Tsingtao Brewery

Tsingtao Brewery is China's second largest, with about 15 percent of the domestic market and half of the country's beer exports, and its headquarters are in Qingdao. It was founded on August 15, 1903 as the Germania-Brauerei Tsingtao, inside the Kiautschou Bay Leased Territory of 552 square kilometres, with the brewery under the supervision of master brewers from Germany; the first beer was served on December 22, 1904. The new government confiscated the Tsui family shares in 1949 and made the business a state-owned enterprise, the company merged with three other breweries in Qingdao and was renamed in 1993, and in that year it became the first Chinese firm listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. A museum of the old German buildings and the equipment of the founding years opened on August 15, 2003, the brewery's centenary.