The public house (‘pub’) is the gold standard of Western drinking culture. With 3,000 years of fine-tuning, it’s a sacred formula of wood panelling, cigarette machines, pool, beer, solitude or solidarity (if you want it). There might be the odd karaoke poster where a dartboard once hung, but apart from jukeboxes – a mid-1950s innovation that simply replaced ‘strange old guy with a harmonica’ – the formula hasn’t changed in centuries.

So, what to make of a new pub – in the cursed space below Luga’s Villa, no less – that reckons to do away with the tiresome business of having to go to the bar? Taps offers the chance to dispense with serving wenches – a shame, because it has a Teutonic theme, and I’ve gotten used to Dongbei girls in full Bavarian waiter couture – and put the pump back where it presumably belongs: in the hands of the drinker.

An optional calibrated tap on the table provides self-service to customers who crave either Carlsberg or Paulaner, or just can’t be arsed to walk to the bar. There’s a minimum purchase of five litres; meaning there’s no actual saving, but the staff have more free time and Taps enjoys roughly 20 percent more beer sales. This feels like a gimmick – but a good one.

Although the kitchen can’t do hog-roasting, the German standards are pleasing enough. We ordered a Kalte Fleisch Kase Platten, as you do on these occasions, and a bratwurst with sauerkraut and mash– both hale ’n’ hearty.

Taps erases the failed legacy of its predecessors – Boutique, a long-forgotten wine cellar, and the unloved Luga’s Basement (the tacky sports bar, rather than a subterranean space where Luga kept his gimps, as the name always suggested). Business seems brisk but, right now, you could open an envelope in Beijing and find foreigners inside, usually drinking Chimay. Once summer’s passed and the flatscreens lose their lustre, Taps may need other ways to draw them in (that doesn’t mean more live Xinjiang music; enough already with that). Here’s hoping it succeeds.

Address: Basement Floor 7 Sanlitun Houjie (beneath Luga’s Villa), Chaoyang District 朝阳区三里屯后街7号地下一层

Source: timeoutbeijing.com