Expect the unexpected

Jim was introduced to craft beer while studying in California, but what influenced him as much if not more than the brewing scene there, was the region’s wealth of wineries. “I really liked how they were so open and big and people could come for food and just talk,” says Jim. “They really gave people a destination, but also from the winery’s side, that created the time and opportunity to explain to people how they’re working and what winemaking is all about. Ten years ago when I started the brewery here, nobody knew anything about craft. So I figured if I was going to build a brewery, it needed to have somewhere people could visit, and just give me five minutes and let me talk about what we’re doing here.”

Today, Jim and Dad’s isn’t short of things to explain. Its range is expansive. “So we have tea beers, fruit beers,” continues Jim. “We do a range of traditional herbal medicine beers. We do rice beers, IPAs, and then I also still do barrel aged stuff. I do a little bit of import because I like certain breweries from Oregon and the West Coast. We don't brew sour beers at the facility because I don't want to contaminate anything, so I only import sour beers, but really love the style. I know it’s not everyone’s preference but I love them so sour you almost can’t drink them.”

As Jim is showing us the brewery’s range of beers, a label catches my eye. It features a blonde woman in a bikini on a beach, leaning over a pint, in that distinctive 1950 American graphic style. I think to myself ‘here we go’. I’m not sure that, in 2025, we’re yet far enough away from the sexist depiction of women in beer advertising for this to be funny, but there is an entertaining story behind the brew itself; an “asparagus beer”, which happens to be Jim and Dad’s most famous product. 

Jim explains: “Sixty years ago, tinned asparagus was a very popular product in Taiwan, and this company called Jing Jing was very famous for making it. A byproduct of boiling all this asparagus so it could be tinned was waste water. Instead of throwing it away, the company concentrated it and sold it as asparagus juice. It was very popular in the 70s and 80s, and this [blonde woman in a bikini] was their brand. It’s got nothing to do with asparagus.” 

He continues to say that as Taiwan’s economy boomed, people got richer and started to realise there were other kinds of juice they could drink. Jing Jing fell on hard times, and has seen many peaks and troughs in business over the years, but is still going. For Taiwan’s middle-aged and older generations, asparagus juice is a cornerstone of their childhood, and so Jim thought it would be fun to partner with Jing Jing and made a beer with them inspired purely by nostalgia. “We brew the beer with asparagus juice and it totally tastes like asparagus,” says Jim. “That’s not a good thing.”

He’s right about that, but what he fails to mention is that it’s also not a bad thing. The beer is weird, but in the most bizarre and confusing way, also wonderful. Would I drink a pint of it? Probably not. Would I order a second? Definitely not. But I’m delighted that it exists. It takes playful and silly to new levels, and through this lens, Jim and Dad’s is a joy to behold. While the brewery’s location is hardly remote, it is out of the city, and yet as we pack up our things to head down the road to Kavalan Distillery, the taproom is filling up, and people are ordering asparagus beer. Plenty of people, it would seem, have a soft spot for Jim and Dad’s.