TSINGTAO

Tsingtao Beer Co Ltd unveiled the Centennial Journey Amber Lager series products on July 31, the company’s latest effort to explore the high-end market and meet the upgraded consumer demand.

The Centennial Journey, boasting a mellow taste, amber color and delicate package, is designed to be not just a beverage, but also a piece of artwork and collection. Its amber color means that Tsingtao has become the first Chinese brewery to master the color control technique for dark beers.

The product is made from barley grown out of a 200-hectare exclusive farm in Europe, four malt breeds selected from thousands of combinations, hops used by European royals, and the very yeast that Tsingtao’s German founder brought to China a century ago.

The company has invited top German masters to process the barley and brewers with at least 30 years of experience to handle the materials. It uses traditional low-temperature slow fermentation process costs 20 percent more time than the usual method.

The new product is the result of two years’ effort by an R&D team of nearly 100 technicians, led by national top brewers and using the Tsingtao’s national key lab to develop top formulas for “top beers”. It went through 52 rounds of testing and experiments, more than 900 rounds of expert evaluation, 126 taste improvements and 1,800 inspection procedures before entering the market.

The Centennial Journey is a new signature of Tsingtao’s century-long ingenuity, and will lead China’s high-end beer market development, said He Yong, secretary-general of the China Alcoholic Drinks Association.

The consumption upgrading continues to accelerate the transformation of beer market structure as well as the product structure, with the focus turning from price to quality, from popularity to customization, he said.

Market observer Qin Shuo said the Centennial Journey has three essential elements of high-end products: excellent , extraordinary experience and cultural symbol.

“Today, the products are being reshaped. The cultural nature of a product and contextualized spiritual joy is increasingly valued by the consumers,” said Tsingtao Chairman Huang Kexing. He added that Tsingtao will continue to make innovations bearing the new concept of “art brewery” to inject new charm into the brand and contribute new solutions to a better life as an industry leader of high-quality development.