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 b ...

founded in 1900 in

Harbin Harbin, ; zh, , s=哈尔滨, t=哈爾濱, p=Hā'ěrbīn; IPA: . is the capital of Heilongjiang, China. It is the largest city of Heilongjiang, as well as being the city with the second-largest urban area, urban population (after Shenyang, Lia ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

. As China's fourth largest

and its oldest one, it has a leading position in

Northeast China Northeast China () is a geographical region of China, consisting officially of three provinces Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang. The heartland of the region is the Northeast China Plain, the largest plain in China with an area of over . The regi ...

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. It is one of the largest stock exchanges in Asia and the 9th largest globally by market capitalization as of August 20 ...

. In comparison to

Tsingtao Beer Tsingtao Brewery Co. Ltd. () is China's second largest brewery, with about 15% of domestic market share and accounts for half of China's national beer exports. The brewery was founded in 1903 as an Anglo–German business with the brewery under ...

Zhujiang Beer Zhujiang Brewery (Zhujiang Brewery Group Co., Ltd) () was established in 1985 and is a large state-owned enterprise which deals mainly in beer and related products such as labels, cartons, crates, etc. The brewery is one of the largest single sit ...

, 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 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 Asia, East, Southeast Asia, Southeast and South Asia ...

History

The history of Harbin beer dates back to 1900, when Jan Wróblewski, a Pole 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 3,919 inhabitants living there in 2010. This town became famous for the eponymous juices that were ma ...

, then located in the

Russian Partition The Russian Partition (), 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 Poland. The Russian ac ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

, founded a brewery in Northeast China (then called

Manchuria Manchuria is a historical region in northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day northeast China and parts of the modern-day Russian Far East south of the Uda (Khabarovsk Krai), Uda River and the Tukuringra-Dzhagdy Ranges. The exact ...

), 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 (, , or , ''Kitaysko-Vostochnaya Zheleznaya Doroga'' or ''KVZhD''), is the historical name for a railway system in Northeast China (also known as Manchuria). The Russian Empire constructed the line from 1897 ...

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 may refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people identified with China, through nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **Han Chinese, East Asian ethnic group native to China. **'' Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic ...

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 *Czech (surnam ...

nationals. Later, in 1946, after the

Soviet Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of Peop ...

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 Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...

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 possible factors, including, but not limited to war, natural disasters, crop failure, widespread poverty, an Financial crisis, economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenom ...

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 is a province in northeast China. It is the northernmost and easternmost province of the country and contains China's northernmost point (in Mohe City along the Amur) and easternmost point (at the confluence of the Amur and Ussu ...

. In June 2003,

SABMiller SABMiller plc was an Anglo–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 AB InBev for US$107-billion. It was the world's sec ...

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 ...

after a bitter takeover battle with

Harbin Beer

Harbin Beer () is a 4.8%

abv Alcohol by volume (abbreviated as alc/vol or ABV) is a common measure of the amount of alcohol contained in a given alcoholic beverage. It is defined as the volume the ethanol in the liquid would take if separated from the rest of the solution, ...

pale lager Pale lager is a pale-to- golden lager beer with a well- attenuated body and a varying degree of noble hop bitterness. In the mid-19th century, Gabriel Sedlmayr took British pale ale brewing and malt making techniques back to the Spaten Bre ...

. 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
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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 and Belgian ; other types include Lambic (made with wild yeast), Berliner Weisse (a c ...

References

External links

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

History

Harbin Beer

Beers

See also

References

External links