I owed you the test result from the Chinese beer poll back in December last year. I haven’t posted the result as we had other test results with higher priority – like the tests from Adam and Joe M. And I have to apologise as I wasn’t able to get the winning beer (Yanjing) and not even the runner-up (Zhujiang). Finally I found Snow (3rd in the poll) in a small shop in Shanghai. If you don’t know where to go in Shanghai you are lost. Mainly Western beer brands are available beside the most famous Tsingtao which I already tested in 2014.
And I wanted to explore the city and not only look for beer. Actually I found a good shop with a lot of beers but I wasn’t able to buy them as the only accepted way to pay was Alipay. China really lives the digitalisation. Almost everything can be paid with mobile phones using WeChat for instance. Anyway, I tested Snow then. A very light, American lager style beer with low alcohol and not much taste.
Beer: Snow / 雪花啤酒
Producer: China Resources Snow Breweries Ltd.
Originating country: China
Brewing location: China
Bottle size: 500 ml
Alcohol by volume: 3.3%
Ingredients: Water, Malt Extract (9%), Starch, Corn, Hop Extract, Yeast according to internet research
Miscellaneous: –
Test Kit: Imutest Gluten-in-Food Kit
Test result: The test result is negative. According to the instructions there should appear a clearly visible pink test spot on the left of the test area ( T ) to indicate the presence of gluten. The pink spot on the right test area ( C ) is a control spot and indicates that the extract/sample is suitable, the test has been performed correctly and all reagents are active. Even though the detection limit in this kit is very low (1-2 ppm) and the test is negative please note this is not a medical advice – please see also my facts page.
Josh Mannen
Hello I wondered if you could clarify for me which snow beer this was you tested. Your pictures initially led me to believe this is the typical snow beer in the blue can (not green) but when I picked that up at a market in Shanghai, it is 2.5% by volume. Then I accidentally bought a different one, which is snow SuperX, which shows as 3.3%. Which matches the can you posted. Any clarification you have would be great. As I have just moved to Shanghai. And I have gotten no response from snow or Heineken regarding the parts per million in the snow beers.
Steffen
Hi Josh, just returned from Shanghai and Shenzhen. It’s really difficult to find out the right type, there seems to be many different varients. Snow wasn’t really my thing to be honest. Very little taste. Stay with Tsingtao if you can handle it without reaction. Cheers Steffen