Tsingtao Brewery strives for excellence

Giant billboards promoting Tsingtao Beer is seen in New York during the 2019 Chinese Lunar New Year celebration season. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn] 

Xia Tian, a native of Qingdao who has studied in the UK for many years, always uses Tsingtao Beer as the opening remark whenever he introduces himself. 

"My foreign classmates don't know where Qingdao is, but they all know about China's Tsingtao Beer and Chinese kung fu," he said.

Tsingtao Brewery, one of the oldest beer producers in China, is located on Dengzhou Road in Shibei district, Qingdao. The company has a brewing history of 116 years and a long history of globalization as well.

The Qingdao Beer Museum is located in Dengzhou Road, within the Tsingtao Brewery in Qingdao city. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn] 

Tsingtao Beer won a gold medal at the Munich International Exposition in 1906. The company began to export beer to Singapore in large quantities in 1948. In 1972, Tsingtao Beer entered the US market and became the best seller among Asian beer brands.

Tsingtao Brewery has never stopped its pursuit for world-class quality. The rice used for brewing must be fresh rice within three days of husking. The brewing water requires various filtrations, which costs more than other breweries.

Each bottle should be washed for 30 minutes to be qualified. After they are washed with water, the wine pipe still needs more than 1 ton of beer to wash away its residual water.

The company adheres to the "longest low temperature fermentation process" and follows the natural laws of brewing.

In this way, every drop of Tsingtao Beer has to undergo a total of 1,800 key quality controlling points before it goes out.

Tsingtao Brewery is one of the oldest beer producers in China. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn] 

Innovation is the gene and magic weapon of the century-old Tsingtao Brewery to keep its vitality. The company has launched a number of new products. Tsingtao Beer currently has more than 20 flavors and over 1,500 varieties of specifications. It is the company's differentiation advantage to take more market share with new products.

The bottle shapes developed by the company have increased from more than 70 categories last year to 190 this year.

Despite being a century-old company, Tsingtao Brewery still strives to add "juvenile features." From the launch of an app for online sales, the establishment of community bars, to the launch of the Warcraft-themed cans, the company never stops its innovation efforts.

In the first quarter of 2019, its cumulative beer sales by volume reached 2.166 million kiloliters, up 6.6 percent year-on-year. The operating income amounted to 7.95 billion yuan ($1.16 billion), a year-on-year increase of 11.38 percent.

The net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company reached a record high of 808 million yuan, a year-on-year rise of 21.04 percent.