One pass to drink them all!

Five is a bitter-sweet number, folks. Beerfest Asia was FIVE days long. And now its been FIVE days since it ended. Its official. We finally admit it. The beer feast is over. The music has stopped. The beer-stained ‘Beer Heals All Wounds’ slogan T-shirt needs to go into the wash. And we are paying the price of having had such a good time.

For the tens of thousands of folks who attended Beerfest Asia 2010 it would have been an awesome event that just ended and its 364 days to the next one. Sadly, this is not the case for everyone. Not the 175proofers, at least. For us, the withdrawal symptoms have just begun. The reality has begun to sink in that its back to real life. And going back to work is a tough cure for this pain. Its been a looonnng FIVE days. Well, to make this better, we’re gonna pen some sweet memories of the best beer feast these guys have been to ever. And this is great training for when the 175proofers head out to Oktoberfest later this year in Munich. Well, the best we can do is to share some of the digitally captured memories with you guys in the hope that it will help ease the pain (ouch!) for us. This will be cathartic, I’m sure. Here goes.

The hallowed tunnel to beer heaven...

Beer hall days... 5 days to be exact

and there were (beer) angels...

and hippies...

... bring out the hula hula - tasty Hawaiiian beers which conjour up the sunny island taste

...delicious Magners pear cider brought in by 6 Drunk Men

and the ocassional yuckky beer - Jaz from Malaysia...

religious beer... Almighty from Grand Ridge

getting some air guitar time with this Stella Artois inflatable beer accompaniment...

'Doc, I have a liver ache...'

Somersby Apple Cider from Carlsberg - a cider the ladies will like too

... bring out the hula hula. Great tasting Hawaiian beers which conjour up the big island magic

Wychcraft. Good looking, good balanced English beer. Hoppy but flavourful. My fave of the nite. Find it at East of Avalon in Singapore.

The smoothest cider you'll be drinking - Green Goblin Oak Aged Cider from the UK. We like. Find this at East of Avalon too.

We feel the desperate urge to rush to East of Avalon for a Goliath. For our bigger-than-man-sized thirst.

In America this would be a sports team, in the UK, more sensibly, its a malty full-bodied dark amber beer. Foutyniner from Ringwood Brewery UK. Avail at EoA. But why isn't it spelt 'fourtyniner'?

Stone Beer - feel that way after a dozen

We know how that must feel if you brew a fine brew like this. A good American craft beer.

Matso's Mango beer - not as girly as it sounds. Refreshing, not overpowering.

Last one for the night and fest. Draft Bitter from Grand Ridge. Good tase and value microbrew from Australia.

If you’ve come this far in the post, I suspect that you like beer as much as us. And you’ll feel our pain when we tell you that we bulk bought a mixed batch of beautiful craft beer from Grand Ridge during the beer auction for a great price but lost it in the back of the cab after we got off. That almost ruined Beerfest Asia 2010 for us. But thanks to this post and the photos we didn’t lose, we were able to relive those FIVE glorious days again and share them with you now. Well done SPHere Events for organising this. My special heartfelt thanks to Mandy and her super trooper team who made everything so enjoyable via their hospitality. Can’t wait 360 days to the next one. Cheers to that!

First, a bit of background on the brewery. Geronimus Hatt, who obtained his Master Brewer’s certificate in 1664, started up the Canon Brewery in the Place du Corbeau in Strasbourg. His son Claude (born November 1665), succeeded his father in the trade in 1683. However, the frequent flooding of the River Ill compelled in 1850 a move to the higher terrain of Cronenbourg, an area of Strasbourg. Now owned by Carlsberg, Geronimus Hatt, who obtained his Master Brewer’s certificate in 1664, started up the Canon Brewery in the Place du Corbeau in Strasbourg. His son Claude (born November 1665), succeeded his father in the trade in 1683. However, the frequent flooding of the River Ill compelled in 1850 a move to the higher terrain of Cronenbourg, an area of Strasbourg. Now owned by Carlsberg, Kronenbourg is the largest selling beer in France today.Now about the K1664. With Dynamo Système it delivers a lively canned lager with smaller bubbles creating a smoother taste. Smaller bubbles. Smoother taste. That’s the positioning of one of the newer commercial mass brews to hit Singapore, brought in by our friends at Carlsberg Singapore; already on tap in a couple of our favourite watering holes like KPO in the heart of Orchard Road, Singapore. Kronenbourg 1664, the company’s main brand, is a 5.5% pale lager first brewed in 1952. It is the leading brand of beer in France, where it has a 40% market share. It uses the Strisselspalt hop – a French aroma hop from Alsace, used mostly in pale lagers  (source: wikipedia). You can expect to find it at Beerfest Asia 2010.

This slightly dark golden coloured, strong Pilsner-style  beer has a good frothy head when poured and the bubbles hold steady for a while when left to stand for a minute. Nice – keeps the freshness in. Taste-wise, it has a finish that I would describe as reminisce of grass – and not in a wheat or  bad way though. It is full bodied and smooth -the latter  testament to the small bubbles and hence persistent frothy head. The slightly hoppy taste was not apparent in its aroma which was strong and inviting. The only thing that got me wondering was why they had to go add colouring (E150c) into an otherwise all natural product. Now I’m usually a fan of natural foods and beverages but if you’re not too fussed, I’m sure you’ll like the 1664. At 5% abv for this sample that was passed to us, its a good strength brew that’ll keep most drinkers happy.

Aside, Kronenbourg also has a variety called  Cold Premier 5.0% – a super chilled variant on 1664, draught only, UK. I was blessed enough to have tried that at a London local for close to £5 some time ago, but that was probably the best beer I had used to wash down a scrumptious pub meal of lamb chops ever. Try it if you have the chance. I bet still have remnants of coagulated lamb fat in my gut courtesy of the deliberately freezing brew. No regrets though, heh.

T for Tequila?

This week, the 175proofers were lucky enough to continue to sample more of the yet-to-hit-the-shelves specialty beers from Carlsberg, courtesy of it’s Singapore marketing head, Anto Setiadi. This time its the Tuborg T-Beer Mexicana. This light bodied, almost headless brew has the taste of beer but with an added twist of lemon (yes, its there) AND tequila (supposedly). You can expect to sample this at the upcoming Beerfest Asia 2010.

Classified as a flavoured beer, the taste and body is very much reminisce of your familiar Mexican varieties such as Sol and Corona or less common Estrella, sans fresh lime wedge. And it definitely not of the Bohemia (read full bodied) variety. Instead, the Tuborg T Beer Mexicana has its citrus taste pre-mixed. And if there is supposed to be a tequila flavour as well, I sure found it very mild, almost non-existent. The only indication that it might contain some of that wicked agave cactus plant goodness is the slight cats-tongue finish.

With a 4.9% ABV, it’s not exactly your mid strength variety so it’ll still pack a punch if you go thru a 6-pack. Although the packaging has a image of a cactus on our sample bottle, other countries may carry variations of the bottle design – let’s see. I guess I was expecting more of a tequila kick or taste in the beer when I saw the cactus motifs on the label – that got me really excited. But then again, its hard to make an easy drinking refreshing summer beer if it packs too much of a donkey’s kick in it, eh? Plus with the sun beating down on you perched on your deck chair beside the pool or beach, anything more than a light beer will quickly wrestle your sobriety down to the hot sand after a few. No fun. Now I know why many Mexican beers taste the way they do – light & refreshing but full strength – built for the desert.
The taste reviews from Ratebeer.com gives it pretty low scores, but then again, like wine, many alcoholic beverages are subjective. I’m sure the ladies wouldn’t mind nursing a light, fresh tasting beer in a trendy, colourless & slim clear bottle while out and about in Singapore’s perpetual summer climate. While in other countries Carlsberg markets the T Beer as a ’summer brew’, our take is that this kind of beer is gonna be always welcome all year round here in good ‘ol Singapore.

According to Carlsberg’s website, T-Beer is Tuborg’s easy to drink, low flavoured pilsner beer. With it’s transparent bottle and easy-to-drink flavour it attracts the attention of consumers having fun in the summer time. And there is also a press release that states that ‘5 million bottles of T-Beer produced and sold in Turkey since April 14, 2006′.

Various packaging in different geographies - this is the Turkish version

While I still follow football, we’ve learnt to appreciate different cultures in a more fluid but educational method – beer. None of us at www.175proof.com have been to Russia but we’ve drunk their vodka and eaten their caviar. And we never thought of beer and Russia, it’s always vodka. Until our favourite beer travelogue, Three Sheets, visited Moscow and drank Baltika beer, we were finally convinced that every country has it’s own brew.

So when we were given a bottle of Baltika, we couldn’t wait to drink it. Baltika beer comes straight from St. Petersburg and is one of the most popular beers in Russia. There are a few varities available including a light and porter version. But the one we tried was Baltika No. 3, which is a 4.8% lager, also known as Klassicheskoe (Classic). It’s a simple beer, clear and golden yellow with good, white head. Easy to drink with a bitter finish. If you’re looking for an alternate classic tasting but new beer to try, this would be it.

You’ll be able to sample this at Beer Fest Asia 2010.

Tastes like apple champagne, if it doesn't exist, at least there's Somersby!

Well, Carlsberg Singapore has upped the stakes by introducing the Somersby Apple Cider and we were fortunate enough to score a bottle. Let me put it simply – this is best cider I’ve ever tasted. And I took all of 5 mins to finish the bottle, it was really that good.

I love my ciders and I love my champagne and this Somersby cider comes close to a semi-cuvee apple champagne, if there’s ever such a drink! It’s no fib by describing my first taste felt as though I was biting into a big, juicy apple and what gushed out was pure apple juice mixed with tonic! Sweet and full of flavour.  I am sure this is going to give Magners, Pipsqueak, Strongbow a run for their money.

It’s hitting our shelves and for those visiting Beer Fest Asia 2010, you’ll find it available there. It’s sheer torture having to wait till then to drink it again!

Our buddy, Yuske is the resident bartender at Dry Dock in Tokyo and it’s his birthday today. And we know you’re reading this so happy birthday!

And thanks for giving me Shiga Kogen beers!

Shiga Kogen Ji Biru

Shiga Kogen House IPA

I shared the Shiga Kogen House IPA with Yuske the last time I was at Dry Dock. This is a double-hopped IPA and a strong one with an 8% ABV. Even with the multiple hops, there’s a pleasant sweet organe taste and the bitterness bursts as a lingering aftertaste. One thing about the Shiga Kogen beers I’ve tried, they don’t offer good head and this isn’t any different but it’s a wonderful IPA and probably my favourite Shiga Kogen beer.

Once again, thanks for all the great beers we’ve drunk and Happy Birthday Yuske, this one is for you!

It’s open to public with over 100 different local and imported beers and ciders. There’ll also be live demos on home brewing, beer & food pairing and tasting masterclasses.

I found out about this event when I was last in Melbourne’s Young & Jackson’s pub, opposite Flinder’s Station. They were giving out a Beer Lover’s Passport to Melbourne, as a promotion leading up to the Beer & Brewer Expo and to promote the city’s better beer venues.

Grand Ridge Gippsland Gold at Young & Jackson Hotel

My personal favourite watering hole during my past few visits to Melbourne has been the Young & Jackson Hotel. Not only does it sit conveniently located oppostie Flinder’s Station, it’s notorious for having 27 beer and 3 cider taps, most of which are local microbrews like Mountain Goat, Fat yak, White Rabbit and Grand Ridge Brewery. I particularly loved the Grand Ridge Gippsland Gold which is a bitter ale and very pleasant tasting.

I was told by the barman that Grand Ridge Brewery is a small brewery a few hours drive from Melbourne. And they’ve been selective about where they distribute their beers so one wouldn’t find their golden liquid randomly. If you do find it in somewhere, I’d highly recommend you try the Gippsland Gold.

Unfortunately, on my 1-night trip to the city, the government had mandated that all public entertainment be shut down on the day as a form of respect to the victims of the Qinghai earthquake on 14 April. This included all bars, gaming centres and even television airwaves were locked down including channels like HBO were shut for the day.

Entertainment Tonight: TV Channel lockdown!

But when I did get to the airport the next day, my flight was delayed. And what’s a boy supposed to do in an airport all alone? Found a cafe that had a poster advertising draft beer even though I didn’t see any of the regular beer taps at the drinks counter. Apparently, fresh draft beer is served from a container in the kitchen and the waitress wouldn’t let me go take a look.

Fresh Draft Tsingtao

I’ve tried so many varieties of Tsingtao and to be honest, I don’t find significant differences between all their varieties and this didn’t seem any different either. Very airy head, light and slightly sweet after taste. But what I did find for the first time ever was Tsingtao stout, which I’ve never seen in other parts of China.

Colour was really dark and pouring it from the bottle didn’t produce much head. This certainly won’t rank high on one of the best stouts ever but you may like it for it’s strong roasted coffee taste. Not sure if I’d order it again unless I get delayed at the Qingdao airport again.

On Saturday, I made my way down to the Shanghai Expo site in Pudong with a friend who uses words “Awesome! Great! Fab!” to describe just about anything. Well, I’ll borrow those words to describe the Expo because it truly was such.

As it’s still a preview, more than half of the paviliions were not open and whatever was open had a queue line of 2-4hours to enter. Fortunately, I had friends working there which came with privileges…

The official Expo beer is Budweiser and even then, I only found one tiny Bud shop selling beer cans with me being the only patron. The beer babe made it clear that local Chinese don’t really drink during the day and this was validated when most people came into the shop thinking it was selling Coke!

Not being a fan of the industrial American beers, my taste buds were vindicated when I visited the German pavilion and saw a bar serving Hofbräu-Festzelt which is also served at Munich Beer House we reviewed previously, read it here.

Singapore’s most popular beer gets upgraded after it’s last facelift in 2005. Our homegrown beer takes on this new look to commemorate the Year of the Tiger. All the gold trimmings have been replaced with platinum touches and this new look has already walked off with both the Gold and Silver accolades at the 2009 World Beer Championships Packaging Competition.