What's your favorite brand of Chinese beer?

[kaifaqu crue]

One of the many things that makes visiting new places in China interesting is the incredibly diverse selection of local and regional beers you can enjoy.

Mine favorite is Dabang 大棒 from Dalian. It has a good flavor, it's relatively strong, and it has a great name. My second favorite is probably Snow Dry (雪花干啤) from Shenyang.

What are some other good Chinese beers? I've heard that the Reeb with the red label from Shanghai is pretty good, but I've never had it myself.

[skylee]

I like Yanjing. BTW there are other threads on chinese beers. Search and you will find them.

[flameproof]

What a topic!

Yanjing (燕京啤酒) (very good beer with a classic taste)

Kingway (金威啤酒) (have several types)

Zhujiang (珠江啤酒) (very underrated, first brewery in China with a sterile filler) (GZ area)

Haizhu (海珠啤酒) one of my all time favorites! (Zhuhai area)

Rheineck (long time ago. it still exist near SH?)

Some bad ones: Tsingtao, Beijing, Reeb (can't spell, can't brew)

Well, qualities can change, tastes can differ. Try then all....

[pazu]

I don't know much about beer, but Lhasa Beer seems to be quite okay.

[Koneko]

Have you guys tried Harbin before?

Does it taste like Sapporo?

There are actually quite a lot of beers in China!!

Chinese beers

Anchor Beer (力加啤酒)

Beijing Beer (北京啤酒)

Chifeng Beer (赤峰啤酒)

China Blue Ribbon (蓝带啤酒)

Dali Beer (大理啤酒）

Ginsber (金士百啤酒)

Guangming (光明啤酒)

Haizhu (海珠啤酒)

Harbin Beer (哈尔滨啤酒)

Jinling Beer (金陵啤酒）

Kingway Beer (金威啤酒)

Kinglong Beer (金龙泉啤酒)

Meixue Beer (梅雪啤酒)

Mingyuedao (明月岛啤酒)

Reeb (力波啤酒)

Shanghai Beer (上海啤酒)

Snow Beer (雪花啤酒)

Tianmuhu Beer (天目湖啤酒)

Tsingtao Beer (青岛啤酒)

Tsingtao Black (青岛黑啤)

Valor (威尔啤酒)

Xinjiang Beer (新疆啤酒)

Xinjiang Black (新疆黑啤)

Xuehang Beer (雪航啤酒)

Yanjing Beer (燕京啤酒)

Zhonghua (中华啤酒)

Zhujiang Beer (珠江啤酒)

K.

[HashiriKata]

Anchor Beer (力加啤酒)

Beijing Beer (北京啤酒)

Chifeng Beer (赤峰啤酒)

China Blue Ribbon (蓝带啤酒)

Dali Beer (大理啤酒）

Ginsber (金士百啤酒)

Guangming (光明啤酒)

Haizhu (海珠啤酒)

Harbin Beer (哈尔滨啤酒)

Jinling Beer (金陵啤酒）

Kingway Beer (金威啤酒)

Kinglong Beer (金龙泉啤酒)

Meixue Beer (梅雪啤酒)

Mingyuedao (明月岛啤酒)

Reeb (力波啤酒)

Shanghai Beer (上海啤酒)

Snow Beer (雪花啤酒)

Tianmuhu Beer (天目湖啤酒)

Tsingtao Beer (青岛啤酒)

Tsingtao Black (青岛黑啤)

Valor (威尔啤酒)

Xinjiang Beer (新疆啤酒)

Xinjiang Black (新疆黑啤)

Xuehang Beer (雪航啤酒)

Yanjing Beer (燕京啤酒)

Zhonghua (中华啤酒)

Zhujiang Beer (珠江啤酒)

It's very funny, just by looking at the list I felt already tipsy by the time I got near the bottom of it. Anyone experiences the same? It looks like I can save some money just by coming here and looking at the list instead of going to a pub .

[Lu]

Yanjing, because of the memories attached. Haven't tried many beers in China, actually. Yet another reason to go back someday :-)

[liuzhou]

Liquan 漓泉 as made in Guilin. (now owned by Yanjing)

It's probably what you drank in Yangshuo!

[wushijiao]

I sometimes joke with my friends that there is only one Chinese beer (or, really, one style) a light lager, ala Budweiser. There are variations on that beer, but generally speaking, it's all about the same.

I.e., "hey, what are you drinking?"

"Oh, you know, just the beer".

Anyway, with that said, I think the two best beers are:

1) Harbin beer. Went to the beer festival up there, and it seemed like the fresh draft beer (both dark and lager) seemed much better than the Harbin beer that you can get in other parts of the country.

2) Xinjiang Heipi and Xinjiang normal beer.

Others that I like: 青岛纯生 (Qingdao Draft), Llhasa, Jinxing (in Henan), or whatever is being poured...

[pandaxiongmao]

Anchor Beer (力加啤酒) comes from Singapore, and is made by the same company as Heineken, so I wouldn't call it a Chinese beer. Furthermore, I wouldn't consider it to be very good.

If you want more crappy beers, Hainan has Hainan Beer (海南啤酒).

I'd also vote for Yanjing Beer, though I don't drink much.

[xuechengfeng]

I've only tried:

雪花啤酒

青岛啤酒

烟台啤酒

威海啤酒

哈尔滨啤酒

I thought the Snow Beer wasn't too good, although I drank it in Hunchun when it was completely warm, and when asked why it was so, they said, hey, it's winter!

Qingdao Beer is ehhh, I don't know. It's really, really watery and has a weird little taste to it, but you can't beat the price.

The last three I don't really remember, maybe Harbin Beer a little, which I think wasn't that bad.

It was funny to go to Russia and see the prices of Imported Harbin and Qingdao Beer. Outrageous prices. I'll pay the equivalent of a little less than 50 cents for a big bottle of Qingdao, but I don't think 4 to 5 US dollars would be appropriate for a bottle that's smaller than the aforementioned.

[skylee]

I haven't drunk any beers for quite a while. But I had an Asahi yesterday and it tasted great. So I've just bought myself six cans of Yanjing beer (Asahi is almost double the price of Yanjing so I chose my favourite chinese beer). But to my surprise I find it too sweet. Has something been changed?

[cdn_in_bj]

I prefer Yanjing over Qingdao, but that isn't saying much about either...

I had Tiger beer in Shanghai, I thought it was pretty decent. Though the good food I was having at the time might have helped with this impression.

[Zephyr.cd]

Yantai! i think it's better than anything else in Dalian - besides DaBang...

and i still don't understand how Tsingtao got so big... bleh

[cui ruide]

Hehe--I'm more of the "there's only one type of beer in China" mind...my delights in beer while I was there mostly involved finding foreign beers to drink...

That said, I remember a local in Hangzhou that had different color metallic labels--I feel like it said "Siao" on it... The gold label--the most expensive--was pretty good.

[WangYuHong]

I'd also vote for yanjing beer...

The one in Shanghai (I think it was the tiger beer) just tasted weird... I also asked some vendors why the taste is so different, and they said it has a lot to do with the source of the water that they use... I also noticed that with their soybean milk: in Beijing it tasted fresh, and in Shanghai it tasted a little sour...

Anyway, a few years back my favorite was 五星啤酒，but I think that got bought out and became yanjing, right?

[Zephyr.cd]

i REALLY like Tiger Beer - but isn't it from Singapore?