January 8, 2012
Accessible from the MRT Blue Line stop for City Hall. Outdoor patio. English language menus and very friendly English-speaking staff. Faux red brick walls behind J-shaped 20-place laquered red wood bar. Bar/lounge area with a dozen and a half tall tables and padded chairs. Padded bench-style seating along one wall. Subdued music and moderate lighting (bright enough to read the menus)Non-smoking available. Sampler for NT 230. Late-night specials from 21:30-. Full liquor license. Crowd about 50/50 men/women, mostly locals in their 20s and 30s.

June 16, 2011
Great place for after work. Food is great ( but expensive) . Beer is great . It’s not the generic lager you’d get in most pubs. Staff are very helpful and there are so many of them. There are now more GB’s appearing all over the island. Get the garlic fries they are sumptious. Highly recommended.

November 20, 2009
Gordon Biersch is located on the second floor in the A11 building of the Shin Kong Mitsukoshi department store, near Taipei 101. This isn’t actually a brewpub. The bartender told me that it is illegal in Taiwan to have a brewery inside a pub or restaurant. The production brewery is located in Taichung where there is also a second GB retail location. I knew from doing some previous research that getting a good craft beer in Taiwan is not an easy thing. That certainly was my experience for the eight days I was in the country. The indigenous Taiwan Beer (macro lager) is everywhere, having started off as a government monopoly. The only other beer choices I had occasion to see was in 7-Eleven where they sold a selection of international macro lager, Asahi Black, and Michelob Dark. I also went to a restaurant on the northeast coast that offered their own beer, but it was made from an Australian lager kit and blended with cranberry juice -- too sweet for my taste. I stopped here at GB for a beer with my guide while on a press trip. He’d never been here, much less even knew about GB, so we started off with a sampler rack of the six beers on offer -- Czech Lager, Golden Export, Hefeweizen, Maerzen, Schwarzbier, and a seasonal. Interestingly, he enjoyed all of them. We then decided on a glass of the seasonal Festbier (http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/gordon-biersch-festbier/2454/2164/) before heading off for dinner at a Tainan restaurant where there was only more Taiwan Beer to be had. GB Taipei is essentially their US brewpub transplanted in Taiwan, including the food menu. In the US, you may not think of it as being anything special, but in Taiwan, they were serving the best beer I could find. I even asked an expat Brit in here if you could find an IPA in Taipei. He thought for a bit and said no. So in that context, Gordon Biersch is a place you would definitely seek out. That said, there certainly is a major growth opportunity for craft brewing in Taiwan.