The Orchid Pavilion
Another giant Asian brewery yields one chilly Tsingtao, direct from China to my beer fridge. I’ve been to China a few times, walked the Great Wall, bought some souvenirs at the little shop at the gate, I think it was called Wall Mart. The scroll in the pic is a gift I received on one of my visits, the story it tells is of meeting at the Orchid Pavilion to wash away evil spirits, which seems somehow more noble but at the same time somewhat akin to a beer review.
“We select our pleasures according to our inclinations, some noisy and rowdy, others quiet and sedate. Yet when we have found what pleases us we are happy and contented to the extent of forgetting we are growing old.” * Yep, that pretty much describes us at Cranky Old Men Drinking Beer.
The scroll had been translated for me, but I didn’t want the COMDB translation department feeling left out, or filing another grievance, so I quizzed them on Tsingtao. They tell me it translates to “blue green island”.
Being a bit parched, I went full throttle out of the bottle on this one. An almost sweet, refreshing light lager. Smooth, no hops, no bitterness. Just a nice plain light sort of sweet lager. Very easy drinking, it was finished before I was. Good and gone. Part of the reason was it’s drinkability. Part of the reason was it’s only 330ml, another mini bottle.
To put things into perspective, three Tsingtao (at 4.7% and 330ml) have the same alcohol content as one Muskoka Major Tom (8% at 568ml). Farmer Steve likes to stretch his drinking dollar whenever possible, and from a cost volume perspective, Tsingtao comes in at $0.007 per ml while Major Tom comes in at $0.009 per ml. RA on the other hand may well be evaluating based on alcohol content, in which case Major Tom definitely has more bang for the buck. For those of you not financially inclined this is known as a Return on Investment analysis.
Back to the brew at hand, it’s an easy drinking refreshing light lager from the blue green island.
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