The Tsingtao Brewery — China’s largest — has agreed to buy the Shandong Yinmai Beer Co., the third brewery it has taken over in two years.
Wang Fan, vice chairman of Tsingtao Brewery, said the deal would consolidate Tsingtao Beer’s dominance in the market in Shandong amid fierce competition. Yinmai will continue to make Yinmai beer. This is different from Tsingtao’s takeover of two other local breweries of Yantai Beer and Baotu Spring Beer, whose trademark beers disappeared.
Tsingtao Brewery, which was founded in 1903 in Qingdao City, is best known for the internationally distributed Tsingtao beer.
I’ve been to the Qingdao Brewery and lived in Qingdao for 2 years.
The Tsingtao beer and company heavily influence the availability of beer in the city of Qingdao. Nearly all the beer available in the city is Tsingtao branded, and even the “option”, Laoshan beer, is made by Tsingtao. It was not until 2009 that Tiger made some inroads into this market but the trade off is that its nearly 3 times more expensive than Tsingtao! We visited the Tsingtao brewery, here is a video of that
this type of attraction is a new concept in China and didn’t measure up to other brewery tours in Europe and the US.
Tsingtao Beer is a decent beer for a day at the beach, its a light lager that is only slightly intoxicating. Qingdao residents love it but want other options, which is evident at the local “micro brewery” that is jam packed every night with customers drinking a banana or pineapple flavored version of Tsingtao beer!
Hek