I think Benjamin Franklin put it best when he said "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."Inspired by those great words, we recently set out for Qingdao's famous "Beer Street." Each August, Qingdao is home to the massive International Beer Festival featuring many different types of global brews. Beer Street is where it all takes place, and it is also home to the largest and most famous brewery in Qingdao, Tsingtao Brewery. (they are actually pronounced the same, just two different systems of the romanization of the Chinese language - complicated).

or...
Tsingtao Brewery was established by the Germans in 1903. The Germans were occupying Qingdao because every Western country wanted a piece of China in those days. When two German missionaries were murdered, that was apparently enough reason for the Germans to seize the town. The Germans brought modernity to the city (electricity, trains, architecture, beer), and then handed it and the brewery over to the Japanese (who are detested by the Chinese). The Japanese controlled Qingdao - and other parts of China - until 1945.

Enough history. Qingdao folks are very proud of their brewery. Each city/town in China is famous for something (even if it is pickled lettuce), and you might not be surprised that Tsingtao Beer is everywhere here. The brewery is available for tours, and its well worth the trip if you ever get to Qingdao.The brewery is pretty large. There are huge neon signs all along Beer Street, but above is my personal favorite. Earth is dunking into a big mug of Tsingtao, and the sign says something like "makes the world happy." The street outside the brewery is decorated with tons of beer-related paraphernalia:
I'm not quite sure what the purpose is of the large cans of Tsingtao in the pictures above. They are on a lot of the buildings in the brewery. Below you can see trash cans that look like beer kegs and benches in the shape of beer bottles.
Very prominent throughout Beer Street are these manhole covers with cartoon animals drinking beer. They have a different covers for each animal in the Chinese Zodiac. As you can see, Tsingtao Beer likes to get 'em young!
Last and most disturbing, the artistic beer bottle statues that look more like Salvador Dali's version of dancing male genitalia! Hooray!The inside of the brewery takes you through the history of the brewery. It has some really cool stuff like old Tsingtao brewery ads from the early 20th century. Some of the old German influence can still be seen, like these stained-glass windows.You also walk through the beer making process from step one to the packaging. But what brewery tour would be complete without the samples? They're also kind enough to hand out free peanuts!
One of the coolest rooms in the brewery is the packaging plant.
It got me really excited and reminded me of that show on Food Network, Unwrapped.* So, I pretended to be Marc Summers for a little while so that we could bring you this video.



Whoa! Mindy Mann shout-out, surely that warrants a comment! I think I still need a little work before my audition.


Lastly, one of the funniest exhibits at the brewery was one of those illusion-type rooms where you walk in and the floor is slanted. I guess it's showing you what you feel like after too many Tsingtao's. The best part is that they have a TV on the outside of the booth so that viewers can watch the people inside stumbling around. I thought it would be a good opportunity to take a Darbie video.




The end of the tour ends in the Tsingtao bar where they serve all ages, at least until they fall asleep. I'm not joking; looks like those cartoon manhole covers do the trick after all!

Does anyone still read this anymore? Don't worry, we're almost through here.

DB&KM


*Disclaimer: Kendall only watches the Food Network when he's with Darbie or his Mother.