During the First Opium War, 1839-1842, British forces occupied the Chinese port city of Shanghai, and, under the Treaty of Nanking, it became one of five "treaty ports" for international trade. Britain, and, subsequently, the United States established enclaves outside the walls of the city that merged in 1863 to form the Shanghai International Settlement. Beer had been imported into Shanghai from at least 1850, but a brewery opened in the settlement in the mid-1860s.

Historian Martyn Cornell takes a look at the start of an industry that was controlled by Europeans until the settlement was occupied by Japanese forces in 1941.

Martyn Cornell is an internationally recognized expert on the history of beer, brewing and beer styles. He has published four books and hundreds of articles about beer and brewing for more than 30 publications in eight different countries, and spoken at conferences about beer in Denmark, The Netherlands, the UK, Ireland, the United States and Brazil. His work has been translated into languages including Swedish, Spanish, German, Greek, Italian and Portuguese, and he blogs at zythophile.co.uk.