But mainlanders are still small beer when it comes to individual consumption. They downed an average of 17.2 litres each, way less than the league-leading Irish, with 190.3 litres.

People in Hong Kong, on the other hand, are drinking less and spending less on beer per head than they did at the time of the handover, but still more than their mainland counterparts.

Hong Kong people on average downed 30.2 litres of beer per head last year, down from 32.7 litres in 1997, according to a report by research firm Datamonitor.

People are also spending less on beer, with the average person forking out US$376.1 a year on beer, down from US$467.7 in 1997.

'Beer as a consumer product is quite sensitive to economic fluctuations,' said Mak Chi-wing, Tsingtao Beer's deputy general manager in Hong Kong. 'When the times were good, people would drink beer more freely knowing that money spent this way could be made back easily. But the economic downturn has caused some to drink more conservatively.'

Mainlanders may be trailing their Hong Kong brethren even after a century of beer-making, but they are catching up with the rest of the world, as individual beer-drinking volumes are up 20 per cent from 14.2 litres five years ago.

Last year, the average mainlander spend just US$13.5 on beer.

The report, entitled 'Global Beer, Cider & FABs Market to 2007', also forecasts Chinese will drink 40 per cent more beer in the next five years, reaching an annual consumption of 24 litres per head by 2007.

Chinese beer is also gaining in reputation. Tsingtao beer, from China's first brewer, is now exported to both Britain and Germany - two nations which helped give birth to the brand 100 years ago.

'It's the situation nowadays where the younger yuppie generation, they would go for beer after work rather than drink a more traditional wine like mao tai jiu,' said Ivan Chung Ying-ming, an assistant professor at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University's Department of Applied Biology and Chemical Technology. Mao tai jiu has an alcohol content of close to 55 per cent.

'Drinking wines with higher alcohol content on an empty stomach can cause stomach ulcers,' Mr Chung added. Excessive alcohol could also lead to hepatic cirrhosis, a fatal condition in which the liver becomes inflamed.

However, China's new-found interest in beer-drinking is giving rise to another health-related problem - that of the 'beer belly' - experienced and loathed by devoted beer drinkers world-wide, according to Mr Chung. Beer uses carbohydrate-rich sucrose to help ferment the raw material to the finished product, a lot of which remains in the beer that is drunk. Beer drinkers world-wide also had a habit of eating snacks and fried foods with beer, Mr Chung said.

China's beer-drinking history can be traced back 100 years, when its earliest manufacturer, Tsingtao Brewery, was set up by German and British businessmen in Qingdao, Shangdong. Qingdao had purportedly caught the eye of German brewers because of the clear spring that runs-off the near-by Laushan Mountain.

The first factory had an initial capacity of just 2,000 tonnes.

Tsingtao now owns 47 breweries and three malting mills in 17 provinces. Last year, it produced 29.9 million hectolitres of beer - roughly a fifth of that sold by Anheuser-Busch, the world's leading beer-maker.

The company also exported more than 640,000 billion litres of beer worldwide last year, to destinations including Taiwan, North America, Africa, and Europe - including Germany.

Additional reporting by Vivian Wu

Nick's view - Page 10