Go West!

Tomorrow Kelly and I are catching a flight to Xi'an (for a one day stop-over) then to Xinjiang province. Xinjiang is in the very far west of China, where it borders Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan. Xinjiang is said to be more like a central Asian state than a Chinese territory, and in fact there is a low level Uyghur (pronounced Wee-gyer) uprising in aid of forming the country of East Turkistan. The Chinese military seem to have it under control (at least that is what the state media are saying) so there won't be any danger, but it will be fascinating to travel along the old Silk Road.

We are starting in the capital of Urumqi, the city that is closest to the Continental Pole of Inaccessibility (the furthest place in the world from the sea) then heading to the old city of Kashgar. Kelly can only take 2 weeks off uni, so after that she flies back to Shanghai and I will try to get back overland across china, hopefully checking out Tibet on the way. Well, enough gratuitous wikipedia linkage, Perhaps I will be able to put up a post on the road (although my current reputation in this regard is somewhat poor.)

The search for stout

Okay, so I will cut the oh-sorry-I-was-too-busy/lazy-to-update-my-blog kind of thing and get straight to the beer review.

I do enjoy a good dark beer, preferably a good strong stout. It is hard to have come from Europe and have such limited quality beer available here in Shanghai. Its hard to find a good local beer at all, let alone a good dark beer. I do see dark beers around however, there are usually only 1 or 2 brands available in any supermarket or store, so I have been buying them when I see them to try and find a favorite. Here is a selection I have tried so far.

Haidao 'Black' beer

I bought this beer from Century Mart, it was 4 RMB for 355ml and weighs in at 4.7%.
This beer tasted terrible. Initially bitter with a sweet aftertaste, this tasted like it was a beer flavoured soft drink. It really tasted like it hadn't even been brewed. I could not detect any yeast taste and I would not be surprised if this was made by adding flavours, colours and alcohol to carbonated water. This beer has no head when poured, no mouth feel and there is no reason for me to try it again.


Stout Lodge

This one came from my local Wal-Mart. That's right, Wal-Mart has invaded the east. It has a decent imported goods section, and you can get a reasonably large number of beers at good prices. This beer was in the normal price area for a specialty beer at 4.5RMB for the 500ml can. I say specialty because these beers are made in small numbers and don't seem to popular, which, after tasting I can fully understand why.

This beer was poured and found to have no head and a smell like coffee cola. It taste has a hint of caramel with a slight bitter edge but without any hoppy flavour. It has a mouth feel similar to soft drink and a hint of chocolate in the aftertaste.

This beer had a much more complex flavour than the last one. That said, it wasn't actually a nice flavour.

Reeb Dark

Reeb beer has a pretty bad reputation over here, especially with me. I had a number of bad experiences when I first got to Shanghai with warm Reeb, and that has influenced me against this brand. I have seen at least four types of Reeb beer here, and most of them are terrible. The beer in question this time is the exception. It is smaller than the other beers, at 500ml(compared to the 600ml of the standard long neck style bottle.) It costs 4.9 RMB at a convenience store, or 2.90 RMB each if you buy a case of 12 from Wal-Mart.

It has a head when poured, and while this rapidly disappears it is more than can be said for the other two beers under review. It was quite surprising at first but this is actually quite a nice beer, it tastes similar to the (Australian) Tooheys Old. It is still a touch sweeter than I would have preferred, but has a crisp flavour and an acceptable aftertaste.

Overall, this is the winner. It has been my favourite beer of any style for a few months since my return, and although I am now looking for something new, it is definitely a reliable choice for a decent drink.