Tsingtao Brewery
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Image:Qingdao-beer-past-packaging.jpg
Tsingtao Brewery (Template:Zh-cp) is China's largest brewery. It was founded in 1903 by German settlers. It claims about 12% of domestic market share. It produces its beer in Qingdao in Shandong province, but the name of the beer uses the old École française d'Extrême-Orient transliteration. The beer's present day logo displays an image of Zhan Qiao, a famous pier on Qingdao's southern shore.
Although marketing for the beer emphasizes its Chinese connections, the origins of Tsingtao Beer actually lie with European colonialism in the 19th century. After the Boxer Rebellion, Germany was able to acquire a concession in Shandong, and proceeded to establish many breweries in the area. German breweries especially flourished during the period of Sino-German cooperation from 1911 to 1941.
The Tsingtao Brewery was later occupied by the Imperial Japanese Army in the Second Sino-Japanese War, and finally retaken by the Chinese. It has now been converted in to a museum about the brewery's past. It lies on Denzhou Road in Taidong district, Qingdao.
It was introduced to the United States in 1972, and it soon became the top-selling Chinese beer in the U.S. market and has maintained this leadership within the United States ever since despite increasing competition from other well known Chinese beer brands, Yanjing and Zhujiang. The Tsingtao brand is sold in more than 50 countries worldwide and accounts for more than 50% of China’s beer exports. In fact, Tsingtao is the number-one branded consumer product exported from China.