Harbin Brewery () is a Chinese

brewery A brewery or brewing company is a business that makes and sells beer. The place at which beer is commercially made is either called a brewery or a beerhouse, where distinct sets of brewing equipment are called plant. The commercial brewing of be ...

founded in 1900 in

Harbin Harbin (; mnc, , v=Halbin; ) is a sub-provincial city and the provincial capital and the largest city of Heilongjiang province, People's Republic of China, as well as the second largest city by urban population after Shenyang and largest ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. As China's fourth largest

and its oldest one, it has a leading position in

Northeast China Northeast China or Northeastern China () is a geographical region of China, which is often referred to as "Manchuria" or "Inner Manchuria" by surrounding countries and the West. It usually corresponds specifically to the three provinces east of t ...

and owns the Hapi beer brand. Harbin has increased its annual beer production capacity to over 1 million tons and has become a giant in China's beer industry after its successful reform and listing on the

Hong Kong stock market The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong (SEHK, also known as Hong Kong Stock Exchange) is a stock exchange based in Hong Kong. As of the end of 2020, it has 2,538 listed companies with a combined market capitalization of HK$47 trillion. It is repo ...

. In comparison to

Tsingtao Beer Tsingtao Brewery Co. Ltd. () is China's second largest brewery, with about 15% of domestic market share and also accounts for half of China’s national beer exports. It was founded in 1903 by German settlers in Tsingtau ( Qingdao), Kiautschou ...

or Zhujiang Beer, however, Harbin's share in European and American markets is minor. In the North American market, Harbin beer was first sold in ethnic Chinese supermarkets (which remain its primary point of sales today), and gradually begun to expand to other

Asian supermarket In the West or non-Asian countries, an Asian supermarket largely describes a category of grocery stores that focuses and stocks items and products imported from countries located in the Far East (e.g. East, Southeast and South Asia). These stor ...

s, such as ethnic Korean supermarkets like Market World and Freshia.

History

The history of Harbin beer dates back to 1900, when Jan Wróblewski, a

Pole Pole may refer to: Astronomy *Celestial pole, the projection of the planet Earth's axis of rotation onto the celestial sphere; also applies to the axis of rotation of other planets *Pole star, a visible star that is approximately aligned with the ...

from

Tarczyn Tarczyn is a town in central Poland, seat of Gmina Tarczyn, in the Piaseczno County, in Masovian Voivodeship, about south of Warsaw. There were 3,869 inhabitants living there in 2004. This town became famous for the eponymous juices that were ...

, then located in the

Russian Partition The Russian Partition ( pl, zabór rosyjski), sometimes called Russian Poland, constituted the former territories of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that were annexed by the Russian Empire in the course of late-18th-century Partitions of Po ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

, founded a brewery in Northeast China (then called

Manchuria Manchuria is an exonym (derived from the endo demonym " Manchu") for a historical and geographic region in Northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day Northeast China (Inner Manchuria) and parts of the Russian Far East (Outer Manc ...

), which he named after himself. The initial objective of the Brewery was to supply Russians working on the

Trans-Manchurian Railway The Chinese Eastern Railway or CER (, russian: Китайско-Восточная железная дорога, or , ''Kitaysko-Vostochnaya Zheleznaya Doroga'' or ''KVZhD''), is the historical name for a railway system in Northeast China (als ...

project started in 1898. In 1908, the company was renamed Gloria. In 1932, the brewery was renamed Harbin Brewery Factory, when it went into joint control of

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

and

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus' Places * Czech, ...

nationals. Later, in 1946, after the

Soviet Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...

captured Manchuria, the company was controlled by Soviet nationals, who called it Quilin Stock Company Limited. This situation prevailed until 1950 when

Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...

ordered the return of Chinese assets, and ownership was returned to the Chinese government. The Chinese renamed it Harbin Brewery and operated it as a state-owned entity. Driven by the

famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, Demographic trap, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an Financial crisis, economic catastrophe or government policies. Th ...

the company became the first to brew beer with corn instead of rice, in 1959. Through the 1960s, the company focused on investing to improve its technology, and in 1973 it installed its first sterilization machine in

Heilongjiang Province Heilongjiang () formerly romanized as Heilungkiang, is a province in northeast China. The standard one-character abbreviation for the province is (). It was formerly romanized as "Heilungkiang". It is the northernmost and easternmost province ...

. In June 2003,

SABMiller SABMiller plc was a South African multinational brewing and beverage company headquartered in Woking, England on the outskirts of London until 10 October 2016 when it was acquired by Anheuser-Busch InBev. Prior to that date, it was the world's ...

acquired a 29.6% equity stake in Harbin. In 2004 it was taken over by

Anheuser-Busch Anheuser-Busch Companies, LLC is an American brewing company headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. Since 2008, it has been wholly owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV (AB InBev), now the world's largest brewing company, which owns multiple glo ...

after a bitter takeover battle with

Harbin Beer

Harbin Beer (

: 哈尔滨啤酒 raditional 哈爾濱啤酒

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...

: ''Hā'ěrbīn Píjiǔ'') is a 4.8%

abv Alcohol by volume (abbreviated as ABV, abv, or alc/vol) is a standard measure of how much alcohol (ethanol) is contained in a given volume of an alcoholic beverage (expressed as a volume percent). It is defined as the number of millilitres (mL) o ...

pale lager Pale lager is a very pale-to-golden-colored lager beer with a well- attenuated body and a varying degree of noble hop bitterness. The brewing process for this beer developed in the mid-19th century, when Gabriel Sedlmayr took pale ale brewing ...

. It uses European and Chinese “Qindao Dahua” hops, two-row malt, and German yeast.Harbin Lager Nationally Available in Time for Chinese / Lunar New Year 2007 - Beer Advocate
/ref>

Beers

''Hapi'' and ''Golden Hapi''. ''Harbin Heart'' and ''Harbin Premium Lager''. One of Harbin's beers is a

wheat beer Wheat beer is a top-fermented beer which is brewed with a large proportion of wheat relative to the amount of malted barley. The two main varieties are German ''Weizenbier'' and Belgian ''witbier''; other types include Lambic (made with wild ye ...

References

External links

Takeover battleRateBeer
{{Chinese alcoholic beverages Breweries in China Companies based in Harbin Food and drink companies established in 1900 Companies formerly listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange Drink companies of China Chinese beer brands Chinese companies established in 1900

History

Harbin Beer

Beers

See also

References

External links