Kahu Craft Beer Garden: Craft Beer at the Edge of the Beitou Jungle

Kahu Craft Beer Garden sat bookmarked in my Google Maps for the better part of two years before I finally made it up the hill. I've been wanting to go, I'm just never really in the Xinbeitou area. Not that it's far from Beitou, but it's just far enough up Zhongshan Road, past the point where most Xinbeitou visitors turn around, that it takes a deliberate trip. Now that I've been, I get why they chose the spot.

The walk is part of the experience. From Xinbeitou Station, it's a 12–15 minute stroll up the old hot spring road, past weathered old buildings and along the creek, with the grade tilting steadily upward — gently at first, but gets a little steep right at the end. In July, you'll arrive ready for a cold beer. In cooler months, it would be one of the nicer approaches to any restaurant in Taipei.

Kahu itself is half indoors, half out, pressed right up against a very green almost jungle-like hillside. The patio, strung with lights, is the main event — jungle on one side, the stream below. Inside is cozy and a little eccentric: a bar painted in bright abstract colors, and wall art that ranges from Mickey Mouse to artsy nudes. It shouldn't work, but it does.

The beer is the reason to know about this place. All six taps pour Island Life, a tiny brewery out of Tamsui whose beers are otherwise hard to find — their own small bar back in Tamsui, Island Life Craft Beer Balcony, is essentially the only other reliable place to drink them. The lineup skews light and hoppy — pale ales, IPAs, a single-malt pilsner — with everything sitting between roughly 4.5% and 6.5%, which is exactly what you want after that walk. A glass runs around NT$200–240.

I ordered the chorizo pizza (NT$430), a crackery thin-crust number that leans salty from the chorizo and sauce — no complaints from me. One or two slices tipped the cheese-to-everything-else ratio a little high, with the cheese layer outweighing the crust beneath it, but otherwise it was an excellent pizza. It's sized right for one hungry person.

Service was warm and attentive — water offered, order taken at the table, no flagging anyone down. The place has been here around nine years (it seems to have been called Kahurangi Café at one point), and it shows in how comfortably everything runs. They host live music on Saturday nights, which I haven't caught yet, but the setting alone makes it easy to imagine.I arrived at opening and was the solo diner for a bit, but by 6:30pm the dinner crowd was trickling in.

Overall a really cool spot. I can see returning more often, perhaps when it cools down a bit. Even though it's cooler up in Xinbeitou, it is not less humid, so it can still become a bit of a slog. But there's always Uber or taxis during summer. I should probably take that advice next time.