Business has been busy so beer blog updates have been slow in recent months but thanks to my travels I managed to sample some new Asian brews.Flying God awful economy somewhere over southern China the air stewardess asked the usual question (what would you like to drink?) and I gave the usual answer (Beer! Beer! Beer!).
I soon found out the only brew available on China Southern airlines is Beijing Yan Jing beer and over the course of several flights I managed to drink about half a case thanks to my finely honed patter with the cabin crew.
Q) Would you like anything else sir?
A) Yes! Beer! Beijing Yan Jing Beer!
The noticeably blue can claimed a quality grade of excellent and certified the brew as a “Green Food” i.e. environmentally friendly. At 4.0% a couple of cans per flight were enough to keep me entertained and taste wise it was okay considering the beer was served warm.
Apparently the Beijing Yanjing Beer Group Corporation is one of the biggest breweries in China with 20,000 employees and an impressive production capacity of 3.11 million tons of beer a year, a significant increase on their first few thousand bottles brewed when they set up in 1980.
Yanjing is actually the ancient name of Beijing and the brew has an 85% share of local market and is also the official beer of all government banquets.
Warm beer rarely hits the spot but it can be a real giveaway about the quality of the brew. If it is a chemi-brew then it would taste revolting above 10 Celsius but I can say that Yan Jing beer managed to pass the “doesn’t taste like chemical piss when served warm test” with flying colors.