Beer Review – Tsingtao Beer
Another beer and another Special Guest…. while this is not an official Birthday Beer, it does feature my friend Chris.
Regular visitors to FortyBeers.com will know that my three friends – Phoebe, Simon and Chris – contributed to a birthday gift for me a while ago. As a means to share this gift, I started this beer review blog.
Chris is a temporary Queenslander. He came to Melbourne (where I am) for a conference for a few days, and while he was here he came to my place for dinner. This visit seemed to be a good opportunity to open a very tasty Tsingtao Beer.
When Chris came over, and I announced he would be a Special Guest, he didn’t appear to be overly enthused. However, when I opened my ‘fridge and gave him a few choices of bubbly beveridges, he grabbed the Tsingtao, snatched the video camera out of my hand, and ran off yelling, “Hurry up !! Where’s a bottle opener !”
Tsingtao Beer is brewed and exported from China – on the east coast, in a town called Qingdao. In my humble opinion, Tsingtao beer is fantastic.
A very clean and refreshing taste, Tsingtao is one of those beers that can be downed quickly and happily and with alarming regularity. Personally, I like Asian beers possibly a little more than European Beers. Having said that, a quick visit to the Tsingtao Brewery website reveals that it was founded in 1903 by Germans. This would explain its hop/malt flavour to an extent, but it certainly is not as strong as many German beers are. The website goes on to explain that the water has been airlifted from Loashan (an allegedly aqueous and famous mountain region in China), and that they use, surprisingly, Australian and Canadian yeast and barley.
Many years ago I was in China, and I had the pleasure of tasting my first Tsingtao. They drink it there by the barrel full (unlike Fosters here in Australia, which is exported in large quantities, but not many locals drink it), and it is very well known all over the world. If you are at a bottle shop, and see a Tsingtao, I suggest that you buy two of them.
Chris and I enjoyed ours very much – and I thank Chris for both his Forty Beers gift to me, and for turning up and blathering on while drinking beer at my place in front of the camera as a Forty Beers Special Guest.
On the Forty Beers Cheers O Meter – this beer review suggests it gets a very healthy 9 out of 10.
Thanks Chris – and may there be many more.
Matthew
P.S. Yes, Both Chris and I know there is more than one brand of beer in China… but we were having fun at the time at the expense of factual information.
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Tags: Asian Beer, Beer Review, Lager
