Celebrating a beer festival in a coastal city is a popular summer pastime. The 28th Qingdao International Beer Festival offers the perfect opportunity, kicking off on July 20 and ending Aug 26. Lasting 38 days, it is the longest yet.

This year's festival will highlight the recently concluded Shanghai Cooperation Organization Qingdao Summit hosted by the coastal city in East China's Shandong province. The festival will feature a vast tent offering Russian beers, and will also offer branded beer from SCO member countries.

Representatives from those countries will be invited to participate in the festival's opening ceremony, as well as other activities, the event's organizers said. The aim is to enhance friendship, as well as cultural and trade communication among the member countries, they said.

The festival will have 10 international beer tents and three tents for tasting other alcoholic drinks, providing more than 1,300 kinds of beer from more than 200 international brands.

Golden Beach Beer City in Qingdao West Coast New Area, where the festival will be held, has arranged four main feature avenues for beer, musical performances, entertainment and cultural experiences. The festival will stretch across 800,000 square meters, making it one of the world's largest beer-themed squares.

The opening of the first beer barrel at the festival has become a special tradition. Huang Xiaoming, a noted actor born in Qingdao, will continue to be the festival's image ambassador and will join guests in the ceremonial opening of the first beer.

An international music festival will take place at the Sound of the Phoenix Grand Theatre alongside the beer festival, staging 30 performances in different styles. The new theater in Golden Beach Beer City covers an area of 39,000 sq m and will officially open during the beer festival.

The music festival has invited noted musicians such as pianist Lang Lang and cellist Qin Liwei to perform, and arranged for music masters to give lectures and interviews.

Lang Lang and 100 children selected from across Qingdao will perform together on July 21, and he will stage a piano concert on July 22.

Global City International Circus, choreographed by the director of the Chimelong International Circus specially for the beer festival, will perform on the festival's opening day. The circus venue covers more than 3,000 sq m and can seat more than 1,500 spectators.

Liu Liwei, a representative of a theater company in Qingdao, said Global City International Circus gathers acrobats from nearly 10 countries, expertly combining Chinese and Western cultures.

Liu said the circus is an international performance brand with Chinese character and has visited many Chinese cities during its global tour.

Dou Zexu, a Qingdao resident, said: "The circus was an integral part of our childhood, but these days children seldom have opportunities to see circus performances.

"It's great that this year's beer festival has such high-level circus performances. I will definitely take my daughter and parents to go watch them."

More than 200 different foods, such as local noodles from Shandong province and German sausages, will be served at Golden Beach Beer City.

A national seafood cuisine skill competition and demonstrations of Chinese culinary skills will help visitors to learn more about the country's vast food culture.

The newly built recreation zone for the beer festival covers an area of 10,000 sq m. Its indoor section offers scientific and technological experiences, including robots and virtual reality, while the outdoor part offers children's entertainment facilities.

Mi Desheng, director of the beer festival office, said that the West Coast New Area has promoted the festival with an international perspective in recent years.

Golden Beach Beer City started trial operations in early July. Mi said it is well-prepared and welcomes visitors to the festival with great enthusiasm.

If you go

Qingdao is roughly 560 kilometers from Beijing, with an average travel time of one hour and 10 minutes by air and five hours by high-speed train. The city is 693 km from Shanghai, and takes about one hour and 25 minutes by air.

There are also frequent direct flights to Qingdao from South Korea and Japan.

The city's airport is connected to 81 domestic cities and 25 overseas destinations, with more than 4,000 flights arriving and taking off each week.

(China Daily 07/13/2018 page12)