Taihu Tasting Room – Xinyi

啜飲室 Landmark is Taihu Brewing's Xinyi outpost and the most unusual of its Taipei venues in format. Rather than a room, it is a counter and a scattering of wooden high tables set into the arcade colonnade at the foot of Cathay Landmark, open to the street on one side, in the gap between Breeze Xinyi and Shin Kong Mitsukoshi A4.

The format is 立飲 — stand and drink — a style common in Japan but rare in Taipei. You order from a blackboard beer wall, take your glass, and drink standing among the after-work Xinyi crowd. It gives the place a quick-turnover energy that the brewery's seated tasting rooms do not have, and it works particularly well as a first stop before dinner elsewhere in the district.

The pour is Taihu's own range, with cocktails, wine and spirits also available for non-beer drinkers. Food is limited to pizza and light snacks. Taipei City Hall MRT Exit 3 is one minute away, which makes it the single most convenient craft beer stop in Xinyi.