Friday - BREWERY TOUR

We started the day looking for some coffee and found a shop that is one of a chain called 85 degrees C.  There was seating so we decided to get something to eat there as well.  All of the baked goods, both sweet and savory, looked fantastic.  BEWARE OF CHINESE SWEETS.  I have had experience with sweets.  They look beautiful and perfect, but there is no taste or they are overly sweet.  So we choose savory.

In the foreground is a "smoked chicken bread", and in the background, on the left, "cheese toast", on the right, "hotdog pastry". Ah, fooled again, each was strange and the chicken was filled not with cheese, but with a mayo based cream along with a large piece of chicken breast.  I think it was the orange-y crunchy things that were the "smoked" part.

 

We wandered down a side street and it was Coffee Street, indeed there were so many coffee shops, we didn't have to suffer with the chain.  Live and learn.  Once we hit the water we wandered around and spied a "China Eastern" airlines logo and decided to go and buy a ticket from Xi'an to Beijing which was  cheapest on that airline.  We found it, but the entire bldg was closed and patrolled by security people.  

This was our second experience with mislabeled blogs.  It appears, in China, if a business moves or if a bldg changes hands, the signage never reflects the change in a timely way.  

Next, we hit the brewery.  We cabbed to the Tsingtao brewery and museum, and got our tickets.  Little did we know what was in store for us.  The museum was pretty static, 99% in Chinese with very few English translations.  The exhibits were of brewing process and ingredients as well as prizes won by Tsingdao.  We did learn that under the Japanese, the brewery in Qingdao produced Asahi, Kirin, and Tsingtao.  

There was the potential for a "ride", a la Heinekin, but it was "the drunken room".  There was a large viewing window into the "room".  People would try to walk thru the room but the floor was slanted and it made walking difficult.  There was a handrail which most people clung to for balance, hence the "hilarity" of your friends watching you try to walk in what appeared to be a normal room.

This is a shot of Bill going thru the "room".

Here is Bill in front of one of the famous brewers in the history of beer section.  I thought it would be funny for him to stand in front of the "Sisters".  Turns out, it was originally women's work to make beer, and the "Brothers" at the monasteries took it over gradually and then used selling beer they made to increase their coffers.  

There was a large tasting room at the top of the bldg.  Not nearly as swanky as Guinness' tasting room,  Just a large room with tables made from barrels and a small bar that efficiently served small glasses of beer.  For the large number of tour groups, they had developed the method of providing the required number of small glasses and then putting them into what looked like the plastic bar bins and walking them over to a table, while the tour leader got pitchers to fill the glasses.  This was smart as it did not clog up the dispensing area.

Exit into the gift shop.  Bill did get something, a small opener or magnet.  Now the escalator takes you down into what you think is the exit, but it is the beer garden.  We purchased a "sausage and stein" ticket.  All you can drink in 1 hour + a sausage.  The beer was good, the sausage was not the "wurst".  

The space was large and open with an airy feel because screening and view of the street.  We needed up being the star of the room.  A large tour group came through and there were not enough seats where we were, so a woman asked, well gestured, could she sit at our table.  We invited her to sit with gestures and the fun began.  She started to try to talk to us, and Bill pulled out Bo, which really set up the fun.  Google translate added information, as well as hand drawn maps.  Photos were taken, as many of the tour group posed with us.  The bad news was that neither Bill or I took photos of the group.  

We left the beer hall after an hour, and went looking for real food.  We found a place along "beer street" and settled in.  I had lotus root stir fry, and Bill ordered friend shrimp.  The lotus was really good, the shrimp, meh.

Cabbed home and Bill did another load of laundry.  I blogged for a bit and then fell asleep.   When Bill came back with the laundry, we decided to call it a night and snacked on a couple of the weird  things that Bill picked up at various shops he visited.  There was a crunchy thing that looked like ramen noodles before cooking, and puffed green peas in the pod.  I liked the ramen-like ones, but the flavor was unidentifiable.  The green peas were just puffed green air.