Lychee Fruit Beer - 台湾啤酒荔枝 - Taiwan Touch Your Beer Heart

Having lived in Taiwan for many moons, I still happen upon situations in the most unlikely places where Taiwanese offer some form of free gift or sample when shopping or just passing by a store. TTL gets the Taiwan Touch Your Heart medal for this (queue cheesy commercial).

It was only last year that I tried this for the first time and was very surprised with how decent it was for a fruit beer made locally, and by the dominant former monopoly firm as well. It definitely is a "Sweet Touch" when swigged.

Lychee is at the top of my delicious list of Taiwanese-grown fruit, although with it having the "hot" property, one can't partake in too much of them in one go.

I had not been into a TTL convenient store in all these years I've lived in Taiwan, if for no other reason that I figured it wouldn't have any special sale prices (which I found out to be mostly true) or offer anything but beer. A bit wrong on that last front. 

Was glad I finally stepped into one near my home last month and started talking to the elderly saleslady about the products the store sold, and more specifically beer, when I saw in the refrigerated section a green non-labeled bottle (repeat, "bottle", as in fresh) and asked her what that was. She replied "荔枝啤酒". I thought it only came in a can, but she gave a wink and a smile and said in Chinese that it came straight from the brewery and is for taste-testing purposes. She then asked if I wanted some. Well twist my arm. I left without buying anything, but took some pamphlets out of niceness. Of course, it helped to have my kid there speaking to her in Chinese saying "thank you, goodbye", etc. 

I popped into the same TTL store about 3 weeks later to buy the lychee beer in a can from the nice lady. Took those 2 pics above from the store's refrigerator while my boy was apparently charming the lady so much that she picked him up and held him. Went to pay the bill and the lady did the nicest two things:  she gave me one bottle of the non-labeled lychee beer and said in Chinese "here, have it, no charge. just return the bottle back to the store when you have time for recycling". Then, she reached under her counter and gave this to my boy, whose eyes lit up:

Quite a decent keyring, and love the Chinese characters written backward like the style in old textbooks and black 'n white movies. My kid wouldn't let go of this keyring all the way home. I was profusely thankful to the saleslady for giving not one, but two free things to me that day. 

Can and bottle unaware that they were about to die under consumption.

Can poured a bigger head than the bottle.

Both heads kept original height, so must've been carbonation that dropped levels after a few minutes.

Starting to look a little more like brothers after the first big swigs from each glass.

Both swigs definitely get the sweet lychee taste
Immediately burped from both. Good sign, or maybe it was the carbonation.  It doesn't matter.

Delicious cheap deli sandwich bought on 2F at Taipei train station went very well with the brew.

Draft lychee beer does taste different than that from the can.
Definitely get a "beer" taste from the bottle, moreso than "sweeter" taste from the can.

Keeping pace with one another.

Both rather very tasty.

Them beers been put to sleep most excellently. 

Can: If you want a more sugary taste during the hot summer months to quench your thirst.

Draft: If you want a stronger hint of beer over the lychee flavor and can find a nice saleslady who allows you to sneak a free bottle out of the store. 

Beer type:  Lychee fruit

Alcohol content:  3.5%

Price for 330cc can:  N$40

Price for 330cc bottle:  FREE (if you know the right lady)

Price for keyring:  FREE (from same nice lady)

Rating (1 for free bottle of beer, 1 for free keyring):  

M!NE Dark All Malt Beer - 台湾啤酒黑麥 100%全麥 - For the Horses

Wasn't particularly looking forward to having to buy this beer, due to the past experience/memory of its taste. Would love to have a chat with the head brewer at TTL when I visit one of their breweries to try and understand how they came up with the end product. Still scratching my head these past few years since it hit the store shelves.

Best part of this beer is the bottle and label. They started off right and then headed downhill.

Big props to TTL. They really know how to create good head. Back slaps all-around. 

First taste was indeed a lot "heavier" than its sibling, plain "M!NE". 

But a bit less "smoky" after follow-up swills.

Tastes like a light beer version of a dark beer.

If not told it was "dark" (other than its obvious color), would be hard-pressed to distinguish it. 

"The classic full-bodied dark distinctive beer with a perfect balance of hop aromas and malty flavor".

I don't know which body they were looking at for this beer. 

Do get a bit of hop flavor, but with a weak dark bite to it.

Did they get this recipe from online?

Not the kind of "dunkel" beer that I can drink multiple steins of. 

If TTL is going with this dark beer, they might as well make it 7.5% or more alcohol content just to get some bang for the buck. 

This is the type of beer that Toby and Willie would give to their horses, though Willie might think twice about claiming so as a tax deduction.

Beer type:  lager

Alcohol content:  5%

Price for 600cc bottle:  N$48-55

Rating (1 mug goes to the horse):  

Double Ten Day Centennial - 雙十節百年周年 (#2)

(pics continued from #1)

Didn't know one had to drive to battle with sirens.

These brought up the rear. Must've been the "big" stuff or just a lot of red paint.

Coast is clear. Can walk anywhere you want. Directly ahead is Taipei Rail Station.

Walking back home southward along Chung Shan South Road. 

After dropping lots of sweat, I needed to re-carboload with Taiwan Draft Beer from the store where one can find it.

Now to the evening for some skyrockets in flight, but first a song that has nothing to do with it. C'mon I was a little kid when it came out. I really thought it was about watching fireworks. Boy was I completely off-base. But it was a #1 hit. Gotta love AM radio back then. 

First singer later resurfaced as famous liberal commentator Alan Colmes.

Double Ten Day Centennial - 雙十節百年周年 (#1)

I was a little tykester back when the U.S. had its bicentennial celebration in 1976. I do remember quickly learning how to spell that big word (at that time of my life I was mostly using 3 syllables or less) and all the events around D.C. that were attached to the date. Our family always saw fireworks on Fourth of July every year, so seeing them on the bicentennial never made a big impression on my small memory bank as to whether they were bigger or louder than normal.

With it being the 100th anniversary of the R.O.C.'s founding, I knew I had to take a peak around at some of the military hardware this nation has to offer, as well as take along the kid for his first impression of a street parade. The whole week the helicopters had been "thump-thump-thump-thump-thumping" over our apartment complex, practicing their 3-helicopter per group formation, followed by jets, cargo planes, and the tail group of planes streaming red, white and blue smoke across the sky.

Got off at 228 Peace Memorial Park MRT station, and they had already had the northwest exit gate closed. Tons of policiemen/women out on the streets. And I mean tons! I have been in Taiwan for an extremely long time and have never seen so many cops out on the streets except for the multiple street protests in Taipei after the Rubber Bullet Incident helped secure CSB's second term. The cops were quite friendly in fact, as I asked many of them where the parade route was and other relevant directional questions. Most of them waved at my kid after I told him to say 你好 to the "警察叔叔" or "警察阿姨". They had cordoned off the whole 228 park except a small part of the north part running west-to-east towards the 2 old steam train engines inside the glass building if you have ever been there. I guess you could call them Taiwan's Peace trains. (Click on the "Watch on YouTube" inside the video box if it doesn't play.)

I've seen fireworks up close on the river to the west of Hsimenting 西門町 a few times in the many moons that I've lived in Taipei. So, for the second event of the day in the evening I decided to ride the bike as far up the Riverside Park 河賓公園 as I could, bringing the kid along for another first impression, this time of fireworks celebrating a nation's birthday. Tons of people had the same idea. Funnily enough, after the fireworks ended there was a traffic jam when everyone wanted to go home in a southward direction on the narrow bike path. First time I've seen a bicycle jam on a bike path. 

Without further ado, here's some pics.

Excuse me officer, what does this button do?

Lost a lot of water weight, sweating it out before the helicopters came

That line of military hardware runs straight towards the Presidential Palace

First time these tanks started their big engines, everyone got faked out of their underwear thinking the parade was about to begin. Alas, more sweating was in the manuscript.

Finally, they started rolling. I guess others had the same idea as myself.

These are usually used to bury dead pigs during hoof 'n mouth disease outbreaks on the island.

Only 1 drone airplane. Either that or one of the biggest frigging model airplanes I've ever seen. 

Trying to figure this one out. Maybe it's for the practice of receiving very hard tennis serves. 

Another strange contraption for the military.

Cool. Missiles.

Cool. Really big frigging missiles.

Whatever you do, do not smile for the cameras. 

Closest thing to a G.I. Joe action figure I once had. 

More pics to come.....