At Hacker-Pschorr, Beijing’s newest brauhaus, screens surround us showing images of good-looking young Germans, all drinking huge glasses of Hacker-Pschorr beer. With an almost nauseatingly sunny disposition, and flawless complexions, they look like they belong on a college prospectus brochure or an advertisement selling yachts.
Aren’t beer drinkers supposed to be pot-bellied and belligerent? Not in Germany they’re not, where seemingly every man, woman and his daschund is a beer drinker. They know how to drink, and know that drinking is outrageously fun.
Famous throughout Germany, the Bavarian brewery has opened its first Beijing outlet on the basement level of a Xindong Lu complex, doing its best to prove wrong our prediction that the street was becoming little more than bootleg booze-peddling dive-bar blemish on the streets of Sanlitun.
The beer – lager, dark lager and hefe weissbier are currently on offer – is fresh, lively and earthy (RMB108/58/48 per 1/0.5/0.3 liters). The food is the kind of thing an entrant in World’s Strongest Man would eat. The crackling on the pork knuckle (RMB188/98, whole/half) sizzles with oil; the explosion of molten cheese in the zwoa kaskrainer, (cheese-stuffed pork sausages, RMB88) is something we’ll stop enjoying shortly after hell freezes over. We wish we could have tried more from the huge menu, but portions are sizable and filling.
When it comes to the design, the only thing that’s missing is a faux-Bavarian exterior. The copper pipes, the earthenware steins, the red-checkered tablecloth, the fuwuyuan in lederhosen: it’s a boozy Germanic version of fairytale movie escapism. Hold a massive liter stein of dark lager to your lips: gaze into its auburn depths, breathe in the malty aromas, yield to the brew’s intoxicating powers and let it take you and your companions on a journey of enlightenment, discovery and puking in the toilets.
We can see the local market responding well to Hacker-Pschorr (as they have with Beijing’s other outstanding German beer halls). If there’s one thing we’ve learned about the drinking scene here, it is that customers want authenticity. As previously mentioned, the lengths to which Hacker has gone to establish a sense of identity are impressive. (There’s even a bakery upstairs). Hotel/restaurant press releases can harp on about ‘hospitality’ all they like – if that hospitality ain’t Bavarian, we ain’t hitting it.
Drinkers also want history. Hacker-Pschorr has almost 600 years of it, and has been Munich’s premier brewery since the 18th century, the personal favorite of Crown Prince Ludwig I.
Lastly, they want a Filipino band… but, luckily, they’re not getting one. Hacker-Pschorr has a three-piece German band on our visit, whose repertoire of carnival toe-tappers is impossible not to bounce along to. They have a devilish ploy to whip drinkers up into a ganbei-ing frenzy, by starting each jig slowly and progressively getting faster and faster. We can barely hold a conversation for all the interruptions, but we don’t care because we are getting drunk and having fun. That’s what Hacker-Pschorr is all about. Take a photo to mark the occasion but don’t expect to hold it together half as well as those beaming Bavarians do.
Price: Upwards of RMB150, dependent on beer consumption
Who’s Going: Crown Princes, maidens, Germans, those not on diets
Good For: Drinking beer, merriment, eating food, jollity
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