From their home turf out in Houhai, NBeer has finally planted their flag in Sanlitun, opening an NBeer outlet in the Sanlitun SOHO complex a few weeks ago. Sanlitun SOHO is a pretty bizarre place these days. It's like a patchwork quilt of sketch-ball cafes and janky businesses, interspersed with the kind of hair salons that Paula Abdul would get real excited about. It's like they've got so much space, they're just giving away storefronts to crazy people off the street. I'm going to go back and do tons of articles about it. It's fantastic. Coming from Sanlitun proper into the main entrance of Sanlitun SOHO off Gongti, the new NBeer is down a level and way towards the back. Nbeer is just one room, sort of caught in-between a couple of stores. The bar and main seating is in the front, pictured above, and then the rest of the place sort of fades into this winter sports gear store on the one side.... ...and then just sort of off into more mall-ish nothingness on the other. It's also sharing the room with this... ...which is a pasta restaurant? It didn't seem open so we didn't try it out. It's all kind of strange. The vibes... welp. Kind of feels like a mall food court, to be honest. Maybe that's what they're going for. Like, people can have a beer to have a break from shopping, sort of thing. I don't know. The music is coming second-hand from that winter sports store, "Patagonia", and they were rocking 2004 FM Radio Greatest Hits -- Coldplay into Train into Matchbox 20 into a very serious and resolute Bryan Adams patch that there was no coming out of. It was pretty bullshit. So they've got 16 taps, and from visiting the other venue, they've definitely got the beer, but as of now you've got 13 on offer. Along with a few from Chengdu, these are 13 of NBeer's more straightforward beers -- a bunch of IPAs and then touching the bases on the other genres. They've got a few bottles as well, but at this location of NBeer, you'd be going just for their craft beer. They're not doing that huge fridge of bottles like at their original location. Here's the Niubi Wheat... ...snd here's the Hefeweizen. Both really straight-forward beers. Decent. Drinkable. Not bad at all. The last time I went to NBeer I had a run-in with some nasty-ass Porters, but both of these were definitely pretty fine. I liked the hefeweizen more because I like that banana taste, but that's just me. Prices are 40rmb a pint. Not much more to say, really. NBeer in Sanlitun Soho. There's already a few good options (with more on the way) for craft beer around this area and we're not sure it can sustain another. Beer's fine enough, but it's going to be tough work to carve out a personality in sterile Sanlitun SOHO. Everything in here sort of fades into that glass and steel facade by default. At any rate, the original location of NBeer is pretty far for a lot of people so maybe this one's more convenient. If you haven't had the chance to try out NBeer's stuff yet, or if you're a fan of their beers, well, here you go... *** NBeer is at B1-625 Sanlitun SOHO, 4 Gongti.