The name comes from a sailor's joke about the cold, the brass plate that held a ship's cannonballs contracting until the stack toppled. Brass Monkey kept the phrase and the bravado, and for more than twenty years it has been the room Taipei watches its football in.
Brass Monkey opened in 2003 at 166 Fuxing North Road, in the Zhongshan District near Nanjing Fuxing station. Its own history page tells an unusually specific origin story: the bar was started by Taipei residents who survived the 2002 Bali bombing, together with their friends, a founding fact that gives a sports bar a longer memory than most. The listing on Taiwan Nights files it as a non-smoking sports bar and restaurant, which matters in a city where many late rooms still are not.
The room
The layout is the classic two-floor pub plan, a ground-floor bar with screens angled at the stools and a larger room above that fills for the marquee fixtures. The kitchen runs all day, which is the quiet advantage here, since a sports bar that serves a full breakfast can carry a European kickoff that lands at a Taipei dawn. The crowd mixes the long-term expat regulars who have drunk here since the early 2000s with a younger local set who come for the screens and the quiz.
A sports bar lives or dies on its calendar, and Brass Monkey syncs to two clocks at once, the European football week and the American night games that arrive over a Taipei morning. The weekend opening at 9am exists for exactly that, the supporter who wants the early Premier League fixture with a coffee or a first pint before the room fills. The bar also runs the pub-quiz and event nights that build a regular crowd between the marquee games, the connective tissue that turns a screen room into a local. That longevity is rare in Taipei nightlife, where most foreign-run bars measure their lifespan in a handful of years rather than two decades.
What to order
Drink a cold draft for the game and eat from the all-day pub kitchen, the burgers and full breakfasts that regulars lean on through a long fixture. Prices sit in the mid range for Taipei, with most plates and pints in comfortable double digits, so a beer and a plate stays affordable across ninety minutes plus extra time. The honest move is a pint for the first half and a breakfast plate if the kickoff is early. Regulars rate the room first for atmosphere on a big match and second for the kitchen, which is the right order for a bar that has spent twenty years learning what its crowd wants on a Saturday. For where it sits among the city's screens, our Taipei sports bar ranking places it among the rivals.
Who it is for
Football supporters chasing a fixture across time zones, expats who want a familiar room, and locals after a non-smoking bar with a kitchen that stays open. It rewards anyone who plans the night around a match. For the city's other British-leaning rooms, On Tap keeps the authentic pub tradition and Public House works a craft-led crowd.
Best time to go
Open 11am to 1am on weekdays and 9am to 2am on weekends, so an early European kickoff or a late American game both fit. Arrive early for a derby, since the upstairs room claims the big crowd. Plan the wider night with our Taipei guide or the global sports bar collection.
Sources
Reporting for this profile draws on the bar's official website, its Taiwan Nights listing, and its Tripadvisor profile.
