Tag Archives: travel

How to Drink Beer in Mandarin – Book Review

by Mike

Have you ever dreamed of going to China on holiday and enjoy good beer?  Are you originally from China and have gotten a taste for Craft Beer abroad?

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There is finally a book designed to help you!  Rick Green a writer from Vancouver, BC Canada has written “How to Drink Beer in Mandarin” An English-Chinese Craft Beer Glossary.

Drinking good beer has not always been easy in Asia as Macro Beer brands have been the dominant choice much like North America. Luckily times are changing world wide including in China. This book has a list of every Brewery, Brew Pud and German Beer Hall currently open in China (there is also a mailing list to get updates on new breweries).

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Where this book really excels though is in its deeper information into the Chinese words that pertain to Craft Beer and the culture surrounding drinking in China.

If you want to find Craft Beer it is important to know it is translated to this for example.

craft beer
jīngniàng píjiǔ 精酿啤酒

Do you want an IPA?

India pale ale (IPA)
yìndù dànsè àiěr 印度淡色艾尔

The list of words is quite large and really covers anything you would need to know to get the beer you want and some of the phrasing to use to get it.

The book also gets deep into the culture of beer drinking and culture of eating and drinking in a group. Chinese culture is much different than other places in the world and it can be important to know that.

Rick has also laid out a great list of other books, apps and videos to help you plan and enjoy your trip.

I really recommend picking up this ebook for you or anyone you know that is looking to travel to China and enjoys a good beer!

To purchase this book click the link below.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/609177

Grand Canyon Brewing Company – Williams Arizona

by Mike

Recently I was lucky enough to go on a trip to Arizona to visit family.  What would a trip to a new and strange land be without searching high and low for breweries be though?  Staying in Phoenix for the week I knew that we were going to be taking a huge road trip to the Grand Canyon that totaled around 500 miles or for us Canadians 800km of driving.  With this in mind I searched out a few choice breweries I wanted to check out along the way.  Grand Canyon Brewing was one of those locations.

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Located right downtown Williams you will find the brewery.  This is only a working brewery and does not have a tasting room so you should not make this part of your beer pilgrimage if you are hoping for a tasting room.  During the summer they do have a Road House Diner but it was under renovations and not open.  Luckily for me I was noticed while I poked around outside and took photos and was invited in for a tour of the production brewery.  Grand Canyon Brewing is one of the largest breweries in the state of Arizona and in comparison to home in British Columbia I would place it right smack dab in the middle as a medium sized craft brewery although maybe on the larger side of medium.  On a side note I was floored to see snow in Northern Arizona as can be seen by the photo below.

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The brewery was a nice clean production brewery with a nice copper brew house and a nerdy touch of a hulk mask that can be seen in subsequent photos if you look really closely.  The brewery has a ton of short stubby tanks as the building housing the brewery is quite short.  When the building was built they did not think about expansion at all.

 

 

For being one of the biggest shows in town I was surprised at how small their packaging line was.  They had a very small bottling line and canning line.  I am sure it is very labour intensive to fill their beers.

Heading outside of the main brewery building you will find the cold room for the brewery.  You will also find tanks outdoors!  Imagine storing beer outdoors in an environment that bakes all summer long in the Desert heat!  That takes some super powered glycol!

That rack hanging over the door was actually from a deer hunted by the breweries IT guy.  sounds pretty  Arizona to me.  If you find yourself in the State of Arizona I really recommend you search out the Grand Canyon Brewing Company’s beer as it is some of the best beer in the state and they are working to do something noone else is doing anywhere currently!

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Full sized photos found here

Grand Canyon Brewing Company
233 West Route 66
Williams, Arizona
86046
1-800-513-2072
http://grandcanyonbrewery.com/
info@grandcanyonbrewery.com

Trip to Waikiki Hawaii 2012- Craft Beer

by Mike

I had the pleasure of going to Hawaii this November on a family trip.  We flew to the island of Oahu and stayed in Waikiki.  This trip would not be complete though without searching out as much craft beer as I could.  This post is meant to help you find craft beer on the island of Oahu as well as link you to reviews of Hawaiian beer.

Stores:

Whole Foods Market
4211 Waialae Avenue, Honolulu, HI

This location of Whole Foods has an amazing selection of craft beer from all over the world.  They also have probably the best selection of craft beer brewed on the islands of Hawaii.  The prices of the beer here are all competitive with every other store that I checked out.  This was my go to place while in Oahu as I could walk to the store from where we stayed.

Safeway
888 Kapahulu Avenue, Honolulu, HI

This location of Safeway does not have the best selection of craft beer but they do sell Hawaiian made craft beer in many sized cases.

Costco
333 Keahole Street, Honolulu, HI

This location of Costco carries mixed 24 packs of Kona Brewing Companies beer.  You must be a member of Costco (any country) to shop here.

ABC Stores
Any location

When in doubt any ABC location will stock at least one type of local craft beer in either 6 packs or in 22oz (650ml) bottles.

Restaurant:

Dukes Waikiki
http://www.dukeswaikiki.com/
2335 Kalakaua Ave, Honolulu (walk up from the street or Waikiki Beach)

Dukes has a good selection of Kona Brewing’s beer on tap.  They offer a Surf Sampler of 4 local Hawaiian beer for $12.