Beer...

[GeneChing]

A Beer Festival in China Has German Roots, but No Lederhosen
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Photographs and Text by BRYAN DENTON
OCTOBER 30, 2017



QINGDAO, China — Music. Tourists. Traditional food. Long tables crammed inside huge tents. And beer — lots and lots of beer.

It’s not Oktoberfest. It’s the Qingdao International Beer Festival, China’s largest celebration of lager.

If the festival looks like a certain German tradition, there’s a good reason. The city of Qingdao is home to the similarly pronounced Tsingtao Brewery, which was founded by German settlers in this corner of Shandong Province more than a century ago.



Since the festival started in 1991, the crowds have steadily increased. This summer’s celebration, which ran for much of August, drew nearly 40,000 people on its busiest weekends.

A small army of bartenders and servers kept steins full and glasses clean and at the ready.



In addition to Tsingtao, foreign producers like Budweiser and Carlsberg set up their own tents. Inside, the scene was raucous: Performers lip-synced to patriotic Chinese songs, women in skimpy outfits auctioned off traditional Chinese calligraphy, and more than one man felt the need to remove his shirt.

Locals come to enjoy the “re nao” atmosphere, a Mandarin term for “hustle and bustle” or “loud and chaotic.”



Qingdao’s festival may be of fairly recent vintage, but its beer-making tradition goes back more than 100 years.

At the turn of the last century, the city was a German naval outpost. The Germans brought beer and an architectural style that can still be seen in the buildings of the city’s Old Town.

The British who arrived later were suspicious of the local water and turned to drinking beer instead. In 1903, British and German settlers created the Anglo-German Brewing Company and began producing Tsingtao.

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[GeneChing]

Through two world wars, foreign occupations and civil war, the brewery changed hands several times.

Tsingtao was nationalized in 1949, and despite the purges, starvation and displacement that accompanied the Cultural Revolution, it never stopped producing beer.



“Without beer, we don’t have life in Qingdao,” said Zhao Chen, a local who brought his extended family to the festival. For an audience of young and old, electric floats circled the grounds at sunset.



In addition to all that beer, there was plenty of food at the festival.

Attendees had their fill of chicken’s feet, sausage, dumplings and grilled skewers of spiced meat and squid.



At night, the scene became even louder and livelier, as patriotic anthems turned to techno and rock.

Deafening music and the smell of stale beer and cigarette smoke did little to dampen spirits as festivalgoers toasted one another from giant glasses.



Amid the never-ending toasts, I asked Mr. Chen whether he came to the festival every year.

“Are you kidding? This is more important than Chinese New Year,” he said, before sending his brother off to order us all another round.



Olivia Mitchell Ryan contributed research.

Follow Bryan Denton on Twitter: @bdentonphoto.

I hijacked the Qingdao revisited thread in the NPM forum (because Qingdao is a major Mantis city) and copied this to the Beer thread too.

[GeneChing]

It's not 'illegal to sell'; it's illegal to label it as 'beer'. They could sell it as a 'malt liquor'.

But if I'm going to drop $200, it's going to be for a fyne Irish Whiskey. Not that I'm going to do that. Martial arts publishers don't make that kind of coin.

Samuel Adams Just Unleashed a $200 Beer That's Illegal in Some States
By Chris Morris Updated: October 27, 2017 4:37 PM ET

Every two years, the brewers at Samuel Adams like to create an event—and there’s no easier way to stir the passions of beer lovers than the release of Utopias.

The biennial release, which carries a price tag of $199 and an ABV of a whopping 28%, is one of the beer world’s most highly anticipated events. Just 13,000 bottles of the beer will be distributed throughout the U.S., though not in 11 states, where it’s illegal to sell.

Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Vermont all prohibit the sale of Samuel Adams Utopias due to that sky high alcohol content. The rest of the country can begin looking for it early next month.

As for the taste? Utopias is unlike other beers – from Sam Adams or any other brewer. It’s not carbonated, since the alcohol levels chew up any CO2. And it’s not a beer meant to be consumed all at once. Instead, the brewer suggests just a one ounce taste.

The taste is more like a fine liquor, with a sweetness like a port or cognac and a smooth, almost buttery, malt-filled finish.

“My original idea for Utopias was to push the boundaries of craft beer by brewing an extreme beer that was unlike anything any brewer had conceived,” said Jim Koch, founder of Boston Beer Co., the parent firm of Samuel Adams, in a statement. ” I’m proud to present to drinkers this lunatic fringe of extreme beer worthy of the Utopias name.”

Editor’s note: This story initially incorrectly identified Ohio and Washington as states that prohibited the sale of Utopias. It has been updated.