Results tagged “sparklingale”

A new organization called the American Craft Beer Partners (ACBP) has a mission statement you don't need to be drunk to rally behind: "[T]o bring some of the best craft beers in America to China and make them readily available to beer drinkers in Shanghai." These guys are the early front-runners for Shanghaiist 2007 People of the Year.

Editor's note: Sorry for getting this up so late in the day. But if you still happen to be stuck behind a computer, there is plenty of time left to show your love for Australia!

We were leafing through the latest City Weekend* over breakfast this morning when we realized we forgot to tell you something very important: We love Southern Barbarian (南蛮子). It's a Yunnan restaurant that opened in the fall (we have mentioned it briefly twice before). It is easily one of our favorite restaurants in the city, Chinese or non-Chinese. The food is fantastic — tasty and plentiful — and it is cheap (especially when compared to another Yunnan restaurant that opened recently). An added bonus is that Feng Jianwen, the owner (yes, he's from Yunnan), is a lover of beer — the result is the best selection of bottled beers we have ever seen at a Chinese restaurant. There's Hoegaarden, Chimay, Coopers (Sparkling Ale and Best Extra Stout), Leffe and a bunch of others. They are priced reasonably, too. Hoegaardens are 28 kuai; Coopers are less than that. Or you can always just get a tall bottle of Suntory for 6 kuai — they have that, too.

We understand it's kind of sad, but we have to admit to getting a little excited when we learn of new foreign beers arriving on the Shanghai market. So we read with curious interest these two stories about two New Zealand beers that have washed up on our shores. The brewery is DB Breweries, a big outfit that owns the likes of Heineken and Amstel. The beers they are sending to Shanghai are Tui and Monteith's Original Ale. Here are the commercial descriptions for the two beers:

Joy of joys, Shanghaiist discovered a new beer last night. We were at an opening party for the new tudou.com (formerly toodou.com) office up on Suzhou Creek, and we found a slab or two of Blue Cowrie Beer sitting atop the bar. “Cowrie” as in the shell, which makes the cowboy motif on the label a little difficult to work out. At any rate, here are some of the beer’s vital statistics:

Planning a party can drive a man to drink. Thankfully for Shanghaiist, we're now just a short walk from good, cold beer -- KABB recently started carrying Samuel Adams Boston Lager. Now, there are plenty of places in Shanghai to get a decent brew -- if you are willing to pay for it -- but there is a definite dearth of hoppy beers in our city. And Shanghaiist likes a hoppy beer. A nice Sierra Nevada Pale Ale makes us sooooo happy. Unfortunately, we haven't seen any of those in Shanghai. There are two Australian beers -- Coopers Sparkling Ale and Coopers Original Pale Ale -- that you can find at a handful of local bars and restaurants. In fact, the City Mart (kind of a fake-and-not-really-very-good City Supermarket in the basement of the Pacific Department Store on Huaihai Zhong Lu) used to carry a nice selection of Coopers beers, and Australian wines, at very reasonable prices. We'd buy a six-pack of pale ales for 9 kuai a bottle. Pretty damn good (even if the beer isn't quite as hoppy as we would like). And then one day we walked in and all the Australian stuff was gone ... and replaced by Heineken. Yuck. Shanghaiist was very sad.