People are crowded at the Golden Beach Beer City in Qingdao. [Photo/qingdaonews.com]

The coastal city of Qingdao in East China's Shandong province will receive the title "Beer Capital of China" at the opening ceremony of the 31st Qingdao International Beer Festival on the evening of July 16, local media outlets reported.

The title will be given to Qingdao by the China National Light Industry Council and the China Alcoholic Drinks Association for its booming beer industry and famous beer culture.

Qingdao's beer industry has a long history. The famous Tsingtao Brewery was established by British and German businessmen on Aug 15, 1903. The local beer company is now the world's fifth largest beer manufacturer and is among the world's top 500 brands. It is the official sponsor of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and the Winter Paralympics.

In 2020, Qingdao produced 1.77 million kiloliters of beer, accounting for 36.6 percent of Shandong's total beer production.

Qingdao has been attaching heavy importance to the development of its beer culture.

Since 1991, the international beer festival has become an iconic annual event of Qingdao. The Qingdao festival, dubbed Asia's Oktoberfest, is the largest of its kind in Asia and one of China's biggest tourism events.

Qingdao also established the Tsingtao Beer Museum in August 2003. Combining a sense of history with a truly modern setting, the 6,000-square-meter museum gives visitors a rare glimpse into the origins and long history of Tsingtao Beer.

As the only beer museum in China, the Qingdao Beer Museum has been named a key national preservation unit of cultural relics and a 4A national tourist attraction, and has become a model for industrial tourism.