Beers in Taiwan

Looking over the 200+ blog entries of the past 2 years, I'm surprised I haven't said anything about beer in Taiwan. Not to worry, they have lots of good beer in Taiwan. Actually I prefer the local Taiwan beer in Taiwan.

Conveniently in both big bottles and 12 oz cans. The green bottle is generally known as "gold medal"(jinpai), the brown bottle is a little cheaper and a little heavier and might be called "non gold medal"(bushijinpai). In hot weather. using ice cubes is OK.

At the 7/11, there is a selection beyond the local, the next most popular beers are the Japanese versions.

I like these too, the "Bar Beer" is particularly good, light and sweet. I think beer made with rice is good. I think most Taiwanese and Japanese beers use rice as a principal ingredient. But beer snobs look down on rice as a replacement for barley or wheat, I think the yeasties that make beer don't really care.

There are foreign beers available at the 7/11 but I don't think they are as popular unless you are trying to show off.

The American Busch and Budweiser are good, I know Budweiser uses rice as an ingredient(check the label). But the imported beers are more expensive but beer drinkers are going for the effect rather than the impression. Heineken is a worldwide product so probably the safe choice no matter where you are. (But in Belize, the Heineken knockoff "Beliken"  was super.) The "Martens", I bought at 7/11 for this report, is from Belgium, it comes in a plastic, green bottle, a little too modern for my tastes.

The rightmost 2 cans are "Tingdao"(Qingdao) beer from Mainland China. This beer has got to be a marketing challenge in Taiwan. In 1994, when we were living in HsinChu, Taiwan, there were about 30 Taiwanese tourists killed by the PLA(People's Liberation Army) at Qingdao Lake in Mainland China. China has never "solved" or explained this massacre. But anyone in Taiwan with a sense of history can't drink a QingDao beer without remembering that this is unfinished business.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qiandao_Lake_Incident
Here we have a delivery being made to my dorm room, I hope my mini frig can handle it. Notice no need from refrigeration during transport.

 (No nonhuman subjects were injured in the experiments for this report.)