The top 10 cities for cheap beer, image courtesy of Quartz
A Quartz survey has revealed that Guangzhou is the city with the world’s cheapest beer, Shanghaiist reports. It is the only Chinese city in the top 10 and, surprisingly, a crowd-sourced survey by The Thrillist last month revealed that China doesn’t even place in the top five countries with the cheapest beer.
Shanghaiist argues that our beer may not stay so cheap as multinational beer giants like SABMiller and Budweiser push Chinese consumers to switch from the local brew to their brands and more craft breweries and boutiques sprout up.
Belgian Trappist Ales are already starting to make inroads, ECNS reports:
Although Belgium makes some of the finest beers in the world, sales across most of Europe have remained lukewarm in the past few years because of the continuing financial crisis. Sales, however, from Belgium to China, which started more as a test-marketing venture, have instead blossomed into a big business.
By 2012, the size of the beer market in China had grown to more than 47.5 billion liters, making it the largest beer-drinking market in the world. Now, more Chinese have started developing a taste for the small-scale craft beers and Trappist ales, made by monks, from Belgium.
So China is expected to increase both its consumption and production of quality beer in the coming years.