Brewer's Troop

By Leigh Hope a.k.a. ‘Hopey’ & Antony Rogers

Arrival

They say the longest journey starts with a single step. But ours began with a ten-minute scooter ride. There was no rabbit hole, just a break in the traffic. And there in front of us, was a legend in the making. In Taiwan beer terms ‘we’d visited the mother ship.’ There were no fancy silver outfits; there was no fancy marching band; instead an open reception hall with the brewery as a backdrop - and that was as impressive as it got.

Bypassing the reception hall, without realizing, we headed down to the thumping bass emanating from a room nearby. Among the rooms of the visitor’s area, for reasons best know to those in charge, we found a clothes shop, complete with a tape deck and amplifier outside playing a seductive mix of Euro-dance classics tempting the steady stream of keen eyed bargain hunters in to peruse the apparel. Even Michael Jackson didn’t go unnoticed and received a full techno makeover. Indeed, this most oddly placed clothes store seemed to have more people coming and going than the brewery’s reception hall.

We also found the library. We say library in the loosest sense of the word, as there weren’t even any shelves, let alone books to furnish them. Had the room been given a more practical name, it may have been called “Step-ladder Storage” but, perhaps, the operators of this slightly surreal visitor’s area simply have a penchant for the metaphorical.

With confused looks, and uncomfortable demeanours, we headed back to the uninviting visitor’s centre. After playing a brief round of stare-at-the-white guy, we conjured up the courage to properly investigate the small visitor’s centre and buy a beer, which, to be fair, represented a seven minute delay from arrival to lager.

Main Attraction

The centre itself reminded us of a duty-free shop from the past, without the grandeur. It was however well stocked with Taiwan Beer (naturally), as well as various other products from the TTL (Taiwan Tobacco & Liquor) Corporation, so of course there was also plenty of liquor, cigarette brands such as Long Life and Gentle, and all manner of bountiful things. Don’t expect to find non TTL products there of course.

If you get peckish, you might want to indulge in a 酒香 (which would translate as a booze sausage, but we couldn’t be sure what kind of booze it was exactly) for 25nt, or a soy bean ice lolly, but there didn’t seem to be much else in the way of food. There was also a large TV that apparently, according to our sources, features a video presentation; English available. We never actually managed to get around to that, but we did spend a good three minutes acquainting ourselves properly with our surroundings and carefully studying the Chinese language flow chart about where beer comes from.

To one side of the room there was a bar of sorts and that’s where it started. We had been informed that the place was open from eleven in the morning, but even we, as the locally renowned drinkers that we are, weren’t so desperate that we couldn’t wait a couple of hours and begin the drinking at a much more moderate one-thirty.

Happiness

From the off, it was clear that there was not all that much else to do besides the drinking, so drink we did. We exited the reception hall with our ales and were soon perched on stools fashioned from used beer kegs with cushions on top, around a makeshift table on the edge of the car park on a mild afternoon in March, enjoying draught Taiwan beer for a very reasonable 50nt per glass. Compared to what you may buy from your local convenience store, this was nectar, an elixir, or certainly a bloody decent pint of lager. However questionable this might all sound it was really rather comfortable and entertaining, and apart from the music still booming out and the occasional family wandering past, we could have been in the beer garden of Eden.

It seemed to occur to the staff, before it occurred to us, that we could have been a tourist attraction on our own. Apart from drinks aplenty and the odd Taiwanese visitors from afar, we were treated like idols that had suddenly decided to have a wander and peruse the vicinity for one and all to gawk at. And the vicinity was where the city limits of Taichung meet Wu-Re town. We may have only been ten minutes away from the relative normality of our fair city, but it’s clear that not so many ‘wai guo ren’ make it this far. Pint-glass-in-hand in the afternoon aside, we almost certainly would have attracted the attention anyway. Indeed, at one point, a group of tourists from Tainan said hello and one attractive young lady, Betty, even had her photo taken with us before pointing to our growing collection of empty beer glasses of remarking that we reminded her of her uncle. It was clear that she found us interesting but didn’t see us as the suave, debonair and sophisticated Europeans with a classy respect and tolerance for alcohol that we hoped, but rather as being similar in many ways to her middle aged and mildly alcoholic relative, of whom the family is probably mildly ashamed. From this comment, we concluded that her interests in us were, unfortunately, purely platonic.

And that’s how the afternoon progressed; beer after beer on our modest little beer patio, and friendly stare after friendly stare from the natives.

It’s not often one indulges in so many ales so early in the day in Taichung. Indeed, we were reminded of times gone by back in England and for one brief afternoon, our green and pleasant land didn’t feel like such a distant memory, and having a skin-full on a Saturday afternoon was, while noted by the locals, not frowned upon. Or maybe that was the beer taking effect. Either way, we got the feeling that the very friendly staff at least had grown quite fond of us by the time 5 o’clock rolled around. All too quickly, it was now time for the place to shut up shop.

After six beers each we were satiated and just 300nt out of pocket. Did we quit while we were ahead? Well, what do you think