Beer festival to open in Qingdao

By Sun Xiaohui (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2006-08-12 14:48

All preparations for the 16th Qingdao International beer festival are moving forward smoothly as planned, according to the Organizing Committee.

Yu Chong, vice mayor of Qingdao, speaks at a press conference about its beer festival in Qingdao August 11, 2006. [chinadaily.com.cn ]

Yu Chong，vice-mayer of Qingdao, extended his warmest welcome to friends from home and abroad to the festival and weekend greetings to Qingdao residents, at a press conference in Qingdao on August 11, 2006.

This year's festival, themed on "citizen's carnival and entrepreneurs' platform", will feature internationalism, popularity, marketing and industrialization, Yu said.

The festival will begin with a magnificent opening ceremony highlighting activities such as drinking contest, beer carnivals, float parades, stage performance and trad and Olympic promotion activities.

The city's namesake brew, Tsingtao (the former spelling of Qingdao) is China's most famous beer.

Jin Zhiguo, president of Tsingtao Brewery, said, the theme of this festival is 'let the passion sail!' Beer brewers and their faithful followers are gathering in Qingdao for the great carnival.

Qingdao International Beer Festival was initiated in 1991, and opens in the second weekend of August each year for 16 days, which is the golden tourism season in Qingdao.