-Best Cold Brews and Foods from Around the World！
Author Jon Timson
Photos Funtasty
Editor Levarcy Chen
The mercury can zoom off the chart in the summer in Taipei, but Funtasy is teaming up with some of the best vendors in Taiwan to bring you a beer fest like none other!
The 2025 Tianmu Beer Festival kicks off for two days on July 19th – 20th, at the Tianmu Sports Park. And, this event is not a simple weekend of cold brew, but rather a celebration of one of the world’s oldest and most widely enjoyed beverages. For two days, the spotlight will be on golden brews from around the world, with food, music and fun taking on a complimentary role. As the organizers point out, if you’re going to enjoy the beer, you’ll need a menu of tasty treats and entertainment which have been specially curated to enhance the experience of sipping on some of finest beers.
Taipei’s Tianmu neighborhood is already home to an annual Halloween Party that draws tens of thousands of trick-or-treaters every October. This one-day party attracts young and old alike, and is especially popular with parents looking for a day of family fun. It also takes on a global look and feel, with a large number of families and friends from Taipei’s international community showing up. This makes sense because Tianmu is home to Taiwan’s two leading international schools, Taipei American School(TAS) and Taipei European School(TES). With the overflow of visitors, the Halloween Party boosts local businesses, who enjoy the extra foot traffic and the chance to introduce themselves to new customers.
But Halloween only comes once a year. That’s where the Tianmu Beer Festival comes to the rescue, providing a new promotional opportunity for one weekend midway through the year. This bazaar utilizes the best of marketing to create a weekend of fun which never loses sight of its raison d’être: beer culture.
Thirst-quenching brews won’t be the only stars vying for your attention. For the first time ever, limited edition merchandise featuring the adorable mascot Yeast Boy will be on hand, including the Tianmu Beer Festival Exclusive T-shirt, Yeast Boy x Beer Cooling Towel, and many other fun items to enhance your summer fun. And if you’re wondering why Yeast Boy is making a special appearance — well specialized yeasts are one of the key ingredients to giving your favorite beer its special flavor, whether that’s an ale or a lager.
Speaking of beer, the Tianmu Beer Fest features 37 vendors selling brews from 18 different countries — including Taiwan, Japan, Germany and Vietnam, to name just a few. So, no matter your preference you’ll find libations to cool you down. But don’t even think about drinking and driving. To make sure you’ll get home safe, in cooperation with 55688 Driver Service, the festival is offering a special designed-driver discount. Stop to receive a promo code for a NT$200 discount, valid until July 31st. Just another friendly gesture to encourage everyone to enjoy the beer fest responsibly, and more importantly, get home safely!
For all the foodies out there, the weekend will boast taste-treats that will go down perfectly with your preferred brew. Top local eateries will be rolling out exclusive yummy morsels for the festival. Looking for something from a Michelin Bib Gourmand recipient? Then check out the Beer-Infused Red Fermented Pork (啤酒紅槽肉), a popular creation from Nu Niang’s Kitchen (女娘的店). Savor the blend of traditional flavors, topped off with the rich aroma of beer, for a modern take on a Taiwanese classic.
Don’t fret if sweets are more to your liking. Newcomer Hao Shi Zai (好食在) will be scooping up Black Beer Sorbet, a refreshing treat for your sweet tooth, with a tangy boozy kick. Old-time eateries will also be on-hand, such as Chuan Tong Western Pastry (全統) will be dishing up its limited-edition Beer Ice Cream. For discerning connoisseurs, they’ll appreciate the creamy texture and robust malt aroma.
After all this delicious munching down and downing some refreshing suds, you may want to take a relaxing break, and once again, the fest features just what the doctor ordered. How about the Mass Karaoke? Belt out some tunes for all to enjoy in this huge sing-along. Or, if your singing leaves the neighbors complaining, don’t worry. Crowd pleasers will also be joining the main stage to serenade the crowds with their melodic voices. The artists include the pop band Men Envy Children (小男孩樂團), and Tianmu’s own Rhydian Vaughan (鳳小岳), who in addition to being an accomplished singer and musician, is also a star of the silver screen, as well as the small screen, in such movies and TV series as Girlfriend Boyfriend and Light the Night.
The Tianmu Beer Festival doesn’t turn its back on the neighborhood, and is actively working with the Taipei City Office of Commerce and the Tianmu Business Circle Development Association to help build on past years momentum. Over 100 participating neighborhood shops are offering special promotions and one-of-a-kind menu items. Make a purchase over a designated dollar amount, and you’ll be entered into a lucky draw for fabulous prizes, including a PS5, an Apple Watch, or a pair of round-trip tickets to Munich, the home of Germany’s annual Oktoberfest. There will also be a Beer Passport, which you can present at participating stores and vendors for festival-only discounts, including special deals at many popular venues. So no matter where you visit at the fest, or across Tianmu, you’ll enjoy delicious food, fantastic shopping, and prizes you won’t want to pass by.
So, if you’re a beer lover, the Tianmu Beer Festival sets itself apart. Unlike other beer fests, where the beer is just seemingly slapped on to a music fest for other local events, this extravaganza takes beer as its starting point at every step of the way.
To understand the uniqueness of this beer fest, you need to look no further than the marketing platform which helped pull this all together. As Funtasy Bazaar’s Daniel Hsieh explains, they’re committed to creating bazaars that are more than your run-of-the-mill markets or night markets abundant throughout Taiwan. Instead, they’re experiences you’ll want to discover – and discover again. As their name suggests, they want to create fun and fantasy-type extravaganzas.
For Funtasy, every aspect of the bazaar must be creative and consumer-focused. Every vendor recruited has to create a clear concept of what their participation brings to the table. From there, menu items are further redefined, to make sure they fit in with the event’s theme, and are unique. They even explore potential cross-over’s — merging two vendors’ items to create a new mouthwatering treat. For example, tasty hand-made buns from a baker may be wrapped around the juiciest meat patties from the burger joint. This leverages the niche of each eatery to multiply the product’s value and appeal. Finally, Funtasy identifies the target audience, and nurtures opportunities for social media exposure and stickiness,
In other words, Funtasy doesn’t want to see the same menu items the eatery normally serves. Otherwise, consumers can just go to the original restaurant and skip the bazaar. For adhering to the event’s theme, Funtasy wants menu items to be tweaked, in this case with beer, to deliver culinary treats which are one-of-a-kind. The result is taste-treats that are eye-catching, perfect items to “feed” to your phone’s camera and post online. As these posts spread quickly on social media, they’ll amplify the promotional appeal of the vendor and the bazaar, leaving all involved winners.
Looking ahead, Funtasy has plans to exhibit its creativity to the international community this autumn. Every year, Taipei’s Gay Pride Parade attracts visitors from throughout Asia, and even Australia, Europe, and North America. Pride falls at the end of October in Taiwan, when the weather’s more hospitable for hitting the streets, and coincides with our favorite season for ghosts and goblins. Funtasty will hold a three-day Halloween bazaar at Taipei’s Expo Park. In a nod to Pride, this year’s Halloween will have a rainbow theme, and already the vendors are concocting taste-treats and drinks with a rainbow motif for visitors from Taiwan and abroad to enjoy, and experience a Halloween all can be proud of.
