My office is near Malones and BigBamboo in JingAn, so often stop there for dinner after work.

Is the draught beer always tasting a bit off?

Is the pro tip to stick to bottled?

Drink 10 shots in a hurry, from then you cant taste the difference when you switch to beer.

Mold and bacteria in the tap lines. Pretty common in this weather unless the establishment is cleaning and disinfecting their lines regularly. You should also smell the glass before they pour the piss in- nine times out of ten it will reek of bacteria.

Yes, stick to bottled beer or go to a better bar.

Most draught lager tastes **** here because most bars don't clean the lines very often, if at all.

I had a bar back in N.Z, and cleaned the lines monthly, but with Shanghai temperatures.....?

Drink a beer from a bottle mate. Problem solved.

StirFry wrote:Drink a beer from a bottle mate. Problem solved.

The Chinese lack many qualities, but being able to exploit an opportunity to rip people off is not one of them.

http://shanghaiist.com/2011/06/22/whats ... eijing.php

Good advice all round I think! I'll stick the cold stuff in the bottle from now on.

Misteral wrote:Most draught lager tastes **** here because most bars don't clean the lines very often, if at all.

This point is very true. I remember back at home there was a pub that boasted they had the cleanest lines in town. Their beer was seriously tasty, and I didn't find out about their boast until long after I started going there.

You need to be a little careful of drinking draft beer out of dirty lines. You can get seriously ill that way.
Some beer lines are totally enclosed in a cooling system, while others are NOT.
In 7 years, I have never pulled a draft here. (TIC). When I go to a restaurant it is bottled beer every time.

it might be the lines or the fact that you are drinking tiger and carlsburg draft made in china. i usually drink corona in china just because it tastes like the corona in mexico. my friends usually order bottles of more expensive beer to get a decent beer. even vb bottles just dont taste right to me here after living in melbourne.

jack and coke tastes better than beer.

Back home, there is no such thing as bad beer. Bottles or cans it is

In seven years I haven't had a good pint in Shanghai. A pint that would pass the taste and quality test in your average old man pub in the UK.

They manage it in Hong Kong no problem, so it's nothing to do with the weather. Shoddy management and undiscerning/non-complaining customers.

nothing to do with management-its the beer that is made in china that is shoddy.

Also got to be on the lookout for shysters pouring from expired kegs.

I agree, its not the keg lines as the beer companies send people to clean them once a week. Its definitely in the brewing that the funny tastes are made. I still think a draft beer is safer than a cocktail though, the house spirits could put you down faster than a draft beer, any day.

There is a number of reasons why the beer tastes like **** here.

I was always told by the Stella reps, that their beer used to sit forever in Beijing customs, so by the time they got it out, they only had a few months at most left on the sell by date, so it wasn't exactly the freshest beer in the world.

Another issue is indeed the lines. ZhongNan is right in that the beer company comes and does it regulary - most the companies here sign a card which is attached to the actual cooler to show the date it was cleaned on - you can always ask the bartender to show you this. One of the issues however is HOW they clean the lines. Your meant to use quite a corrosive liquid to flush out all the **** in the lines - however, in typical Chinese fashion, i have caught them cleaning lines using simply washing up liquid (useless) or even worse, just water.

Finally, the cleanliness of the glasses. Most pint glasses are etched to allow the optimum amount of bubbles (C02) to escape the drink (this effects the acidity, and therefore, the taste), depending on the brand (yes, there is a reason for using branded glasswear!). 2 issues however: most the 'branded' glasswear here is made in china, and hence, doing nothing to enhance the flavor, and secondly if you use the wrong type of soap, the soap suds clog up the etching and change the glasses profile. Washing up liquid is the number one way to kill a perfectly good beer... In the UK you can buy specialized glass cleaning soaps which won't clog the etching, or kill the beer, which I have never managed to find in China. Finally, there is the issue of the water being used - dirty Shanghai tap water, straight from the tap - how many bars here have HOT water behind the bar on tap for washing glasses??? Not many I'm willing to bet!

Another reason not to drink imported beer as ^ top post says.

Beer is meant to be consumed freshly brewed, so all that imported stuff, is likely to taste like shiit because its gone all stale. I'd just stick to the local stuff where its cheaper and fresher, unless of course you know that the beer you're drinking is actually fresh.

I should have said, I used to work in pubs throughout the UK/NZ/Oz, so am used to the cleaning procedures/glasses, just haven't done it in years.

Get's on my tits its 40RMB for not even a pint of what is crap
Arg, bad day anyway, I'm sticking to cans/Bottles from FamilyMart now

Well the glasses tend to contain often some shite here. Places you mention do fit in this category (anyway have nothing against them).

Currently I got beer delivered from Lianhua, no time drinking out anyway. It seems there are now westerners delivering beer as well wtf! I picked the photo near Dingxi rd. Yu yuan rd. corner short time ago. Company is called Cheers In.

I once bought a mini keg directly from the Tsingtao brewery. It tasted great.

Abramis wrote:Well the glasses tend to contain often some shite here. Places you mention do fit in this category (anyway have nothing against them).

Currently I got beer delivered from Lianhua, no time drinking out anyway. It seems there are now westerners delivering beer as well wtf! I picked the photo near Dingxi rd. Yu yuan rd. corner short time ago. Company is called Cheers In.

If you seriously like beer, then check out that place... I walked in and was like a kid on x-mas morning. You will find me sitting outside drinking at the small table almost every night.

I think the beer you can get from justbeer.cn is all good, VB, Pure Blonde, Boags. All bottled, but fresh in my opinion. But I'm a vodka drinker so don't take my word at 100% lol

All the draft beer suppliers clean the lines every week. They won't do it more often than that, and sometimes it can drag out to 10 days.

Monthly as suggested earlier is way to long.

Usually they are very good about it here, and in MOST instances, the actual line from the keg, through the chiller into the tap is very short compared to in Australia where beer would be kept in a cellar. Spending less time in the line is more important than the lines being cleaned weekly in my opinion. That's why i'd be reluctant to order say a Guiness, at a venue that might go through 1 keg every 2 weeks. Best to stick with the volume stuff.

ZhongNanHai8mg wrote:I think the beer you can get from justbeer.cn is all good, VB, Pure Blonde, Boags. All bottled, but fresh in my opinion. But I'm a vodka drinker so don't take my word at 100% lol

yes, the imported bottle stuff should be fine in most cases, but make sure you check the dates, especially if buying it at a venue that may not go through a lot of it.

Someone mentions VB doesn't taste the same. It is the same product as in Australia, infact its probabaly fresher than most VB you'll have in Australia as it's brewed especially for JustBeer and put in a container immediatley for shipment. The taste difference may be if you have been out of Oz for a while, because they've reduced the alcohol and maybe SLIGHTLY changed the composition. I honestly used to hate the stuff, but now, although still not my favourite, don't mind it so much.

I clean my pipes daily. Oh yeah.

Courtesy of Mat & Walrus. Oh hell yeah.

monkey7020 wrote:There is a number of reasons why the beer tastes like **** here.

I was always told by the Stella reps, that their beer used to sit forever in Beijing customs, so by the time they got it out, they only had a few months at most left on the sell by date, so it wasn't exactly the freshest beer in the world.

Another issue is indeed the lines. ZhongNan is right in that the beer company comes and does it regulary - most the companies here sign a card which is attached to the actual cooler to show the date it was cleaned on - you can always ask the bartender to show you this. One of the issues however is HOW they clean the lines. Your meant to use quite a corrosive liquid to flush out all the **** in the lines - however, in typical Chinese fashion, i have caught them cleaning lines using simply washing up liquid (useless) or even worse, just water.

Finally, the cleanliness of the glasses. Most pint glasses are etched to allow the optimum amount of bubbles (C02) to escape the drink (this effects the acidity, and therefore, the taste), depending on the brand (yes, there is a reason for using branded glasswear!). 2 issues however: most the 'branded' glasswear here is made in china, and hence, doing nothing to enhance the flavor, and secondly if you use the wrong type of soap, the soap suds clog up the etching and change the glasses profile. Washing up liquid is the number one way to kill a perfectly good beer... In the UK you can buy specialized glass cleaning soaps which won't clog the etching, or kill the beer, which I have never managed to find in China. Finally, there is the issue of the water being used - dirty Shanghai tap water, straight from the tap - how many bars here have HOT water behind the bar on tap for washing glasses??? Not many I'm willing to bet!

Wow, and I thought cocktails are high-maintenance (particularly those who drink them, mostly ladies)! Seems that beer is as equally high-maintenance (and so are the guys who drink them, consequently).

Anyhow, I tried Pure Blonde for the first time last Sunday at The Camel, and I liked it. I even thought of going to The Camel during their Happy Hour to drink more Pure Blonde.

Are there any imported draft beers? I thought all of the draft beers here are made in China

Draft "international" beer made in China

Tiger
Carlsberg
Budweiser
Heineken

Imported draft "lager style" beers

Stella
Kronnenbourg
Budvar (hard to find)


There's also Boddington, Tetleys, Leffe, Hoegaarden, Guiness, Kilkenny etc.. that are imported.