There’s a dichotomy to China where it wants to paint itself as living in the future (like Japan), so you now get robots doing shit and QR codes to pay for everything. Then you see a Chinese squat toilet and things are put into perspective.
It is this that leads perfectly to the Craft Beer Machine at Wangfujing. It’s a great big machine where you select the beer you want, pay by QR and it gets served in a plastic cup. Kinda like a bar, but with no atmosphere and even less chance of getting laid.
And all of this in a place which used to be the epicenter for street food and cool shit in Beijing. Now Wangfujing is basically a mall. For shame!!!!!
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What the Wangfujing
Wangfujing used to be one of the coolest places to visit in Beijing. Sure, it was touristy, but it was touristy in the right way. The famous snack street was packed with vendors selling scorpions, starfish, snakes, mystery meat skewers and all kinds of weird shit that people would queue up to try. It felt uniquely Beijing and was somewhere that both Chinese and foreign tourists actually wanted to visit.
These days most of that has gone. The street food has largely disappeared and been replaced by high end shops, malls and chain stores. It is cleaner and probably more respectable, but it has lost much of its character. Wangfujing used to be touristy with style. Now it feels more like what the Chinese government thinks tourists want.
The Craft Beer Machine at Wangfujing
The Craft Beer Machine at Wangfujing is exactly the kind of thing that could only exist in modern China. Sitting right on the pedestrian street, it is a giant automated beer dispenser that allows you to buy draft craft beer without ever speaking to another human being. You simply choose your beer, scan the QR code, place your cup under the tap and let the machine do the rest. Oh and yes this means no cash and that you need AliPay, or WeChat – but hey that is nothing new.
The whole thing looks (kinda) futuristic and attracts plenty of curious people who stop to watch it work. Whether it is the future of drinking or just another gimmick remains to be seen, but it is certainly one of the few fun things left in Wangfujing.
Typical beers available include:
- Coffee Stout – 28 RMB ($3.90)
- IPA – 32 RMB ($4.45)
- Wheat Beer – 22 RMB ($3.05)
- Pale Ale – 25 RMB ($3.50)
- Fruit Beer – 18 RMB ($2.50)
- Strong IPA – 38 RMB ($5.30)
The selection changes depending on what has been loaded into the machine.
So, how is the beer?
OK, so I will go into the whole thing. Basically this thing looks cool as hell, which is why I gave it a try. It is though complicated if you don’t read Chinese, even with there being pretty cool tools set up to help you. For this reason I ended up with a coffee beer.
Yet while this was far from what I wanted, it was fairly good as coffee beers go and I cannot fault the quality of the beer. It was though, as to be expected, served in a plastic glass. Now I do not begrudge this, it makes sense, BUT! Plastic explains this whole experience. This was just a big plastic gimmick, kinda cool, but I doubt it will last 6 months.
So, if you want good draft beer, probably go to a bar.
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