Where to Get 900 Bottled Beers...Or Brew Your Own

Thirty-seven taps. Thirteen in-house fermentation tanks. One brewing machine imported from the States. Nine hundred bottled beers. NBeer Pub would be well up there with the best of the slew of new brewpubs if it was purely a numbers game. But it isn’t, is it?

The best of the city’s new breed of craft beer bar are hitting the right notes with so much more than mere numbers. The thrill of seeing behind the scenes at Great Leap, akin to witnessing the oompah lumpahs at work in Wonka’s factory. The seemingly effortless cool of Slow Boat’s hutong dwelling (though seldom can more effort have gone into effortlessness), and its meticulous efforts to ensure every mouthful of their grog tastes just as they imagined it. The bald-faced chutzpah of the innovative team behind 京A – all these go to ensure that they will outlive the surely inevitable dampening of interest in the craft drop. But you’d be hard pressed to imagine the scene without those players now, so ingrained in the city’s bar room psyche are they already.

In addition to those big numbers, NBeer Pub offers a true community feel to the hobby of craft brewing. Speaking to proprietor Yinhai, it’s clear that he and co-owner Xiao Bian’r are playing out a fantasy in opening their Pinganli space. “I have many, many, many taps around my home; Xiao Bian’r has literally thousands of bottles of beer in his – opening this place is like a dream for the two of us.”

His aim he says is to act as a support mechanism for the Beijing brewing community, one that Yinhai thinks “is sure to grow even further,” a claim that could run the risk of being considered glib if not for the evidence on show with the in-house brewing area off to the side of the sizable bar room. A creative initiative encourages patrons to brew their own beer. US-imported brewing equipment is available for customers to learn before mixing their suds and leaving it to mature in their very own fermentation tank for the requisite period.

“It’d be pretty cool to be enjoying a pint while telling your friends: ‘My own ale is maturing in that tank over there,’” says Yinhai, and I’d have to agree. Although at RMB 1780 (plus ingredients that can run up to RMB 400) it’s a boast that I can live without for now. At least until Christmas bonus time comes back around.

The owners count much of the Beijing brewing community among their close friends. Indeed, on the day I sidled in to a half-shuttered NBeer Pub (they’re waiting for the building management to give them the final “okay” before they can press ahead with a grand opening), there was something of a brewer’s meeting going on, attended by such luminaries as Master Gao of Baby IPA fame. And that’s the charm of the space and the team behind it; brewing beer was their hobby, it introduced them to their friends, it gave them an idea to make money (Yinhai runs Tipsy Face microbrewery) and now, it’s their livelihood.

Also try: Great Leap Brewpub, Slow Boat Brewery Taproom

Address: F1-6 Huguo Xintiandi, No.85 Huguosi Dajie, Xicheng District (8328 8823) 北京西城区护国寺大街85号护国新天地一层F1-6
Subway distance: 200m northeast of Pinganli station.

Read the article in the October issue of the Beijinger below.