Everyone knows Qing Dao beer, right?

Whether it's spelled Tsing Tao or Qing Dao, it's easily one of China's biggest brands and enjoys popularity at home and abroad. Its home, the eastern coastal city of the same name, has a reputation as a reasonably fabulous holiday resort and, naturally, a great place to have a beer. They even have an annual Oktoberfest-style beer festival.

Why this strong beer tradition never struck me as strange, I don't know. Why the fact that this is the only city in China to host a beer drinking event every year I had also never thought about. I was therefore in for the shock of a lifetime today (well, at least the shock of the week) when I found out about the historical reasons as to why things are the way they are in Qingdao.

Not only was I completely oblivious to the fact that the city is a former colony, I also would never in a lifetime have guessed who this colony would have belonged to. Any ideas yet? Yep, that's right. Qing Dao (at the time also known as Tsingtau) was a colony of Germany. Deutschland. L'Allemagne. Flabberghasted I was and still am. Not that I didn't know that my country, too, had a few colonies (and not that I am particularly proud of it)- I just never made that connection.

Apparently, it became a colony of the Kaiserreich in 1897, and soon after my forefathers became thirsty and started brewing some beer for themselves. They soon realised, however, that a German purity-law style hops, malt and water brew didn't exactly agree with the locals' tastebuds, and thus they ended breaking the century-old law to tweak the beer's taste to the local palate, using rice and giving the drink its very distinguishable taste.

Apparently there are still lots of well-preserved Kaiser Wilhelm-style villas there. In fact, I'd be quite curious to go there at some point.

If nothing else, it may just help my homesickness.

Bis dann,

Nadine

Ein echter deutscher Export