In 1903, as the Qing Dynasty waned a group of German brewers on the Shandong Peninsula established the aptly named Germania-Brauerei, offering a taste of Europe in the midst of the German concessions in Northeast China. Soon, however, the Brewery would undergo a series of transformations mirroring those taking place in China and Shandong more generally.  The brewery would remain in German hands following the Chinese Revolution of 1911, but when the First World War came to a close the Germans would lose their concessions to Japan and the brewery would be forcibly sold to Dai-Nippon Brewing, the company that in 1949 would be split into the Asahi and Sapporo labels.  After the Second World War the brewery was briefly put under the administration of the Tsui family by the Nationalist government, at least until the fall of the Republic of China on the mainland that same year, when it was made into a state-owned enterprise by the fledgling People’s Republic of China.  And so the brewery remained for decades until the thawing of Deng Xiaoping’s reforms led eventually to its privatization and merger with three other breweries of the same metropolis.  Now sold in 62 nations, this beer, once brewed according to strict German Beer purity laws though now an adjunct lager, constitutes around 50% of the PRC’s total beer exports and is the second most consumed beer on Earth, its growth mirroring that of the economic development of China itself.

Today on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer we’re raising our glasses and shouting a hearty gānbēi (干杯).  That’s right folks, today we’re talking about Tsingtao.

http://www.pickledeggsandcoldbeer.com/2018/07/episode-4-tsingtao-with-callie-hietala.html