Beer in China

I just returned from a 2 1/2 week tour of China with a brass ensemble I’ve played with in the past: Brassroots.

It was an amazing time seeing an entirely different part of the world than Canada. The sights, sounds, smells, people, architecture, all so different and new to me.

Of course the main point of the blog is brewing and beer so I would be remiss if I didn’t focus on that small portion of the tour here. In short, all the beer I had in China was macro international lager style. Extremely meh. I tried several different brands but they were virtually indistinguishable from each other.

That said, when it’s 39∘C outside with a humidex hovering around 50∘C I tend not to get too picky about my beverages (except the tap water in China 😉 ). A cold beer or two served with lunch or dinner was definitely a welcome break.

A couple of things about the beer in China: First off, it’s very low alcohol beer. The strongest beer that I had was about 4.3% abv and the lightest beer was 2.3% abv. Definitely not beer that will knock you on your ass.

The other thing about the beer (and many other beverages) is that it’s sometimes difficult to get it served cold. The Chinese apparently are not terribly fond of cold beverages. We found this with the bottled water (room temp.), warm milk, warm juice, hot juice, and often room temperature beer. Many places had beer kept in a fridge but they didn’t usually keep many there so with a group of about 20 adults we regularly cleaned them out of their cold beer.

Some fond beer memories:

• Hotel near the airport in Detroit having decent craft beer on tap
• Centennial IPA available in bottles near the Detroit hotel
• We drank the flight to China dry of beer
• Buying beer in China for the equivalent of about $.50 for 500ml
• Many beers named with their degrees Plato prominent
• Chinese beer festival (this deserves a separate post)
• Best beer on the trip was a German Schwarzbier given to me by my friend

And a gallery of beer photos for you!