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“Mountain City Beer, a close friend.”

To this day, many Chongqing people still remember this classic slogan. As a local brand with a history of more than 60 years, Shancheng Beer once had an absolute dominant position in the market in Chongqing.

However, the conflicts between the two once friendly partners behind Shancheng Beer have become increasingly public in recent years.

On August 2, the official account of Chongqing Jiawei Brewery Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Chongqing Jiawei) issued a "Statement by Chongqing Jiawei Brewery Co., Ltd. on Saving the "Mountain City" Beer Brand". As the permanent user of the "Mountain City" beer trademark, it accused Carlsberg of carrying out a comprehensive ban and systematic crackdown on the Shancheng beer brand since its acquisition of Chongqing Brewery shares, causing "Mountain City" to be on the verge of extinction.

The next day, Carlsberg China and Chongqing Beer Co., Ltd. responded to the reporter from 21st Century Business Herald that the relevant article was untrue. They emphasized that Chongqing Beer Co., Ltd. owns the "Shancheng" brand and revealed that the sales volume of Shancheng products has increased by double digits in the past five years.

Chongqing Jiawei is one of the producers of Shancheng Beer. It was established in 1999 as a joint venture between Chongqing local private enterprise Yuxin Group and Chongqing Brewery Co., Ltd. (i.e. the listed company Chongqing Beer, referred to as Chongqing Beer Co., Ltd. in this article to distinguish it from the Chongqing Beer brand), with Yuxin Group holding over 60% of the shares.

The day before Chongqing Jiawei published the article, the two parties had gone to court over a contract dispute. Chongqing Jiawei filed a lawsuit for more than 630 million yuan, and Chongqing Beer Co., Ltd. filed a counterclaim in court, demanding the cancellation of a supplementary document previously signed by the two parties.

A reporter from 21st Century Business Herald learned from Yuxin Group that after Chongqing Beer Co., Ltd. filed a counterclaim, Chongqing Jiawei was preparing to respond and the case has been postponed to September.

Since 2020, the two parties have filed lawsuits and counterclaims many times over contract and financial issues, with each side winning and losing. The core of the disagreement is an underwriting agreement that will expire in 2029. The starting point of this cooperation can be traced back to more than 30 years ago.

Outside of the courts and public opinion, Shancheng Beer’s market presence is no longer as strong as it once was.

From rival to partner

From the 1980s and 1990s to around 2013, Shancheng Beer was the absolute leader in the Chongqing beer market. In the 2000s, Shancheng Beer's market share in Chongqing once reached 95%.

"In the past, a bottle of Lao Shancheng beer was more than 600 milliliters and sold for only two or three yuan at the beginning. It had a malt aroma and old Chongqing people were used to drinking it," a local consumer in his sixties recalled to a reporter from 21st Century Business Herald.

From the late 1980s to the early 1990s, Chongqing Brewery successively reached cooperation with breweries in Chongqing, Sichuan, Guizhou and other places through the establishment of consortiums and authorization of trademark use. Breweries in various places began to produce under the Chongqing Beer brand such as "Shancheng", which was underwritten by the latter.

The relationship between Chongqing Jiawei and Shancheng Beer also began during this period.

Chongqing Jiawei was formerly the privately-owned Jinxing Brewery established in 1984. In 1992, Jinxing Brewery officially joined Chongqing Beer, becoming the eighth brewery of Chongqing Beer, and obtained the production license for the "Mountain City" brand, and stopped producing Jinxing beer, under the premise of "three unchanged" affiliation, corporate nature, and financial transfer.

This cooperation was crucial for the Jinxing Brewery at the time. Local media reported that from the late 1980s to the early 1990s, due to the decline in social consumption and the preemptive registration of the Jinxing trademark, Jinxing Brewery's products were seriously overstocked.

In 1993, Chongqing Brewery was restructured into Chongqing Brewery Group and Chongqing Brewery Co., Ltd. was established. The latter was listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange in 1997.

Jinxing Brewery also became one of the shareholders of Chongqing Beer Co., Ltd. at that time, initially holding 2.8825 million shares. After that, Jinxing Brewery was restructured into Yuxin Group, which continued to appear in the top ten shareholders of Chongqing Beer Co., Ltd., and Yin Xingming, the founder of Yuxin Group, served as a director of Chongqing Beer Co., Ltd. In the early stage of cooperation, Yuxin Group had a close relationship with the then Chongqing Beer management.

In 1999, the relationship between Yuxin Group and Chongqing Beer Group was further improved. The two parties signed an agreement to establish Chongqing Jiawei Company, with Yuxin Group holding 60.31% of the shares, Chongqing Beer Group holding 33% of the shares, and Yuxin Group Trade Union holding 6.69% of the shares.

Among them, Yuxin Group and Yuxin Group Trade Union contributed physical assets and cash respectively, while Chongqing Beer Group invested in the company with the right to use the "Shancheng" beer trademark.

It was from this time that Chongqing Jiawei’s permanent right to use the “Mountain City” trademark began.

Officials from Yuxin Group and Chongqing Jiawei told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter that Jiawei's right to use the "Mountain City" trademark is valid during the company's existence. Initially, the company's existence period was 20 years. Later, the Company Law did not set a time limit for the existence of an enterprise. The shareholders unanimously agreed to change it to perpetual existence, and the trademark use period was extended accordingly.

After going public, Chongqing Beer carried out a series of mergers and reorganizations in the southwest, relying on Shancheng Beer to flourish everywhere and become the "King of the Southwest" in the beer industry. After the establishment of the joint venture, Chongqing Jiawei has been using the "Shancheng" brand trademark for production.

20-year underwriting agreement

Entering the new century, the foundation of cooperation between the two sides has changed.

In 2004, Scottish & Newcastle, the world's sixth largest brewer at the time, invested 525 million yuan and became the second largest shareholder of Chongqing Brewery.

The introduction of foreign capital changed the fate of Chongqing Brewery Co., Ltd.

In 2008, Carlsberg and Heineken acquired Newcastle Brewery in Scotland, and Carlsberg acquired the latter's business in China and other Asian markets, becoming the second largest shareholder of Chongqing Beer Co., Ltd. Since then, Carlsberg has continued to increase its holdings and became the largest shareholder of Chongqing Beer Co., Ltd. in 2010.

Before Carlsberg became the largest shareholder, Yuxin Group reached an agreement with Chongqing Beer Group, which promised to allow the listed company Chongqing Beer to continue the underwriting cooperation between the two parties. In 2009, Chongqing Jiawei and Chongqing Beer formally signed a "Product Underwriting Framework Agreement" with a validity period of 20 years.

According to this underwriting agreement, during the validity period of 20 years, Chongqing Brewery Co., Ltd. will underwrite all the beer produced by Chongqing Jiawei. The settlement price paid to Chongqing Jiawei will be based on the ex-factory price of the same variety, specification and market of Chongqing Brewery's beer enterprises in Jiulongpo District and Northern New District (namely Mawang Township and Dazhulin Factory, referred to as Ma Da Factory), to ensure that the net beer revenue of both parties is consistent. In addition, the underwriting sales volume will reach 150,000 kiloliters by 2013 (the maximum production capacity of Chongqing Jiawei at that time), and the growth starting from 2013 will keep pace with the production and sales growth of Chongqing Brewery's beer enterprises in Jiulongpo District and Northern New District.

Correspondingly, Chongqing Jiawei shall bear the sales expenses of these underwriting products and pay at least RMB 100 per thousand liters to Chongqing Brewery Co., Ltd.

The agreement clearly states that during the term of the agreement, Party B (i.e. Chongqing Jiawei) will no longer produce or manufacture any brand of beer for any other third party, and will only produce Shancheng brand beer series. It will also no longer sell beer on its own, but will hand over all sales to Party A (i.e. Chongqing Beer Co., Ltd.).

According to the original document provided by Chongqing Jiawei, there is also a very important statement in the original text of the agreement: Party A (i.e. Chongqing Beer Co., Ltd.) "shall not refuse to underwrite the beer produced by Party B under any pretext."

The aforementioned Jiawei person stressed to the 21st Century Business Herald reporter that the underwriting agreement was approved by Carlsberg at the time. "The underwriting agreement was 100% approved at the shareholders' meeting. Carlsberg was already a shareholder of Chongqing Beer (shares) at the time. Chongqing Beer Group, as an affiliated party, abstained from voting. If they (Carlsberg) did not agree, the contract could not be signed."

Over the past fifteen years, the underwriting agreement has been largely fulfilled.

A reporter from 21st Century Business Herald sorted out the implementation of this underwriting agreement from 2009 to 2023 in combination with annual reports of previous years and noticed that over the past 15 years, the amount of beer produced by Chongqing Jiawei underwritten by Chongqing Brewery Co., Ltd. has increased from 95,000 kiloliters at the beginning to a peak of 143,000 kiloliters in 2016. Since then, except for 2021 during the epidemic, it has remained between 120,000 kiloliters and 140,000 kiloliters from 2017 to 2023.

However, a comparison of the data shows that the underwriting volume failed to reach the target of 150,000 kiloliters in 2013 as originally agreed. The annual report of that year showed that by 2014, the cumulative volume gap had reached 50,359 kiloliters.

In 2015, Chongqing Jiawei sent a letter to Chongqing Beer Co., Ltd., questioning the performance of the underwriting agreement and the price and volume differences of the underwritten beer. Prior to this, Chongqing Jiawei had suspended paying the sales fees stipulated in the underwriting agreement to Chongqing Beer Co., Ltd.

It was not until December 2016 that the two parties finally reached a supplementary agreement, which included three aspects: taking the sales volume of Hechuan Branch in 2015 as the base, and incorporating the sales volume of Mada Factory from January 2016 to uniformly calculate the sales growth rate and average net beverage revenue; agreeing that when there is a price difference or quantity difference, Chongqing Brewery Co., Ltd. will compensate by adjusting the underwriting production of Jiawei Beer or by converting it into cash according to the price per thousand liters of beer confirmed by both parties; the settlement method remains unchanged in accordance with the original underwriting agreement.

With Carlsberg's consent, Chongqing Jiawei began to produce non-"Shancheng" brand products such as "Chongqing Pure Draft" and "Tuborg", and included them in the underwriting agreement between the two parties. According to the financial report of Chongqing Beer Co., Ltd., Chongqing Jiawei began to produce Chongqing brand products in 2016 and Tuborg brand products in 2017.

At that time, Chongqing Beer Co., Ltd. also paid 30 million yuan in settlement money to Chongqing Jiawei, and the relationship between the two parties eased.

Chongqing Beer Enters the Carlsberg Era

However, the supplementary agreement did not solve a fundamental problem: the current Chongqing Brewery Co., Ltd. and the previous Chongqing Brewery Co., Ltd. are no longer on the same development track.

In 2013, Carlsberg acquired the remaining shares of Chongqing Brewery held by Chongqing Brewery Group, increasing its shareholding in Chongqing Brewery to nearly 60% and gaining control of Chongqing Brewery.

Carlsberg owns many high-end international brands, and its development ideas for Chongqing Brewery are obviously different from those of the original management.

Before Carlsberg took control, Chongqing Beer Co., Ltd. had always emphasized Shancheng Beer in its business strategy. In the 2012 annual report, Chongqing Beer Co., Ltd. also stated when discussing the 2013 business plan that it would develop the "Shancheng" brand into a stronger beer brand, but it was no longer mentioned in the 2013 annual report. In the 2014 annual report, Chongqing Beer Co., Ltd. stated that "international high-end brands (Carlsberg and Tuborg) and local strong brands (Shancheng and Chongqing) have formed a strong brand combination, which will continue to be improved and promoted this year." In the 2015 annual report, Chongqing Beer Co., Ltd. further confirmed that the "Chongqing" brand among local brands is the future development direction.

Shancheng Beer, which has long been priced at the mass market, has seen its status decline.

In 2014, sales of the "Shancheng" brand exceeded 730,000 kiloliters, sales of the "Chongqing" brand just exceeded 100,000 kiloliters, and sales of the Tuborg brand just exceeded 80,000 kiloliters.

By the time the two parties signed the supplementary document in 2016, sales of the "Mountain City" brand had slipped to third place, behind the "Chongqing" brand and the Tuborg brand.

The aforementioned Chongqing Jiawei person told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter that Jiawei did not want to produce other brands such as Tuborg, but at that time, high-end products of Shancheng such as "Shancheng 1958" and "Shancheng Guobin" had been cut off. The reason for agreeing to the adjustment was to meet the terms in the underwriting agreement that required Chongqing Jiawei and the Mada factory to keep the net wine and beverage revenue consistent.

The adjusted cooperation continued roughly normally until 2019. In that year, the sales volume of Shancheng Beer had dropped to 116,000 kiloliters.

In September 2020, Chongqing Brewery Co., Ltd. once again ushered in major changes - in order to solve the problem of intra-industry competition, Carlsberg announced that most of its assets in China would be transferred to Chongqing Brewery Co., Ltd.

This batch of assets includes not only local brands such as Wusu in Xinjiang, Xixia in Ningxia, Dali and Fenghuaxueyue in Yunnan, and Tianmu Lake in Jiangsu, but also the business in China of international brands such as Carlsberg, Tuborg and Triumph 1664.

The addition of more brands also means that the importance of the "Mountain City" brand has further declined.

Court battle

The relationship between the two sides took a sharp turn for the worse again.

In September 2020, the same month when the Carlsberg asset injection case was officially announced, Chongqing Jiawei filed a lawsuit, arguing that since 2011, Chongqing Beer Co., Ltd. and Carlsberg-related parties have committed many breaches of contract, and adopted a variety of related-party transactions such as commissioned processing, authorized production, outsourced wine sales in Chongqing, brand adjustment and promotion, etc., which squeezed the market share of the "Mountain City". After the two parties signed a series of supplementary documents, the plaintiff conditionally agreed not to pursue the listed company's previous breach of contract liability and make concessions, but since 2017, Chongqing Beer Co., Ltd. and its branches and subsidiaries have continued to expand related-party transactions with Carlsberg-related parties, damaging the interests of the plaintiff. For this reason, Chongqing Jiawei demanded compensation of 639 million yuan.

In February 2021, Chongqing Jiawei added six defendants to the complaint, seeking compensation of 822 million yuan for losses caused to the plaintiff by Carlsberg-affiliated companies selling Carlsberg-branded products in Chongqing. The defendants include not only Chongqing Beer Co., Ltd. and Carlsberg's affiliated companies, but also Xinjiang Wusu Beer, Ningxia Xixia Jiajiu, Carlsberg Tianmu Lake Beer and other assets newly injected into Chongqing Beer Co., Ltd.

The conflict further intensified.

In March 2021, Chongqing Jiajiu Beer Co., Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Chongqing Brewery Co., Ltd. and a minority shareholder of Chongqing Jiawei, filed a lawsuit, claiming that Yuxin Group, the major shareholder of Chongqing Jiawei, had illegally occupied Chongqing Jiawei's funds for a long time without going through the company's resolution procedures, and demanded that Yuxin Group return nearly 700 million yuan of occupied funds to Chongqing Jiawei.

However, Yuxin Group responded publicly that it was only a loan at the time and that it was agreed upon by all shareholders of Chongqing Jiawei, and that it was not "illegally occupying funds." Yuxin Group believes that this is Chongqing Beer Co., Ltd. "overstepping its authority" and filing a lawsuit on behalf of Chongqing Jiawei.

In December 2023, the official account of Yuxin Group stated that due to large-scale personnel changes in Chongqing Brewery after Carlsberg acquired shares of Chongqing Brewery, the directors appointed to Chongqing Jiawei have not been in place, and no response has been received after repeated contacts and letters. "Yuxin Group had no choice but to borrow from Jiawei Company within the scope of its share of profits, and paid Jiawei Company tens of millions of yuan in interest at market interest rates, fully protecting the rights and interests of small shareholders."

During the litigation between the two parties, multiple bank accounts of Chongqing Beer Co., Ltd. were frozen, 15 trademarks of the "Mountain City" brand and 88 trademarks of the "Chongqing" brand were seized, and 63 commercial properties and 182 parking spaces of Yuxin Group were seized.

During this period, Yuxin first withdrew the lawsuit regarding its objection to the underwriting agreement and then re-filed the lawsuit; Chongqing Brewery Co., Ltd.'s lawsuit regarding funds was first dismissed by the court, and then the court was changed with the support of the Chongqing Higher People's Court. Finally, the first instance ruled that Yuxin Group must repay the relevant funds, and the latter soon appealed.

On August 1, 2024, the lawsuit filed by Chongqing Jiawei regarding the underwriting agreement finally went to court. Chongqing Brewery Co., Ltd. filed a counterclaim in court, demanding the termination of "Memorandum of Understanding No. 3" signed by both parties.

This document is another supplementary agreement signed by the two parties on March 15, 2019, which makes detailed provisions on the scope of underwriting products and the bearing of related sales expenses.

However, Chongqing Beer Co., Ltd. announced that Chongqing Jiawei explicitly denied the validity of the "Memorandum 3" on the grounds that the two parties had differences in the underwriting settlement, and raised objections to the obligation to pay sales fees in accordance with the "Memorandum 3". Therefore, Chongqing Beer Co., Ltd. proposed to terminate the "Memorandum 3", and after the termination, the two parties will settle according to the original underwriting agreement and the previous supplementary agreement.

According to the aforementioned Jiawei person's statement to the 21st Century Business Herald reporter, after the signing of "Memorandum of Understanding No. 3" in 2019, the business scale on which the settlement income was based should have been larger, but Chongqing Jiawei found that the other party's underwriting volume decreased instead of increased, so it sent a letter on this basis. However, the other party regarded Chongqing Jiawei's inquiry as an objection to "Memorandum of Understanding No. 3" and applied to the court for termination on this basis.

According to the annual report of Chongqing Beer Co., Ltd., Chongqing Beer Co., Ltd. underwrote a total of 138,500 kiloliters of beer produced by Chongqing Jiawei in 2019, while the underwriting volume in 2020 and 2021 dropped to 126,700 kiloliters and 114,500 kiloliters respectively. It should be noted that beer consumption has been affected by the epidemic in the past two years.

Unexpectedly, Chongqing Brewery Co., Ltd. filed a counterclaim in court. Chongqing Jiawei’s official account quickly released the statement at the beginning of this article on August 2, hoping to win public support.

Where is the “mountain city” now?

Judging from the narrative in Chongqing Jiawei’s statement, this is a story of a foreign giant suppressing Chinese brands for its own interests.

However, judging from its performance and brand strategy in China, it is hard to say that Carlsberg is deliberately targeting Chinese brands. Since 2020, China has become Carlsberg's largest market in the world, and domestic brands are the main source of its revenue in China.

In 2023, Chongqing Brewery's revenue from local brands such as Wusu and Chongqing was 9.164 billion yuan, and its revenue from international brands such as Carlsberg and Tuborg was 5.278 billion yuan. The revenue share of domestic brands and international brands was approximately 63% and 37%, respectively.

Among them, the Wusu brand has become a national brand under the development of Carlsberg, and the Chongqing brand has also clearly promoted nationalization this year.

However, the two sides have different views on whether Carlsberg has suppressed the "Mountain City" brand.

Chongqing Jiawei said in a statement on August 2 that Carlsberg and Chongqing Beer Co., Ltd. had carried out a series of market bullying and stifling behaviors against "Shancheng", resulting in the annual sales volume of Shancheng Beer dropping from one million tons in 2013 to 98,000 tons, and the brand value dropping from 6 billion yuan to the current book value of 199 local brand trademarks including the "Shancheng" brand of less than 16 million yuan.

According to the 2023 annual report of Chongqing Brewery Co., Ltd., the sales volume of economic products (below 4 yuan) last year was 98,400 tons, mainly Shancheng and other brands.

Carlsberg China and Chongqing Beer Co., Ltd. pointed out to the 21st Century Business Herald reporter that looking back on the development history of Chongqing Beer over 60 years, since its establishment in 1958, the company has been operating the two major brands of "Chongqing" and "Shancheng". With the changes in the market, Chongqing Beer has promoted the two major brands to alternately serve as the main force to meet the needs of different consumer levels. From the 1990s to 2013, the "Shancheng" brand was mainly aimed at the mass market, with a higher sales volume; while the "Chongqing" brand was mainly deployed in the mid-to-high-end market, used for high-end products such as pure draft beer.

In 2014, "Mountain City Guobin" was renamed "Chongqing Guobin". Chongqing Beer launched a "change of dress voting" campaign for Chongqing citizens, attracting more than 300,000 people to vote for the new product packaging, thus completing the brand transformation.

In other words, since then, part of the sales of the "Chongqing" brand has been converted from the original "Mountain City" brand.

However, the brand value of "Mountain City" has always been controversial.

In 2006, Chongqing Beer Group announced that the brand value of the "Shancheng Brand" trademark reached 6 billion yuan according to the evaluation of China Economic (Beijing) Network Media Company. However, when Chongqing Beer Group transferred the trademark to Chongqing Beer Co., Ltd. in 2010, the value of the "Shancheng" trademark had become 260 million yuan, and the appraiser was Beijing Tianjian Xingye Asset Appraisal Company.

The huge gap between the two assessments attracted widespread attention at the time.

According to the Chongqing State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission's reply to multiple media outlets that year, before transferring the trademark, Chongqing Beer hired a formal and legal intermediary evaluation agency to conduct trademark evaluations on "Mountain City" in 2006, 2007, and 2009, and the evaluations were all around 200 million yuan. As for the 6 billion yuan evaluated by China Economic (Beijing) Network Media Company, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission said at the time that it was "just a virtual estimate."

This means that the brand value of "Mountain City" may not be as high as initially claimed.

The market also disagreed with this statement at the time, because the sales of "Shancheng" brand products reached 1.33 billion yuan in 2009. The brand value evaluation report of Beijing Tianjian Xingye Assets mentioned that from 1998 to 2009, without considering the time value factor, Chongqing Beer Group and Chongqing Beer Co., Ltd. invested 389 million yuan in advertising expenses for "Shancheng" brand.

However, the evaluation at that time did not use the cost method or the market method, but the income method. The evaluation report explained that it is not appropriate to use the replacement cost method to evaluate the value of Chinese well-known trademarks with a long registration and use time, high market share, and strong excess profit ability. In addition, it is difficult to use the market method to evaluate the entrusted trademark rights because it is difficult to find similar trademark transaction cases in the open market.

The battle for discourse power

In any case, after the ownership of the "Shancheng" trademark was transferred to Chongqing Beer Co., Ltd., the brand value has become an established fact. After controlling Chongqing Beer Co., Ltd., Carlsberg also has a say in the development of Chongqing Beer brands such as "Shancheng".

But Chongqing Jiawei believes that the “Mountain City” brand cannot be completely determined by Carlsberg.

The basis for this is that when Carlsberg acquired shares of Chongqing Brewery, it faced competition from other giants such as Budweiser and China Resources. Carlsberg was able to stand out by making a solemn promise to the Chongqing State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission to "consolidate and develop the mountain city brand."

Based on media reports at the time, Carlsberg's statement of specific commitments was different from the above statement.

The 21st Century Business Herald reported in 2010 that the SASAC responded by saying that Carlsberg would continue to retain the "Mountain City" beer brand and work together to build Chongqing Brewery into a first-class beer company with a scale of more than 5 million tons. The reason why Carlsberg won was that its bid was the highest among the bidding companies.

At present, Carlsberg has indeed retained the "Mountain City" brand, while also developing and expanding the "Chongqing" brand.

Chongqing Beer Co., Ltd. pointed out to the 21st Century Business Herald reporter that against the backdrop of a 5.6% overall decline in the industry, the sales volume of the "Mountain City" brand in 2023 increased by 16% compared with 2019. In addition, in 2020, Chongqing Beer Co., Ltd. also launched the classic packaging of Shancheng Beer.

But even putting the promise aside, Chongqing Jiawei believes that the right to use the "Mountain City" trademark is an important asset of its company, and it has paid real money for "Mountain City" over the years. Any behavior that damages the "Mountain City" brand will directly affect its interests.

As mentioned above, Chongqing Beer Group invested in Chongqing Jiawei by using the trademark right, and according to the underwriting agreement, the latter needed to pay sales expenses. According to Chongqing Jiawei, it has paid dividends totaling more than 600 million yuan so far, and has paid more than 200 million yuan in sales expenses to Chongqing Beer.

The aforementioned Jiawei official told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter that Chongqing Jiawei will only produce a few thousand tons of Shancheng Beer in 2023, which is about 20,000 tons in the five years from 2019 to 2023.

To this day, Chongqing people can still find Shancheng Beer on supermarket shelves.

A reporter from 21st Century Business Herald visited several local supermarkets in early August and found that most supermarkets sold cheap Shancheng Bingshuang beer. In New Century Supermarket, a six-can can of Shancheng beer costs 9.9 yuan, an average of less than 1.7 yuan per can. Other brands nearby are at least two or three times more expensive.

Obviously, Shancheng Beer is no longer the protagonist on the stage, although many people miss its past glory.