When you examine the landscape of alcohol in East Asia, it all tends to look relatively similar. There’s usually one dominant booze brand, and it’s often a former state monopoly. You might have traditional drinks, which young people may or may not enjoy as much as their parents did. But tastes are changing with the emergence of new craft beers. It’s often young people who have spent time overseas who bring the new tastes back to their home country.
Taiwan’s beer industry is a product of the half-century period of Japanese colonial rule, and Taiwan Beer once ruled over the landscape relatively unchallenged as the alcoholic beverage of choice. During this period, imported western beers such as Budweiser or Heineken were considered the prestige option. When you talk to drinkers my parents’ age these are still their favourites, having come of age at an time when Taiwan was a vacation spot for American GIs during the Vietnam war. They brought their tastes with them.
It’s very different these days. Though there are still many imported beers, there is a new generation of local breweries including Taihu, Redpoint, and 23 Brewing Co. This rise in Taiwan’s contemporary craft brewing scene can be traced back to a specific moment: Taiwan joining the World Trade Organization. From that moment on, alcohol monopolies were no longer allowed, and this paved the way for the rise of craft brewers.
The emergence of this new market dovetailed with the coming of age of young Taiwanese entrepreneurs who decided Taiwanese drinkers needed more choice. This has also been the case with cocktails – over the past decade there has been a flourishing of cocktail culture in the urban landscape of Taiwan.
A decade ago, I barely remember any bars, but now there are a seemingly endless number of fancy new cocktail joints, with more opening each month. Taiwan Beer itself has also tried to get in on this trend, rolling out new flavours beyond its traditional offering.
But perhaps it’s as Frank Zappa says: “You can’t be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline.” And so the rise of all these different cocktail bars and craft beers have dovetailed with new identity trends.
Here in Taiwan, our generation is sometimes termed the “natural independence” generation, in that we naturally see ourselves as independent from China. We do not have any of the identification with China that our parents and grandparents might have.
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It probably goes without saying that the various flavours adopted by contemporary Taiwanese craft beers and cocktail bars have tended to relate to Taiwan’s island identity. So you have many local fruit flavours that reflect our tropical climate. As Taiwan was once one of the world’s great tea powers, you also have a number of tea-flavoured beers and cocktails. And as we eat a great deal of seafood, being an island, I’ve even seen oyster-flavoured beer.
Taiwanese craft beers have sometimes been unafraid to venture into politics, which makes sense given how political Taiwanese culture is. I’m particularly fond of how the 23 Brewing Co has two craft beers representing our two major political parties: the independence-leaning DPP and unification-leaning KMT.
When it comes to politics, I prefer the former, which is not surprising for a former student activist in the pro-sovereignty 2014 Sunflower Movement. As for the beer itself, I actually like the flavour of the KMT option better. It may not come as a surprise either that the pro-independence activist, heavy metal musician and former legislator Freddy Lim – currently Taiwan’s ambassador to Finland – previously rolled out a craft beer called “Independence Beer”, emblazoned with the faces of his band Chthonic.
The political character of Taiwanese alcohol has even been caught in the crossfire of tensions between Taiwan and China. There have been occasions in which China has slapped bans on Taiwanese alcohol – both hard liquor and beer – as a means of economically punishing Taiwan for its de facto political independence. As far as I’m concerned, it’s their loss.
Brian Hioe is a writer and DJ from Taipei
