Over October holiday in China we had friends over for a mini oktoberfest festival, since we can’t really go out and celebrate for real. I learned how to make home pretzels (Alton Brown recipe), quick saukraut (non AB since I don’t trust the bacterial floating in China). We even found a Danish butcher in Jin Qiao who makes real sausages, not the sweet filler filled one you usually find in China, sausages that are made with ground meat and spices in a real casing. And of course beer.
Instead of just drinking we made it a little more fun, we did a beer tasting contest. Yunan bought like 9 different kinds of beer, domestic and imported. We did a blind tasting with 3oz shots of each drink. People where very happy afterwards.
Now here is the bad part here is where the taste changing comes into play. Of the lighter beers I picked Tsingo Qiao and Budweiser as being better than things like Duval and Heinaken. And of the darks I picked a local ‘dark’ beer vs Newcastle. What the hey? Has living in China for 1-1/2 years drinking not spectacular beer changed my taste? Yunan mentioned she couldn’t pick out some of them too. In America we would go down to Trader Joes or Bevmo and try new stuff. Our tastes got sharper and we were just more discerning. Now they have muddled. What are we to do? We could try to have more beer but good imported beer is expensive. There isn’t decent locally brewed beer. (Well there are three. Two German breweries, Paulaner and Hofbraugn House, and unfiltered draft Tsing Qiao only available in Qing Dao). It is a quandary.
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