Yanjing Beer

Origin: China · Brewer: Beijing Yanjing Brewery · ABV 4.0-4.5%

Yanjing is the hometown beer of Beijing - so much so that the city often poured Yanjing instead of Tsingtao at official events for years. The brewery was founded in 1980 in the Shunyi district north of the capital, named after Yanjing, an ancient Chinese name for the Beijing area, and quickly grew into one of the country's biggest independent brewers.

Why Yanjing matters

Unlike most of its competition, Yanjing is not owned by any of the big international groups: it remained a state-invested Chinese brewer when SABMiller, AB InBev, Heineken and Carlsberg were carving up the rest of the Chinese market in the 2000s. That independence is part of why it holds such strong loyalty in northern China and especially Beijing itself, where it has been the bestselling local brand for decades.

Yanjing was the only official beer served at the 1995 banquets held in Beijing's Great Hall of the People and was named the official beer of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games - both moments still widely referenced on its packaging and marketing.

Brewing

The flagship Yanjing Beer (and the slightly higher-strength Yanjing Fresh Beer) is a pale lager brewed with malted barley, rice, hops and the mineral spring water that runs under the Yanshan mountains north of Beijing. Most variants sit between 4.0 and 4.5 percent ABV. The beer is gently malty, lightly hopped and finishes very dry - tuned for the spicy, oily food of northern Chinese cuisine.

Scale

Yanjing Brewery is one of the three or four largest brewing groups in China by volume. The Yanjing label itself is consistently in the global top ten beers by volume, with annual sales in the tens of millions of hectolitres - almost all of it inside China, with a small export business serving Chinatowns in North America and Europe.

Sources: Beijing Yanjing Brewery investor disclosures; Chinese beer industry trade reports; Beijing 2008 Olympic Committee partner lists.