Taiwanese Beer

GBA Dark: Schwarzebier, 4.3% (Go Beyond & Above Brewery)
Coffee and nuts with a strong tangy bite. It has the bite of fizzy cola bottles. The chocolate sweetness is quite artificial, as is the slight smokiness that this has. It’s as though the beer has been brewed and then had artificial flavours added to it. Ashtray aftertaste. 4/10
GBA Fruity: Hefeweizen, 5.5% (Go Beyond & Above Brewery)
Big on bananas and toffee. It has an artificial flavour, bit like foam bananas; it’s overly sweet and creamy. It feels like more like an approximation of the elements of a weissbier, a bit like the beer version of an AI image. Not terrible, but something just is not quite right about it. 4.5/10
GBA Golden Export: Lager, 5% (Go Beyond & Above Brewery)
Malt and corn predominate. Light, but some robustness. Low carbonation for a lager. Quite sweet and metallic with a slight hint of vinegar. 6.5/10
GBA Hoppy: Session IPA, 4.5% (Go Beyond & Above Brewery)
Apples and stewed plums predominate; the usual tropical fruits are more in the background. Faint cereal and bread malts. Bitter, but not overpowering. Light and a bit weak tasting. 6/10
GBA Malty: Marzen, 5.7% (Go Beyond & Above Brewery)
Earthy and a bit dusty, with some faint dishcloth and herbal hops. Notable copper taste and very bitter on the finish. Lively carbonation. 4/10
Jim & Dad’s Dry Hopped Pale Ale, 5.5% (Jim & Dad’s Brewing Company)
Incredibly fruity and zesty, with huge hops and some malts after the initial burst. Pronounced red berries, slight pepper. Punchy, on the sweet side and low on bitterness. 8/10
Jim & Dad’s Egret Black Tea Weizen, 6.5% (Jim & Dad’s Brewing Company)
Dates, plums, sultanas and Christmas cake. The tea tannins are a gentle presence in the background, and then a more pronounced earthiness on the finish. Deep, rich and very different. 8/10
Jim & Dad’s Passionfruit IPA, 7.8% (Jim & Dad’s Brewing Company)
Going hard on the hops, with a huge punch of lemon zest. Passion fruit comes through just as the lemon settles down. A bit sour on the finish with almost a whiff of menthol and underlying honey. 7.5/10
Jim & Dad’s White Ale, 4% (Jim & Dad’s Brewing Company)
Faint banana and spice. Foamy. Light citrus, tending towards orange. Quite generic, but nice enough. 5/10
Taiwan Beer (Classic): Lager, 5% (Taiwan Tobacco & Liquor Co)
Thin, bitter and over-carbonated. Malty and slightly sweet, with a vegetal undertone. It’s fine for what it is. 4/10
Taiwan Beer Fruit Series – Grape, 2.8% (Taiwan Tobacco & Liquor Corporation)
It’s quite sweet, and it’s nice and refreshing in the way that diet Lucozade is i.e not at all unless you’ve spent a week in a desert eating sand. That it’s slightly less terrible than the pineapple one is the biggest compliment I can give it. There were other fruit flavours in this line to try, but I just couldn’t do it. It’s 2.8%, so it’s basically a shandy. I wouldn’t even serve this to a bunch of 16 year olds that I didn’t like. 1.5/10
Taiwan Beer Fruit Series – Pineapple: Fruit Beer, 2.8% (Taiwan Tobacco & Liquor Corporation)
It contains “real fresh pineapple juice,” allegedly, but there is nothing fresh-tasting about it. It apparently also contains “pineapple flavouring,” but I’m dubious about that as well. Possibly it contains the urine of somebody who ate pineapple in the recent past, because it tastes about as nice. Actively offensive. 0.2/10
Taiwan Beer (Gold Medal): Lager, 5% (Taiwan Tobacco & Liquor Co)
Light malty with a bit of yeast, but still very crisp and clean. There is something vaguely fruity about it. Mellow finish, which is probably because of the rice. Good carbonation. 5.5/10

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