Sweet and Sour Sauce
Written: Dec 08 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Great taste; travels well
Cons: You have to look for it
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| AlanCrax's Full Review: Tsingtao Brewing Co Pale Lager |
Have you noticed? Beers seem to fall into three types: beer that is brewed and drunk at the site of origin; beer that is brewed locally and then transported afar; and beer that is brewed under license away from its point of origin. Guinness is a fine example of this: that which is brewed on the banks of the Liffey and drunk in Dublin is a sublime brew. It does not travel well away from the Emerald Isle. Guinness brewed anywhere else just isn’t … Guinness.
The Chinese have a few native beers; and they are drunk in vast quantities. The most well known to the West is that brewed and exported from Tsingtao – a town on the coast about fifty miles south east of Beijing. The brewery was founded by the Germans (along with a replica of Cologne cathedral) at the time that the Europeans were staking their claim to the Far East in the nineteenth century. I was able to try several of these beers on a visit to China in the 1980s. The Chinese often eat vast banquets of many courses in huge communal dining rooms with pitchers of beer, water or orange juice served at table.
These beers do travel well – and at least when you open a bottle it is the genuine article – not a pale ‘brewed under license’ imitation. Tsingtao beer is a pilsner type lager (5% by volume). It is brewed from rice, malt and hops. It has a slightly sweet taste with gentle sour undertones (perhaps the reason it is a perfect accompaniment to rice dishes). The malt flavour is also quite noticeable. Serve it cool but not frozen. It shares many similarities with lagers brewed in central Europe (Czech Republic; Hungary).
So next time you tuck into your Moo Shoo Pork and Quick Fried Seaweed reach for the Tsingtao!
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
AlanCrax
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Member: Alan Craxford
Location: Tyne and Wear, UK
Reviews written: 212
Trusted by: 37 members
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