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):  

Taiwan Beer 台湾啤酒 - The Original

That familiar looking brew in every 7-11, Family Mart, Hi-Life, etc. convenience stores, grocery stores, bars, food cantinas, and many more places around the island (and now on the mainland).
Quite an interesting life for this ubiquitous brown bottle.

According to wiki, the brew was first named Takasago Beer when the first batch was made in 1920 by Takasago Malted Beer Company. Why Takasago? Because State of Takasago was what Japan called Taiwan during the Edo period. [There's a test later after you've drank 6 bottles of this stuff.]

Ba-De Road TTL brewery where Takasago Beer was made with equipment from Hawaii. 

This old factory has since been transformed into a hotspot with its own restaurant and a host of other shops and eateries around it. The following has a short report in both Chinese and English on the Taipei Brewery from TTL's site:  link

Bottle from late 1940s. Nice old style of writing Chinese characters from left to right. 

Some other old bottles and their labels. 

Some of their ad campaigns.

伍佰 Wu Bai.

阿妹 A-Mei (how she found now ex-basketball boytoy). Yes, I do believe she drinks beer. 

That's how it poured out from the ubiquitous brown bottle into the Jiaoxi Beer Festival mug which was frozen. Good amount of foam there. 

There was a bit (well, maybe a lot) less zest in the 1st taste than the draft version. Sort of like "Huh, this is what Taiwanese love to gan-bei with"? Though I do admit I have been a part of too many of those gan-bei drinking fests with this beer. 

Minutes later that head of foam shrank to a centimeter's length, losing out big to the draft.

After a few tastes, "Hmmm, TTL still enjoys a huge majority market share with this"??!

Grabbed some salty munchies to help with the swill. Plan worked. Must remember plan.

No distinct aroma like the draft that I can tell. 

The longer I drank, the more I realized why I have not bought a brown bottle in many years (even forgot when was the last time. Maybe a decade or more). 

I do order the can version on Eva Air flights, as the worse choice is canned Kirin beer which is made in ChiComm-land. [Will tell that story another day.]

The burps are definitely not as good as the draft. 

Beer type:  Lager

Alcohol content:  4.5%

Price for 600cc ubiquitous brown bottle:  N$45

Rating. 1 for its history, 1 for huge market share, 1 for ugly bottle color: