More than 260,000 people visited the 22nd Qingdao International Beer Festival on the opening day of August 11 in Qingdao, a city in East China's Shandong province. The festival concludes on August 26.

Qingdao mayor Zhang Xinqi opened the first barrel of beer for the festival, unveiling activities for the 16-day event, including a grand opening ceremony, beer tasting, a carnival, an artistic parade, a drinking competition, and trade events in the Century Square Beer City, the festival’s main venue in Laoshan district.

The Century Square Beer City covers 200,000 square meters and consists of the Tsingtao Beer Passion Square, a beer booth drinking area, a carnival and performance area, a Munich-style drinking area and a cultural exhibition area.

The drinking areas of the event total 50,000 square meters. As many as 25 beer brands from 16 countries and regions took part in this year's event, with more than 300 varieties of beer products on display.

Participants include top brewery companies such as the local Tsingtao beer, Budweiser and Miller from the United States, Heineken from the Netherlands, Carlsberg from Denmark, Kirin and Asahi from Japan, Becks from Germany, Corona from Mexico and Tiger from Singapore.

Other brands like Germany's Arcobräu, France's Kronenbourg 1664, Italy's Birra Moretti and Austria's Trumer Pils also made their debut at the festival.

According to the organizing committee, this year's festival breaks records in terms of participating countries and regions, beer brands and beer varieties.

The drinking competition is among the most popular and exciting activities. Challengers have the opportunity to show their drinking abilities in a one-minute competition as well as a timed 500-millileter and 1,500-millileter beer showdown.

In addition, the organizing committee is using Weibo, China's Twitter-like social network, to communicate with festival fans. On the first day of the festival, the event's official Weibo attracted 220,000 followers, with an estimated increase of 9,000 in the following days.

Starting in 1991, the Qingdao International Beer Festival, a combination of tourism, culture, trade, sports and carnival activities, has evolved into Asia's largest festival of its kind.

Edited by Chen Zhilin and Michael Thai