The Lite Bar – Simatai and Pomegranate Wheat Beer

On Monday, BotF and his daughter drove about 110km north-east of Beijing to the best part of the Great Wall that is readily accessible from Beijing. The stretch of Wall that is open for walking upon is 12 kms between Jinshanling and Simatai. It is extremely steep and in some places quite treacherous, particularly if you have vertigo. Alternatively you can do the lazy man’s version that was chanced upon by BotF on his last trip. Zoe had been up pretty late for the last couple of nights, so it was important to minimise her physical exertion.

You start and finish at Simatai – and instead of a 2km walk to the base of the wall from the carpark, you walk 100m to a cable car which takes you over half way, then catch a large inclinator to about 200m from the base of a tower that is quite high up. There’s only two towers after this where there is a steep climb and you get to the furthest extent of the wall. A 12 yo guard blocks the way. You get to the tower on the furthest left of the first photo and get exceptional views of the inaccessible bits which really are a feat of building and engineering.

You turnaround, and it is pretty much downhill from there until you get to a flying fox, which takes you about 500m from the carpark and a boat then takes you the rest of the way. If you don’t dick around, it can take less than 90 minutes all up (the cable car is pretty slow) – but it is worth soaking in the view.

You are rewarded by a bar with one of the finest views of any bar in China, with an expansive deck. There is a youth hostel nearby, and I reckon the Lite Bar would go off on a hot summer’s night.

Today’s beer porn features another of Saranac’s brews. These guys are very serious, with 5 regular brews, 8 current seasonals, a ridiculous 33 seasonals in the archives and some other labels – like Utica. I picked up the Pomegranate Wheat Beer seasonal a couple of days ago, and tried it when I got home after the Wall. Very smooth, with a slight astringency which is actually pleasant. Some ideas to pass on to the 4 Pines brewery.