In ancient China, people consumed a kind of alcoholic drink called "Li" which was made from malted cereals. Li has been considered as a type of primitive beer in remote ancient times. After Han Dynasty or so, Li was substituted by rice wine made by Qu ( it is called "Qu" in Chinese). Then, Li, due to its low alcohol content, was obsolete from the banquet and even nobody knew exactly how Li was brewed. By the end of Qing Dynasty, foreign brewing techniques were introduced to China. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, especially from 1980's, the brewing industry has made giant stride and China has become the second largest beer producer in the world since 1994.
Li was first recorded in "Jia Gu Wen" ( inscription on bones or tortoise shells) in Shang Dynasty ( from 16th century B.C. to 11th century B.C.). Although there were no complete descriptions about brewing process of Li, some characters and phrases carved on the bones or tortoise shells have been identified to be related to brewing process, such as "NIE", meaning malted cereals or malting, "JIAN", meaning "filtration. There were newly brewed Li and aged Li used on different occasions.
In Zhou Dynasty, alcoholic beverages was classified into two types: rice wine and "Li". It was recorded in <>: that "If you want to make rice wine, you should use Qu, and if you want to make Li, you should use malt." People were skillful to make various malted cereals and used them to manufacture sweetener called "Yi" (malt sugar).
In Han Dynasty, Li was no longer the major alcoholic drink consumed because the rice wine brewing techniques had been spreaded out everywhere. Li was absolute gradually. A kind of drink characterized by low alcohol and made with Qu in a short time was also called "Li", probably because of misunderstanding meaning of the original "Li".
During the period of Northern and Southern Dynasty (420- 581 A.D.), Li made from malted cereals had been throughly absolete. Among more than 40 varieties of alcoholic drinks mentioned in << Qi Ming Yao Shu>>, there was no "Li", although the techniques for making wheat malt were described in detail. Now that rice wine made by Qu had the advantages of high proof of alcohol (usually 15% by volume), there was nothing strange that Li made from malted cereals had been substituted by rice wine. A famous scientist Song Yin Xing in his book published in Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 A.D.) explained the reasons why Li had been absolete. He said: "In remote ancient times, the rice wine was made by Qu, and Li was made with malted cereals. Because the people thought Li was lighter than rice wine in flavour, Li was absolete, then the techniques for brewing Li had not been handed down from past generations."
It is concluded that Li and beer should belong to the same type of beverage with much lower alcohol content than rice wine in remote ancient times. With the changes of times, the primitive beer, Li made from malted cereals disappeared in China.
Modern Chinese Brewing Industry
The beer that has been lost for a long time has been rescued from oblivion by the end of Qing Dynasty. The earlist brewery was established by Russian in Harbin (Helongjiang Province) in 1900. (¡¶Harbin Historical Annuals¡·). By the end of Qing Dynasty, breweries were almost controlled by foreigners. In 1915, the Shuang Hesheng Brewery was established in Beijing and Wu Yang Brewery in Guang Dong Province which was invested by Chinese. Before 1949, there were only seven or eight breweries in China, mainly controlled by foreigners. The bulk of hops and malt were imported abroad, and the consumers of beer were foreign merchants and armies who were in China and a part of upper-classes people in the society. Common people could scarcely enjoy beer. The highest annual output of China reached to about 40 thousand tons in 1940, which was almost consumed by Japanese invanders. In 1949, the annual output of beer reached 7000 tons, which was even less than the annual output of a small scale brewery nowadays.
Contemporary Brewing Industry in China
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, especially since 1980, the government have put a lot of emphasis on the development of our invaluable national scientific and technological heritage. The brewing industry has also made great advances.
The First Period (1949-1978)
It was the adjusting and developing period of brewing industry from 1953 to 1962, when a number of new breweries were established and the average annual rate of increase of the beer output reached 38.2%. From 1963 to 1972, the beer production continued to grow, although the developing speed became slower. Total beer output in 1978 was 400,000 tons. The achievements in brewing science and technology, education, personnel training have laid a foundation for the future development of brewing industry during this period.
The Second Period
The brewing industry was going ahead by leaps and bounds since 1979. Breweries have been set up in all provinces, municipalities directly under the Central Government and autonomous regions throughout the country. Some production scale of some breweries also became larger and larger, and the total beer output reached 688 thousand tons in 1980.
The Third Period (1980-1988)
Brewing industry developed at a high speed since 1980 to 1988. Newly built breweries had sprung up like mushrooms, There were breweries in almost each county and city in some provinces. According to the statistics in 1987, there were 104 breweries in Zhejiang Province. Owing to the policy of reform and opening to the world, advanced techniques, equipment, especially beer packaging line, were introduced from overseas, which had speeded up the development of brewing industry. In 1982, the annual output of beer was 1170,000 tons, then, in 1985, the annual output of beer reached 3104,000 tons, and in 1988, 6540,000 tons.
The Fourth Period (1989-present)
It can be said that it was the exuberant matured period of brewing industry in China. On the one hand, the development of brewing industry kept a top speed; on the other hand, it began to pay more attention to beer quality and economic benefit of brewing industry during this time. The production scale of brewing industry began to become much larger and form groups according to the international practice. Some medium and small scale breweries were annexed by large scale breweries. Some breweries have production capacity over 1000,000 tons. Now beer production in China is over 12,000,000 tons per year, ranking the second in the world. But the beer consumption distributed according to the number of people is still little. The brewing industry in China has good prospects. A number of foreign companies took part in the management of the breweries.
National Beer Standard Number: GB 4927-91
Beer production is divided into three quite clear- cut processes: malting, mashing and fermentation. The basic raw materials employed in brewing are barley malt, hops, water and yeast. In addition non- malt cereals are often used as an adjunct with barley malt.
The Beer Quality Standard was approved by National Technique Supervision Bureau on September 10,1991, and enforced on August 1, 1992.
Quoted Standards:
GB 191 Diagrammatic sign of Package Store and Transport
GB 2758 Hygienic Standard of Fermented Alcoholic Beverages
GB 4544 Beer Bottle
GB 4789.1-4989.28 Inspection Method of Food Hygiene-- Microbiology
GB 4928 Beer Experimental Method
GB 5739 Beer Plastic Revolving Trunk
GB 6543 Corrugated Paper Box
GB 10344 Label Standard of Alcoholic Beverages
Beer Qality Guaranteeing Period:
The quality guaranteeing period of bottled and canned extra-matured beer is no less than 120 days (excellent and first class) and 60 days (second-class). Bottled draft beer is no less than 7 days and 3 days for tinned barrelled draft beer.
Wine Production in China
Ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamians first planted the grape and made wine according to the archaeological data. It could be seen from the living scenes that Egyptian planted grapes, made wine and wine business from a piece of grave frescoes about 5000 years ago.
When Chinese began to produce wine is still a question hard to answer, for there is no convinced proof to answer it. In 1980, a tightly sealed copper container with liquid was unearthed in an ancient tomb in Henan Province. The dead was believed to be living in later period of Shang Dynasty (3000 years ago). After having been analysed by Beijing University, the liquid in the copper container was considered to be wine ("wine which preserved for 3000 years", <>, May, 1987), So, scholars have put forward recently a standpoint that production of wine already existed in China in Shang Dynasty. But, it is not clear whether the grape was planted or wildly grown at that time. But archaeologists had extravated the remained fruits and kernel of peach, plum and jujube in a pottery jar found in a wine workshop of the middle period of Shang Dynasty. Although without sufficient written proofs, it is certain that wine made from fruits was a kind of alcoholic drink in the remote antiquity, according to the archaeological data mentioned above and the simple techniques required for making it.
Wine Production in Ancient Times
Generally speaking, wine was not the major sort of alcoholic drinks in ancient China. But it had been basically the major variety in some areas, for example, the Northwest China ( Xinjiang). There could be three periods in the history when the wine production and consumption had been popular: Han Dynasty, Tang Dynasty and Yuan Dynasty. The historic records about the phenomenon were fairly abundant.
Wine was first recorded in > ( A Historical Record written by Si Maqian in Western Han Dynasty). In 138 B.C., Emperor Han Wu Dia sent a diplomat, Zhang Qian, to the West Region on a diplomatic mission. Zhang Qian found out that the most popular alcoholic drink in the locality was wine produced from grapes. The rich people stored more than ten thousand `Dan' (a unit of dry measure for grain and 1 `Dan' is equal to 0.3425 hectolitre) of wine which could be kept for about ten years. People enjoyed drinking wine. The Han Dynasty messenger learnt the techniques of planting grapes and wine- making. The plantation of grape and wine-making in the Imperior Palace was undergoing in large scale according to historic records. This historical data fully explained that the Han nationality had learned and grasped the techniques of grape platation and wine-making at least in 2000 years ago.
The processes of wine-making is simpler than those of rice wine -making, but the production of wine in ancient China was not so popular for several reasons: grape harvest was a seasonal work, so it was not ease to get grape at any time. The techniques of wine-making had not been widely spread out. The Hans in Han Dynasty failed to grasp the main points of wine-making. After Han Dynasty, probably people did not plant grape any more at Central Plains. Some outlying districts often presented wine as a tribute to the imperial families of successive dynasties.
Wine was still a valuable drink in Eastern Han Dynasty. It was recorded that Meng Tuo in Fufeng sent wine as a gift to Zhang Rang. Zhang offered him governor of Liang Zhou. In the beginning of Tang Dynasty, the people at Central Plains knew nothing about how to make wine at all. According to the historic records, Emperor Tang Tai Zong learnt the wine-making techniques from the West Region. The Emperor himself made wine in the Imperial Palace and awarded a variety of wine to aristocrats, The aristocrats had just knew the wine. Gradually, the people in Chang'an City began to enjoy the wine." Many famous poets such as Li Bai, Bai Juyi also wrote poems to praise wine. Moreover the people of minority nationalities set up wineshops to sell wine brought from the West Region at that time.
The rulers of Yuan Dynasty were very fond of wine, and stipulated that people must use wine when they offered a sacrifice to Temple. The scale of wine production reached the largest in the ancient times in Yuan Dynasty and the production of wine was centered in Xinjiang and Tai yuan. The West Region had always been the major wine producing area in ancient China. Some historical data in < Unearthed Document of TuLuFan > (compilation according the unearthed documents) recorded situation of the grape planting, wine production, and wine business in TuLuFan area from 4th century to 8th century. It can be inferred that the wine producing scale was fairly large at that time.
Because of the development of distillation techniques, people in Yuan Dynasty began to produce distilled spirit from wine ( brandy), it was recorded in ¡Yin <> LI Shizheng also recorded the West Region's grape spirit in his << Ben Cao Gang Mu >> in Ming Dynasty. Xu Guangqi in Ming Dynasty ever recorded the varieties of grape cultivated in ancient China as following:
The crystal grape, pink white, as powder at surface, large and long, sweet taste.
The purple grape, black color, large or small, acidic or sweet taste.
The green grape, produced in the Middle of SiChuan Province, green when it matured. As it concerned green grape in the West Region, its name
called "Rabbit eyes", sweeter than honey, the seedless grape is precious.
The "SUO-SUO" grape, produced in the West Region, small as peppers, but that produced in YunNan, large as jujube, good tasted.
Methods of Wine-Making in Ancient China
The techniques of wine-making in ancient China included natural fermentation and fermentation with Qu.
Natural Fermentation
The methods of wine-making which were introduced from the West Region should be the natural fermentation. In ¡¶Xin Xiu Ben Cao¡· of Sujing in Tang Dynasty, it was said that "the rice wine should be made with Qu, while wine-making needed no Qu." A poet in Yuan Dynasty ever wrote a poem to discribe the the whole process for wine- making by natural fermentation at that time.
Fernentation with Qu
The Chinese people had made rice wine with Qu for a long time, so the traditional conception influenced greatly the practice of wine -making . From some historical records about the techniques of wine-making, we can often read some funny descriptions about wine-making procedures with Qu as starter. Even in Yuan Dynasty, some people did not know the method of wine -making with natural fermentation.
Wine in Modern China
In later Qing Dynasty, wien was imported to China from the West. In 1892, a overseas Chinese Zhang Bishi established vinery and winery (Zhang Yu Wine Company) in Yantai, Sandong Province. This was the first large scale winery owned by Chinese. This winery introduced good varieties of vine and production equipment from the West. From then on, the techniques of wine-making in our country came up to a new stage.
After the foundation of the People's Republic of China, wine -production industry was recovered. From 1950's to the beginning of 60's, varieties of good-qualified vine had been introduced from East Europe. At present, vineries and wine production centers have been set up in Xinjiang, Gansu Province, the plain along the bank of Bo Hai, the ancient reach of Yellow River, and the area of Huangtu Plateau, Huaihe River valley and Changbai Mountain area of Northeast China. The annual output of various wines amounts to 200,000-400,000 tons.
