I was in the big Jingkelong down by the south gate of BeiGongDa and saw this:
Oho. Moutai beer, huh? Well, I bought one bottle out of curiosity, brought it home and chucked in the freezer for an hour to cool it down to a proper temperature.
I wasn’t expecting much. Well, I was expecting it to be bloody awful, to be honest. Poured it into my half-litre clear glass beer mug, the one I always use: Looks like your regular Chinese lager, but anybody familiar with Chinese beer knows how deceiving those looks can be. Took a sip. Mmhmmm…. Not bad. A good, crisp, clear flavour, a hint of sourness, and, well, it’s hard to describe: it has a bit of body to it, a certain thickness that lets you know it’s not just yellow-coloured water you’re drinking. It’s a little like apple juice in the way it feels. Not bad. But at 6.50 yuan per bottle, not something I’ll be drinking too often.
Checking the label:
- Ingredients are: 泉水，优质麦芽，优质大米，啤酒花/ spring water, high quality malt, high quality rice, hops. Rice, as always. Oh well.
- 3.6% alcohol by volume. A bit low, but fairly standard for China.
- It’s good for 400 days! Wow!
- The address is: 贵州省，遵义市，汇川区，重庆路， phone 0852-8683999. Seems to check out. And here’s the company’s website itself– warning, it plays irritating music. And it does seem to be a subsidiary of the Moutai company….
All of which is all very interesting…. But yes, if you don’t mind paying 6.50 yuan for a drinkable Chinese lager, go ahead. It is, judging by my experience with this one, single bottle, up there with Tsingtao and Snow.
haha nice find. I usually just stick to the Qing’ers despite living accross the road from the snow brewery. Incidentally said Snow brewery also brews Chinese Steinlager (I think Lion Nathan built the brewery before getting done over by their JV partners, though I may be wrong) Chinese Steinlager isn’t even a bit like the original. Absolute Panda piss.
It’s my impression that Snow isn’t the same all over the country. It’s originally from Liaoning, so I imagine the Suzhou version is quite different.
Did Lion Nathan get done over, or were they the usual idiot Kiwi business with no idea what they were doing and in way over their heads? Whatever, the only place I’ve ever drunk Steinlager is China. Never had any back home.