Open barely a month but with already a stalwart of craft beer fans flocking in nightly, Tap Planet is just as its name implies; the biggest selection of beers on tap in China, or so co-owner Li (the Nanjing bar veteran who brought us Don Quixote, Sancho Panza, Bassment and The Loop) says, explaining that for the last year he had been calling brewers from all over China to get the venture up and running.
In which case, we wonder, why is this not being shouted from the rooftops? The paragraph this revelation receives in a humble mag such as The Nanjinger is hardly what the achievement deserves.
Modeled, we are told, on similar bars in the U.S., Tap Planet, perhaps unwittingly, has followed a trend already set in Shanghai and Beijing. Indeed, it will undoubtedly not be long until one or the other takes over the mantle to which Nanjing, for now, lays claim.
Straight off the bat, I’m recommended the Ming. As their most popular draught, it tastes like something I brewed in uni; maybe that’s the attraction. For beer, be it brewed by oneself or a bunch of artisans in a shack down the road, is a voyage of personal discovery. At Tap Planet, a long journey is ahead, with 40 beers on tap to make one’s way through.
Requesting what we imagined to be an exciting view of the cellar (we were holding out for cavernous underground vault), from where 40 beers are pumped, co-owner Chase Stewart (his brother Alex making up the trio of partners in the enterprise) took us to a tiny, best-termed refrigerated cupboard, upstairs and off the kitchen, describing along the way challenges with piping the brews down to the bar below that saw even experts from Heineken and Carlsberg called in. They admitted to be stumped, probably.
The only nagging doubt in the back of my mind as I departed with the evening’s band arriving, as part of Nanjing’s annual jazz festival, was that perhaps, craft beer is becoming its own nemesis. Built on foundations cast amid antiestablishment views of the major brewers, the whole craft beer movement is in danger of sliding into that which it sought out to destroy. From its tasty suds and a mouth-watering food menu to excellent service and creative branding, Tap Planet comes close to the slickness dished out on a global scale by the aforementioned Dutch and Danish monsters. Something, somewhere has been lost. My best guess is it’s the individuality. That and the shack down the road.
This is precisely why Tap Planet stands out. Enjoy the real thing while you can; imitation craft beer will not be far behind.
Find Tap Planet at F109, 1F, Chic Hills Plaza, 286 Zhongshan Lu 中山路286号義和商业广场1楼 F109. Tel: 57519177.
