Beer in Taiwan: Volume 2

Victoria Bitter is an Australian beer that I've heard mentioned quite a lot by Aussie friends and other people who've traveling in the land of kangaroos and criminals. So, when i was strolling through the beer section at a specialty grocery store last week and saw that they had some VB, I got some. Clint, my pal from Georgia, lived in Perth for a year and I thought he'd be pleased to have some VB.

Nope.

As soon as I pulled one the stubbies from the fridge his face fell and he recoiled.

"No. Only broke bogans drink that swill."

Oh. But, I thought, how bad could it be?

Pretty goddamn bad is the answer I came to find out. Put simply, I'd rather drink Budweiser than VB, and I still have another bottle in the fridge because they were on sale. It's just not a good beer. Little flavor, watery taste. Blech. Avoid this "brew" unless you feel like punishing yourself or one of your friends.

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Conversely, I finally got a hold of one of my friend's first professional batch of pale ale. Matt and I brewed together for a little bit here in Taichung before he moved up to Taipei. Once there, he wasted little time in finding a few other kindred spirits and now they have their own brewery, 23 Brewing Company. There are very few micro-breweries in Taiwan and although there are a few small we-make-our-own-beer kind of bars around town, generally their product is rather awful. However, Matt and his 23 Brewing cohorts have got their shit together and their pale ale is fantastic. Floral aroma, hoppy bite, great color. At the bar on Saturday night I ditched the yellow-beer draught and pounded a few of the #1 pale ales without bothering to look at the price tag (premium beers in Taiwan usually cost a premium price). If any of you Taiwan folks see that red and white label, spend your dollars on a beer that's worth your while.

Beer in Taiwan: Volume 1

Hey chumps! As the title for this post concisely explained this post is about some of the tasty beer that I've been able to track down this side of the world. Keep your peepers peeled for further entries on this as the beer situation is rapidly improving and expanding.

This weekend I had a chance to sit down and get in some good quiet time with a few of the brews that I was able to pick up at Carrefour.

For those of you that don't know, about once a year Carrefour will get one big pallet or so of imported beers and stock them until they're gone. Usually they don't last long and for some reason they still haven't really stocked any from past years! Things are a little better than when I first arrived here, though, as there are a few Belgian beers to be had. But, I digress. So, here's some fancy pics and a few notes on each brew that I snagged from the Crafty Dan Microbrewery.

Hoppy goodness.

Triple C Golden Ale

 Wonderful hoppy aroma. Deep gold color and a crisp edge. Excellent hoppy-bitterness up front and a smooth finish. This is one of those beers where I can taste the tannins when I lick my teeth. Love that!

Hop combination provides a nice bitter depth that IPA and pale ale drinkers will enjoy, but could also deter you from having more than say two or three.

Taiwan needs more beer like this on the shelves.

 

 

 

Big Ben Brown Ale

 Slightly nutty smell,  and super dark brown color as a brown ale should be. Nice head retention. This beer has a pretty balanced profile, without hops or malts crashing to the forefront, though there is a slightly bitter finish. Overall I'd say this guy is tasty, but otherwise not memorable. 

Blam. Blam. Blam.

 

 

13 Guns American IPA

Anyone that has sat and had a few cold ones with me knows that the hoppier a beer a is the happier I am. Obviously I was super stoked to have my favorite beer style in the fridge! I've spent the last few minutes just smelling it. None of that wafting bullshit, either, I'm about to pour this stuff out on a mirror and do a line. Wonderful aroma that is grassy with light floral notes and a hint of bitterness. The 13 Guns isn't as dark as the Big Ben, but it's certainly gotten a bit more sun than the Triple C. However, it is slightly less hoppy and I find that a touch disappointing. Now, I do like a nice bitter-as-all-hell IPA, this one lacks the punch of a Dogfish Head or a Smuttynose, but still manages to be pretty damn tasty. So for you hop-heads in Taiwan, grab those Triple C while you can, but stick to the Guns if you plan on tossing more than a few back.

To Beertopia and back

I'll start this entry by thanking everyone for their efforts in trying to help me get the best damn job I could think of as a beer taster for Beertopia in Hong Kong back in March. Alas, I was unable to secure that position, but at least the two folks I lost out to had great application videos and did a superb job as tasters (you bastards!). I also realize that this post is a few months late, but I've been busy getting ready to quit my job and make all kinds of adult decisions. Like how many goats to buy, and what kind of hats they will wear.

Since Beertopia was such a kickin' good time, I'd wanted to do a full recap of my trip in blog form. However, I think the video that the very talented Alec Fairbanks helped me put together sums it up pretty concisely. What I will share though are a few highlights from my trip via a few of my favorite photos and a dash of commentary.

Yes, it was just as much of a kick-ass time as it looks like it was, despite the fact that I went alone. Huge thanks to Joel (and his magnificent beard) for giving me a homebase throughout my day of beer soaked fun.

Beertopia Hong Kong: Beer Taster Job!

HEY YOU. Yea, you! Right there reading this post. You can help me get my dream job as a beer taster for the largest beer-fest in Hong Kong. If I win, I get a brewery tour, a beer tasting walk through with the owner of The Globe, and I get toDRINK AWESOME BEER and post reviews on the Beertopia FB page and Instagram for the month before the festival.

Kick-ass, huh? SO GIVE ME YOUR VOTES!

It's EASY. Go to THIS WEBPAGE and VOTE for my video. There are over 60 people trying to get this job and if I can get the most votes I think I've got it in the bag as my video is rather epic. I love beer and I love the Internet, help me put these two together for the opportunity of a life time!

ALSO YOU CAN CLICK THE PICTURE BELOW TO VOTE FOR ME. CHEERS!

VOTE FOR NIK!

Homebrew Wednesday #10: Tasty Tastings

Homebrew Wednesday is now officially into the double digits! I tried to celebrate but the midgets had a falling out with the greased up Orangutans from down the road and there was no way I was going to find fifty gallons of grape jelly on my own.

So, I settled for a blog post.

Recently it's been rather quiet on the brewing front. There's a few liters of apple wine bubbling away in my closet and I haven't decided if I want to make a post for it yet so you'll have to wait to read about it. If you're lucky and happen to be in Taiwan I might even let you drink some.

Anyway, for Christmas that-guy-who-looks-like-me forked over a few pretty nice brews that he'd found in the belly of a department store, along with an entire case of beer from Costco. Obviously I am burdened with the task of drinking all of this beer and it struck me as a good idea to share my thoughts on them in case any of you have considered buying them and been struck by the questions, "How tasty is this beer? Do other people like it? Should I buy some? Where do unicorns buy hats?"

Fret no more, meatbags. I've got it covered.

I actually tasted these brews a few days ago but I had the forethought to take notes of first impressions and I've copied my thoughts here. Gosh I'm smart. 

Pale Ale- Not too bad! Got some nice lacing in the glass. Reasonably hoppy ale with a nice amber/gold color. Pretty good mouthfeel but the overall experience is just ok. Good to try, though.

 

 

German Lager- Can't say I've had an authentic lager from the Fatherland, so I don't have much to compare this to besides it's commercial bretheren. Nice tall head after the pour but that's per usualy with a lot of the commercial stuff. Dark golden color. Much lighter flavor than the Pale Ale or the Amber Ale. Reminds me of a clearer version of the Le Ble D'or but without the syrupy aftertaste. Hoppy finish when I lick my lips. Pretty good!

 

 

Amber Ale- Nice thick head on top after the pour. Red color. Much mellower flavor than the Pale Ale with a touch of malt. Softer hops profile, as well. Very smooth and easy to drink. I like this one a lot.

 

 

 

Fuller's ESB- You probably aren't surprised to read that I was drinking a beer while writing this HBW post, and this brew was so good I had to include it. I first had this at a small bar downtown and it was actually in the company of an Englishman (you know who you are you dirty redcoat!). I couldn't recommend this beer more; just smelling it makes me happy. This brew has the aroma, taste color, and foamy amazingness that other beers wistfully dream about. This ESB has a great hoppy bite that grabs your taste buds and throttles them from the very first. The finish is clean and the mouthfeel should be charging my tongue for the lap dance it just gave. This is one of those beers that is that full flavored and weighty enough to be appreciated but not too aggressive as to prevent subsequent quaffings.

I could climb into a wading pool of this and drink my way out. Seriously.

Don't tempt me.

There is also an Inda Pale Ale and when I was taking pictures for this post I realized that the case of beer from Costco had two bottles with green caps. I was wondering why there were two rows of German Lagers and only one of the others. Oops! So, I haven't tried this one yet but once I do I'll tack a follow up onto this post. Cheers!

Homebrew Wednesday #9: Smoked Wheat All-Grain

It's been more than a year now since I first got into brewing and so far I've successfully brewed a lager, a wheat, an IPA, and a bitter. However all of these tasty beverages have a common denominator in that they were all kits. That is, all of these beers were made with cans of malt extract and most of the hard work had already been done for me. While there is still brewer's caution to be maintained while making beer this way it still has an overarching theme of simplicity.

Enter, my girlfriend.

Sue witnessed the beginning of my time as a brewer and correctly assumed that I was always interested in exploring other avenues of brewing tasty things to drink. I also have the penchant for constantly talking about things that interest me. For Christmas she got me a one gallon beer kit from the Brooklyn Brew Shop (BBS), a small homebrew start-up company. The kit consisted of a bag of grain, hops, and yeast; all the things I would need to do a mini-batch of all-grain beer. At this point I'd become pretty comfortable with kit brewing and this awesome gift hurtled into my comfort zone like an exciting cyclone of novelty steeped in mysterious, mushy passion.

Or something.

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Homebrew Wednesday #8: Pineapple Wine

Back in October I was at work and one of my CT's was asking me about my brewing adventures. Of course I was more than happy to fill her in on the variety of wines and beers I had already brewed and wanted to brew in the future. She suggested pineapple.

I agreed.

I found the perfect juice at Jason's, an upscale supermarket in the basement of Chung You Department Store. It came in juice boxes of one liter each, just what I needed, so I grabbed four of 'em and high tailed it back to my place. The boxes reminded me of the BIOES juice that I'd used before and I guess I should have checked for fruit pulp/silt after my adventures with my mango wine. I would reccommend doing this if you are brewing with 100% juice as this could mean there is still some particulate matter in the container.

The recipe:

  • 4L Prince Pineapple Juice
  • 1 cup white table sugar
  • 1.5 sachet of Lalvin EC-1118 yeast
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Homebrew Wednesday #7: Mango Update!

Hey, chums. Remember my Mango Adventure? Since my primary vessel was so sludgy and pulpy and just plain strange looking, I thought it was time to rack the mango-mystery into a secondary vessel and try to get it away from such heavy amounts of particulate matter and try to make it at least look drinkable.

And the pulpy stuff was weird looking, did I mention that?

Anyway, I stripped off the ass-load of tape I put around the stopper to hold it in place and sanitized one of my lengths of tube to use as a siphon. It was weird pushing through that heavy layer of pulp, and the more liquid I siphoned out the smaller the space between the head-pulp and the bottom-of-the-jar pulp got. I racked off nearly three liters of wine and filled the secondary vessel, which is a slighter smaller bottle. I thought that was a pretty good amount considering how much liquid I almost certainly lost to the pulp-raft.

Haha, PULP RAFT!

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Homebrew Wednesday #6: The Mango (mis?)Adventure

I spent a day a few weeks ago home sick with a cold and after spending pretty much the entire day in front of the computer, in bed, or on the couch, I wanted to do something. I'd taken a packet of my champagne yeast out of the fridge a few days before, so I thought I'd use it.

My last two batches of wine had been relatively common juices, apple and an apple-peach-passionfruit blend, and I was always on the hunt for something new. Hence, why I was walking through the juice aisle at Carrefoure, again, and I happened to see BIOES 100% Mango Juice. Carrying enough back to make a batch wouldn't be easy as I have no storage space on my motorcycle, but then I'd never seen mango before and I thought I should get it in case it disappeared.

I probably stood in that aisle for a full five minutes debating on whether I should buy it or not. In the end, my curiosity won out and I grabbed four 1 liter boxes of the stuff and jammed them in my bag.

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Homebrew Wednesday #5 Belgium Beer Tasting

Awhile back Sue and I went to Bravo Beer which is a restaurant located in the fancy-schmancy new department store, Top City. Supposedly they had over a hundred different kinds of beer and also served food. Score! I had to check it out, so one night the two of us went over and gave it a try.

My advice is stick to the appetizers and avoid the Gnocci (blech!), and, of course, slam as many beers as you can. You'll spend some coin to try a few different beers, at least 150NT or more per beer, but it's worth it if you want to get a good spread of suds.

I've always been a fan of Belgian style beers, particularly Hoegaarden, and I was excited to work my way through a couple bottles of new stuff at Bravo. The beer cooler itself was quite impressive and actually made it harder to make a choice as I could look at all the beers at once. Kid in a candy store, I was.

Once I selected a beer someone from the staff grabbed it for me and also snagged an appropriately branded and shaped glass for that beer. Nice.

Here are my notes for each beer that I tried.

~~~

Corsendonk- Tasty but still unsure how much i like it. Decent mouthfeel and excellent lacing that looks like bubble wrap. Nicely malty but the hoppiness is a little off-putting; not quite bitter with strong nutty overtones. Good for a glass, maybe. Not for a case.

Leffe Blond- This beer is quite hoppy. Floral hops with a moderately bitter finish and a really strong flavor. Syrupy mouthfeel. A little disappointing overall, don't think I would get it again. 

Blanche des Neiges-A Wit Bier! I love wit biers and this one did not disappoint. Beautiful straw color, nice lacing, floral hints and a nice finish. Reminds me of Hoegaarden or my Coopers wheat beer kit. Excellent stuff.

Caracole- This beer was the highest in alcohol content and really reminded me of a weaker barleywine; which is not so good as I am not a fan of that style. Its named as an amber ale and I'd agree, the color is a lively deep red, like ripe cherries, with a touch of brown. No detectable hoppiness but a hint of malt and a slightly bitter finish I'd attribute to the high ABV (7.5%). Cool label, nice to try once.

All in all it was pretty tasty stuff. I suddenly feel the urge to get back there and try a few more and see what I can find. Once Sue comes back to Taiwan we'll make our way over here and she'll help me give you guys the skinny on few more brews.

So, until then, happy brewing. Or drinking. Or robot building. Or whatever you people do.

Homebrew Wednesday #4 Coopers English Bitter

The Coopers English Bitter I just brewed is the third and final beer that I brought back to Taiwan from my trip to Singapore. I have been steadily working my way through my IPA supply and I'm sad to see that I only have five bottles left. But, I have shared this one a lot more than my other beers in part because I've had more occasions to do so, and also because  I'm proudest of this one; it's the clearest, cleanest beer, tastiest beer I've brewed yet.

Not that I'm bragging. (I am).

Anyway, I was doing some math the other day and it occurred to me that I didn't have to wait until my IPA was entirely gone to brew my next batch of beer. In the past I've had to wait because I only had enough gear to bottle and drink one brew at a time. But over the last few months I've been steadily collecting Grolsch swingtop bottles and I've got about 35 of them now. Score! Cheers to Uzo in downtown Taichung for setting aside a whole bunch and donating them to my brewing adventures.

The recipe:

  • 1.7kg can Coopers English Bitter 
  • 500g Coopers Light Dry Malt
  • 1 tsp Wyeast nutrient blend

For the EB I made a fresh batch of sanitizer because I'm super paranoid about sanitation and  put on some of my favorite tunes and got everything ready to go.

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Homebrew Wednesday #3: Weisswine Batch 2

While enjoying my Coopers IPA I got the itch to brew something, again. I was already stocked up on beer so I thought I'd make some more Weisswine, and experiment a bit more this time.

Sue and I made a trip to Costco and I bought 14 liters of juice to ferment into alcohol-filled-tasty-goodness; 8 liters of Treetop apple juice and about 7 liters of Kirkland apple peach passionfruit. I grabbed the apple because I'd wanted to make something hard-apple since I saw a recipe for Apfelwein floating around on a few forums. Once I saw the APPF juice Sue said that it sounded tasty as well, so I bought both.

The recipe:

Hard Apple

  • 4 liters of Treetop apple juice
  • 2 cups white table sugar
  • 1 cup boiled raisin nutrients
  • 1/2 sachet Lalvin EC-1118 yeast

APPF

  • 2.87 liters of apple peach passionfruit juice
  • 700 ml of Treetop apple juice
  • 1 cup boiled raisin nutrients
  • the other 1/2 of a sachet of Lalvin EC-1118 yeast

I went with different juices for these because the BIOES juice I used last time was ok, but not that great, and these are sold in bulk. I also wanted to make something that actually tasted good. I added a bunch of sugar to each one to up my ABV, but I varied the amount slightly to see how it affects the taste. More importantly, this time I had proper yeast! Bread yeast did the trick just fine last time but a lot of the off flavors and dryness were probably primarily due to that as well as the high fermentation temperature. Bread yeast is not made for making booze.

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Home Brew Wednesday #2: Inmate Wine

Happy home brew Wednesday. Let's get right into it, eh?

After I'd brewed two beers with my Coopers Kit, I felt hungry for some more brewing experiences, and did some homework. That, friends, is how I stumbled upon Inmate Brew.

Inmate Brew itself is notorious throughout countless correctional institutions across the United States, and abroad I'm sure. It is also called pruno, which is not what I made, as that is made with bread as a yeast substitute or relies on rotting fruit for fermentation. Yum. Obviously I have a touch more freedom with my materials as I'm not a convicted felon doing five-to-ten in Leavenworth.

At least, not yet.

Tehee!

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Home Brew Wednesday #1: Coopers IPA

After I brewed my last batch of Coopers Wheat, I ran out of Carb drops. Two beers worth of tasty homebrew fix-ins in the fridge and no way to carbonate them. Sigh. Good thing that in June I took a three week sabbatical back to the states for my pal's wedding. Amidst chugging as much tasty microbrew as I could get my hands on and thickening my waistline on some good ol' American cuisine, I ordered eight bags of the Coopers Carbonation Drops. I figured that was enough for a couple beers and some other adventures as well.

Then, two days after I got back from the states I got all my gear out of the closet and brewed my Coopers IPA. I was feeling much more confident this time around having two other successful batches under my belt and I was excited to make a darker beer after making the Lager and the Wheat.

The recipe: 

  • 1 can Coopers IPA ME
  • 500g light dry malt
  • 300g dextrose
  • 1/2 a tablespoon (or so) of Wyeast nutrient

This time around I changed a few things and even though it was only my third beer I felt the itch to start experimenting.

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Asahi 1/2 and 1/2

 

Asahi is certainly not a particulary special brand of beer as they are known, as most big beer companies are, for their ubiquitous lager style. However, they also make a black lager (also called schwarzbier) that is really smooth and without the bitterness typically found in darker beers.

Sue and I went to a kick-ass DIY BBQ place over near the new government building and besides the amazing food, they also had what they called Asahi 1/2 and 1/2; a glass of beer that is half Asahi Dry and half Asahi Black.

I was expecting something like a black and tan, but what I got was a glass of really dark beer that had the crisp finish of the Dry and the malty tones of the Black.

Drink lots of this if you can find a place that offers it, or get creative and make it yourself.

James Squire Nine Tales Amber Ale

 I think ales are quickly becoming my favorite style of beer. Mental note to brew more of them.

Along with my haul of Coopers from the store I grabbed a James Squire merely on impulse, and it turns out that was a great idea. Their Nine Tales Amber Ale is quite good. The color is a fantastic reddish...well, amber color coming in at something just shy of 20 SRM. There's lots of lacing happening on my pint glass and the slightly nutty finish to the beer is really nice. It's neither hoppy nor particularly malty, but still extremely drinkable.

Recommended, for sure.

Coopers Extra Stout

 

It has been quite a while since I had a stout beer and it is most refreshing to get a good one! I'm still glowing from my discovery of Coopers at the store, a rarity in Taiwan, and I feel as if I should go buy them all up and hoard them, Gollum-style.

Anyway, the Coopers Extra Stout is a great beer. There was a great towering head when I poured it into my glass and it was nice to watch it settle out. It settled much differently than other darker beers I've had recently, such as Guiness and Old Speckled Hen, in that there was a very...beady texture to it; the other ones were more, I dunno...silty (not a bad thing by any means).

Beer this dark doesn't get into my fridge enough. The Extra Stout hits the SRM scale pretty high at 30-35+ with its tasty opaqueness. The flavor is moderately dry with deep roasty tones and a slightly bitter finish. The warmer the beer gets the stronger the flavor becomes as it was quite cold when I started drinking it.

Great stuff. I need to get some more.

Alss check out this handy little archive to read more about stouts.

 

 

Coopers Pale Ale

While walking through Jason's I happened upon some Coopers! I had yet to drink a Coopers beer that I hadn't brewed myself and I was very interested to see how to the commercial stuff tasted. Luckily there were two types, a stout and a pale ale.

Score.

I cracked the Pale Ale first.

At about 10SRM, the Pale Ale has a great amber color. I took a nose-full of beery aroma before I had my first sip, something I always recommend you do before enjoying a brew. I was expecting something really nice because of the Coopers name, and the Pale Ale did not disappoint. It is not as hoppy as an IPA (India Pale Ale), with about 16 IBUs, and the flavor is balanced out by the malty-goodness to achieve a smooth, crisp taste. I'm halfway through it as I write this and I really, realy wish I had another one. This is one of the better beers that I've had in recent memory and I can't wait to buy some more!

Homebrew: Coopers Wheat Beer

 

It didn't take me long to drink up all of the Coopers Lager that I brewed for my first batch and the more empty bottles I had, the more I wanted to brew another beer. Of course, getting my ingredients was an ever present problem and I had no wish to kick out a ton of money and have some goodies shipped from the Coopers office in Adelaide to my house in Taichung. Luckily, Chinese New Year solved my problem.

As a side note, for those of you who aren't so familiar with Chinese culture, when the lunar year ends in January of February there is a big celebration that you can read all about here. Mostly for foreign teachers like me it means that we have a week off of work and it's the perfect time for travel.

I went to Singapore.

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My first batch of brew: Coopers Lager

After I decided that it was time to brew my first beer I felt an immense wave of excitement coupled with a sneaking anxiety. I was thrilled to finally be able to try brewing, something that I'd wanted to do for a long time, but I was also nervous that I'd botch it the first time. This, of course, is a concern that I'm sure every new brewer feels the first time, but mine had more of an edge. If I screwed up this first batch I'd have to wait a few more weeks/months until I could get more supplies for another beer. As I said before, there are no homebrew stores in Taiwan, so I wouldn't be able to run down the street  for another can of malt extract and some brewing sugar.

Nonetheless, I tried my hand at it anyway.

During my research previous to this first batch I found a fantastic youtube channel called Craigtube that had some great videos on how to brew with a Coopers kit for the first time, and other useful stuff. My thanks to Craig and his videos for giving me the step by step know-how I needed. Anyway, I pulled up one of Craig's videos I'd already watched about a dozen times and wrote out instructions for myself, leaving the video open and ready in case I wanted to review something. Which I did. A lot.

So, I sanitized the crap out of all of my equipment using Starsan and set my can of malt extract to warming. What followed was a slightly frenzied mixing of ingredients (which I will post below) and a few minutes of near panic at what I perceived to be mistakes that were going to ruin my beer. But, all in all it was great fun and before I was finished I couldn't wait to make another one.

The recipe:

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