Qingdao’s festival may be of fairly recent vintage, but its beer-making tradition goes back more than 100 years.

At the turn of the last century, the city was a German naval outpost. The Germans brought beer and an architectural style that can still be seen in the buildings of the city’s Old Town.

The British who arrived later were suspicious of the local water and turned to drinking beer instead. In 1903, British and German settlers created the Anglo-German Brewing Company and began producing Tsingtao.