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Review

The craft taproom as a third place: a comparative ethnography of Asian cities

From Kuanhouli in Jinan to Ponto-chō in Kyoto, the taproom is rewriting where people go after work.

Guyan Chen1†, Ken Sato2

* Equal contribution · † Corresponding author

B.E.E.R. 647, 211–220 (2026)

Received: 30 March 2026
Accepted: 8 August 2026
Published: 16 September 2026
DOI: 10.1038/sbeer-026-18412-9

Abstract

This review surveys craft-taproom studies in 11 Asian cities since 2015 and proposes three conditions for the taproom as a “third place”: a temporal structure that allows lingering, a low-threshold beer-list narrative, and nesting in the local night economy rather than substituting for it. Spring-water beerhouses in Lixia District, Jinan, supply an extreme case — public spring water itself is a fourth condition. We discuss what the form means for public health, gendered night space and tourist consumption of authenticity.

Subject: Urban night economy

After Oldenburg’s “third place” was written out in North American coffee shops, the Asian craft taproom offers a restart1. Unlike a bar, the taproom’s temporal structure is closer to a teahouse: one may arrive early, sit long, and drink only one glass.

Night crowds on Furong Street, Jinan
Fig. 1 | Furong Street night market. Scenic beer stalls and craft taprooms share one flagstone street yet obey different logics of lingering.

In Lixia, spring water is a public facility that need not be paid for; it pulls beerhouse pavement seating out of privatized night space and back onto a walkable street. That is a point the European and American taproom literature has not fully theorized.

Methods

  1. Review search of Web of Science and CNKI, 2015–2026, keywords taproom / craft beer / third place.

Data availability. The search string is in the supplementary methods.

Acknowledgements. No dedicated funding.

Author contributions. C.G.Y. drafted the paper; S.K. supplied the Kyoto cases.

Competing interests. The authors declare no competing interests.

Authors and affiliations

  1. 1. School of Culture and Tourism, University of Jinan, Jinan, China
  2. 2. Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

Corresponding author: Guyan Chen (gychen@ujn.edu.cn)

References

  1. 1. Oldenburg, R. The Great Good Place (Da Capo, 1999).
  2. 2. Thurnell-Read, T. Craft beer and the third place. Sociology 55, 1–18 (2021).
  3. 3. Ocejo, R. E. Masters of Craft (Princeton Univ. Press, 2017).