Isn’t it strange that we have 10000 tea shops with crazy wild combinations and even strange seafood pizzas for variety tests… But beer is just TaiPi and Heineken lol. Everywhere.
Try visiting a bar? Craft beer bars are all over and bottle shops are a dime dozen. Craft beer in Taiwan has been developing over the last 10 years and I’d say the breweries that have lasted are mostly putting out some solid products.
Or a convenience store, lots of choices
Do you mean in restaurants? They are sometimes limited in options.
Otherwise, try a larger Carrefour. They have a pretty good selection.
It was a highly controlled industry. Literally the company name had monopoly in it until fairly recently. Taiwan has a long history with narcotics manufacturing, it’s not the same as the regular food industry. It’s changed a lot now though.
On the manufacturing side, it’s long been true it’s just easier to manufacture alcohol abroad and import, pay the taxes and not be in competition with the government. Ttl. That has recently changed as well.
I expect I’ll get some pushback and/or snark but I agree with OP that the beer selection here is pretty dire. Even the specialty imported area at Carrefour’s just have those heavy ABV European beers with the monks on them. They’re not really my style. I miss craft APAs and IPAs. That said, you can find some decent Taiwanese craft beers sometimes. They’re not as good as Western ones imo, but they have some interesting infusions like beer brewed with tea leaves. But usually when I get beer here I just get some passable Japanese ones like Asahi or Sapporo… sometimes they have those decent craft ones with the owl on them; Hitachino. If I see those around I usually grab 3 or 4 as they’re prone to disappear and reappear.
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The market is currently flooded with IPAs, every brewery and their mother is making 3-4 different styles.
If you are looking for good beer stay away from the grocery store. I understand bottle shops are pretty cost prohibitive, so you need to reach out to breweries directly (usually they have a Line Official account). Doing this, you can get much more reasonable prices.
For example, 23 Brewing sells a case for about 2500nt and you can mix and match all their flavors. I’m sure other breweries do the same.
Hard to say selection is dire when places like Ugly Half and Taihu put out a new beer almost every week.
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How does the shopping work for that? I just looked for 23’s website and couldn’t find one. (Well there was one dead link.)
I don’t think they have a website lol. I just message their official line account. It’s just a person on the others side. I say what I want and they ship it out in a few days, I only pay after I get the package. If it’s your first time ordering you have to give some shipping/billing info obviously.
Most cities in taowna have craft beer shops (not bars). Wall to Wall selections of imported beers. There is a very good variety here, only issue is it’s expensive here. I like dark beers. Stone brewery has some good ones I bought in Taiwan.
Like many niche things that are newly opened up, expect to pay. 150-250/bottle is what I normally see. Luckily for IPA lovers, it’s more common than heavier balck beers. Makes sense for a hot country. But still stupidly expensive. 2-3 bottles of good craft beer here is the same price as a 6 pack of like quality in Canada…a country known for high taxes and expensive booze
Zero alcohol or very low alcohol beer options are even worse!
There’s been an explosion of these in UK, Australia, the US and even Japan, and some of them are really good.
But in Taiwan, it’s just Heineken 0 or Taipi “Free” (which is not great).
Many restaurants and bars don’t carry any non-alcoholic beer options at all, which I feel is quite irresponsible as it means drivers will be more tempted to go for the alcohol versions if they don’t like fruit juices.
A little off topic, but I really don’t understand the appeal of non-alcoholic beer. I’m not saying one should only drink beer to get blasted; but a bit of tipsy giddiness and relaxed demeanor induced by the alcohol is most of the appeal. It’s nice to have a beer that tastes good, but no beer tastes so good that if alcohol wasn’t present I would still choose to drink it over other non-alcoholic drinks like coffee, tea, juice, etc (plus as far as beer tasting good, the alcohol is usually a key factor in its taste… I’ve had a couple sips of zero alcohol beer in my time and they’ve all been awful… just bland like bitter carbonated water).
But I do understand different strokes for different folks. I guess I might have to chalk this up to other faux foods/drinks I don’t get like plant-based “meat” and decaf coffee.
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OP didn’t say “pretty dire”, OP said:
But beer is just TaiPi and Heineken lol. Everywhere
Was gonna say, I can not possibly imagine missing craft IPAs that much hahaha. A million different choices and they’re all about as balanced on the palate as the fat kid on the seesaw.
Can you even tell a good one from a bad one when it’s so damn bitter? Idk. A pale ale, I can do, but IPAs are such a rare thing to want for me. I don’t want them even, just, “eh, I’ll try something different”.
My favorite craft brewery in the states used to do a lot of Central Euro styles, but eventually had to slim that down because of all the IPA wankers wanting more IPA selections. We did get a stellar New England Pale Ale (like a NEIPA, but more sessionable) out of that though, so that was something.
No offense to DrewC, I respect your taste, I just don’t get it. Also, how do you reconcile your “I want more IPA/APAs” and “I like lower ABV beers” views 
I’m a happy boy with my occasional Kirins. Wish they had some Pils here. And I miss my dear Obertrumer Zwickl so badly 
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The beers he listed is the definition of “dire”… anyway, that was clearly his implication.
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Easy, and I think I said this already. I drink to relax and to be social (it is after all, a social lubricant). Getting a little tipsy on occasion, but I don’t drink to get shitfaced. There’s a world of difference there. However, if I wanted to stay stone faced sober, I’d have a coffee like I said.
As for ABV difference… imo, a typical IPA is like 6 or 7%, an APA is usually lower at around 5%. The strong beers I see at Carrefour’s are sometimes nutty, boasting of 9%, 10%… there’s even one at 16%. They don’t taste good and they don’t make me feel good. Two to three IPAs (your favorite drink!) usually have me set.
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The beer selection used to be considerably more dire, if that’s any consolation.
Anyway, I had a King Goblin Ruby with a burger last night. Reminded me of home.
I actually think it was a bit better before the pandemic. Maybe that affected supply chains or the import price became too inflated, I don’t know. But a lot of my favorites from overseas (like Stone Brewing or Dogfish Head) either disappeared from the shelves of the supermarkets here or at least become much rarer.
But I take your point it’s probably better than a decade or more ago. Or maybe you mean the domestic craft scene is better… I can see that picking up the slack a bit.
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That’s what I do. Get a few cases or kegs here and there to get some variety that doesn’t break the bank. I used to import a few pallets on occasion, but that’s no longer worth the hassle with the high shipping costs, so I stopped extending my import license.
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Weird market. So I guess it’s flooded with craft beer I can’t actually buy in supermarkets or liquor stores. Can’t buy on websites either. But I can order directly from breweries through methods I don’t quite get. How’d it wind up this way?
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