement. Behind it is eight years of work by a lot of people who believed the same thing.
Eight years on — and what comes next
The Madhouse Taproom today carries the same founding obsession: as many new flavours as possible per year across 20 rotating draft taps, food made without MSG, a team trained to guide anyone from their first craft pint to their hundredth. The official distributor roster has grown — Amundsen, Tempest Brewing Co., Polly’s Brew Co., Verdant Brewing Co., Ægir Bryggeri, Vault City Brewing, De Moersleutel now anchor the core taps. The Madhouse Crossover house label has added Calamansi Cider, White Peach Oolong Cider and Mango Sea Salt Gose to the family.
As for what comes next, Ha Suk’s wish is quietly ambitious: more branches, more people discovering better beer. Because most beer drinkers deserve a better pint, more flavour, more choices — and, as he puts it, a cleaner washroom when they go out for the night.
The path that started in a homebrew shop in 2015 is still going. Every step has been taken with the people around it. Every tap still tells a story. And the best ones, as always, are still being written.
The Madhouse Taproom is open daily from 3:00 PM at G/F, 16 Yim Po Fong Street, Mong Kok, Kowloon. Make a reservation or walk in — the taps are always rotating.
