I live on same street as new Great Leap location and just got back last night from a trip. Had my first taste of it, and was a little disappointed. They only had 3 beers on tap, tried them all, and wasn't blown away by any of them. The ambience is industrial, dim, but spacious and comfortable enough. The biggest disappointment was the food. The 40 RMB lamb burger looked almost exactly like McDonalds. Unfortunately, it wasn't McDonalds. The fries were covered in salt and I couldn't eat half of them even though I was starving. Quality of the burger was OK, but portion was very small. If food was decent I would be there a lot, but food was bad. With so many good options on the street, unless you are really dieing for Beijing-brewed beer, I would say Frost or Big Smoke are better. Only had the burger, but wouldn't waste my time or money trying other things on the menu...
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Re: Nice look, decent beer, BAD McDonalds-esque food
I also had fries so salty I couldn't eat them. I think the burgers are good for the price (especially lamb burger) though worth to say they are fast-food in style rather than chophouse style. Chicken wings / onion rings both good.
Re: Nice look, decent beer, BAD McDonalds-esque food
Are you saying a brewery had only 3 beers on tap on a Thurs. night? That is sad...I do wonder, however, what kind of beer you fancy. Perhaps it was not in line with your tastebuds?
Re: Nice look, decent beer, BAD McDonalds-esque food
Only had 3 on Thurs...a porter for 25, banana wheat for 60, and some amber ale or something for like 50. Banana wheat was best tasting but for 60 it should be pretty good.
Re: Nice look, decent beer, BAD McDonalds-esque food
Do you guys also find that you always get a hangover from Great Leap? I find that this is always the happening case with me and my friends, even the men who are big beer drinkers. I know not much about beer making, but I don't think this should happen, yes?
Re: Nice look, decent beer, BAD McDonalds-esque food
Well they are only doing a soft opening - can't be expecting Carl to be making the beers AND selling the place. I'll give it a while till after June for them to get their act together. In the meantime, move aside so we can take the seats outside!
Re: Nice look, decent beer, BAD McDonalds-esque food
Fair enough comment on it being soft opening, but have been by several times in the last two weeks where they only have 1-2 beers actually available (usually 3). So long as one of them was the IPA, I might not mind but it has been out of a selection of 4.
Out of frustration, went to the original location on a Sunday and they only had 3 there also (5 on the board, with 2 out).
All this being said, I think they have the best craft beers of all the (ever increasing number) of places. I think hangovers come with the territory of much higher alcohol content in the beer...
As far as the food goes, I encourage people to give them lots of feedback as I think they care about getting it right. Unfortunately, so far, the food does not make this a very attractive destination for dinner. The cheese burger was decent if you really like burgers and a couple of the salads were ok (why is it so hard to find a nondisgusting salad in Beijing?). The wings were in a puddle of the oil they were fried in and the other burgers were strange.
I think they might want to clone the easy side of the menus of the more commercial brewpubs in the US (like Heartland Brewery in NY or the Yard in Denver) with more healthy offerings, even if more expensive. If they had decent grilled chicken salads and sandwiches as well as less fried options, I could see going there several times a week...
Re: Nice look, decent beer, BAD McDonalds-esque food
Tried more food here...again not very good. Onion rings were OK, cheeseburger was OK but more expensive and less tasty than Frost, and the chicken finger appetizers were 80% fried batter and 20% chicken.
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