Yanjing Beer

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yanjing Beer
Simplified:	燕京啤酒
Traditional:	燕京啤酒
Hanyu Pinyin:	Yānjīng Píjiǔ

Yanjing beer is a malty, smooth lager beer from China. It is the most commonly available beer throughout Beijing, is the official state beer of China, and is one of the major sponsors of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The beer was first brewed in 1980, and continues to be made today. It is also exported to countries around the globe, including the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom.

The beer is manufactured by the Beijing Yanjing Beer Co., Ltd. Today, the Yanjing Beer Co. covers an area of 2,220,000 m². The company has approximately 20,000 employees, and is the largest beer manufacturer in China. They produced 3.11 million tons of beer in 2005 alone.

In Beijing, Yanjing is widely available in restaurants, but is not generally available in bars and nightclubs. Because of Yanjing's low price, bar owners claim that they cannot make enough of a profit selling it; thus, they stock the popular beer brands Tsingtao and Zhujiang, or foreign brands of beer instead.