Like Starbucks that were sprouting up at every corner of the street a decade back, gastro pubs have been emerging in cities all over the world. Look at London and even Gordon Ramsey has setup his own gastronomical watering hole. These days, the original philosophy of serving culinary delights (as opposed to wedges with instant curry dip) paired with tasteful beers, has been bastardized. On my last trip to Hong Kong In May, there was a joint in Times Square that labeled itself as a gastro bar but served fare that looked like a menu copied from Botak Jones and commercial beers like San Miguel.

There’re several outlets like this in Singapore and Boulevard has recently partnered with Archipelago to open a similar gourmet bar at Millenia Walk. Call it whatever you like, for guys like us, it comes down to tasty less commercial beers at reasonable prices and great bar food like buffalo wings, pizza and burgers would help. Which is why we’ve been faithful barstool warmers to Ice Cold Beer for the past 10 years.

But this new Archipelago concept might swing the votes next Wednesday night. Granted that we were there on opening night, service was good, our glasses were re-filled endlessly – and get this… they kept giving us ice water without us having to ask for it! It really peeves me when bars in Singapore have the audacity to even attempt charging for tap water!

On tap are their 4 regular brews with an extra tap filled with the promise of the occasional limited brew, but we’re still firm favourites of the Summer Ale and the Irish Ale, the former a good pint to start with and the latter a good session beer. I hope they’ll also start tapping their Samui beer that’s only available at Changi Airport’s duty free.

But the best part of this Boulevard bar is that it finally fills the void of a good bar around the Suntec, Millenia, Marina area which bears no allegiance to any nationality (eg. Durty Nelly’s, Paulaner). Since the crowd at Balaclava dispersed leading to its eventual relocation, we haven’t had much reason to hangout there. With this new opening,  we just might have another option next Wednesday.

Red sky tonight, a beer drinker's delight.

Last month, we had an entry on World’s Top Brewery Tours where we mentioned a few brewery tours, one of which was the Tiger beer tour. Last week, we did get invited to tour the brewery at Asia Pacific Brewery, the mothership of Tiger. While it wasn’t our first visit to the brewery, it’s always great fun since the tour always ends at the Tiger Tavern where it’s free flow till lights out (and this normally means the bartender kicking guests out) at 9.30pm. And this happened again… no complaints and we’d gladly grease our rear ends again. 

While we don’t down Tiger as often as we could, it’s always a joy being at Tiger Tavern sampling all the different products Tiger has its paws in. We didn’t know Kirin is now being distributed by APB and we had more of the Archipelago Irish Ale we cleared out during the launch party. And on this 

We'd like to think we're exlcusive, so if you do find this on the shelves at Cold Storage, don't tell us.

 night, we got some tips on the upcoming Oktoberfest gigs in Singapore and even previewed the Erdinger Weissbier Kristall. Not available yet in Singapore, this crystal clear wheat beer has a light golden color with a foamy head which settles very quickly. Newbies to wheat beer may find this a good brew to start with since it’s low in carbonation and not as full-bodied as most wheat beers. 

The Tiger brewery tours will pause soon as they refurbish the areas open to public and will reopen just before the Lunar New Year. In the mean time we’ll continue to get acquianted with the lovely beer babes. 

Miss, excuse me, where's the toilet?

Tiger beer, the beer of my life, I knee-d you.

Look Ma, no hands!

Xiao Jie, let me help you carry this.

Well, their Irish Ale has been around, we did drink it at the Beer Fest and it’s a great beer, so proud to be Singaporean and boasting of an Irish Ale!

Some of you have been asking why establishments don’t carry more varieties of beer. Well, if you haven’t noticed, Archipelago beers have been increasing their taps at lots of locations around town and with pretty good offers too. Even Pump Room carries their taps. But our favourite location for a pint of Archipelago is Mel’s Place along East Coast Road. Nice cosy restaurant with a huge outdoor seating for cool evenings.

First, the guys from Brewerkz started following us on Twitter!

What’s the big deal? We know someone’s reading this blog! Well, we’ve been diehard fans of Brewerkz for almost 10 years now. I read a feature of one of the partners a few years back and absolutely admired their grit when starting Brewerkz. But most admirably, they make some of the best beer we’ve ever tasted! My personal fav is the Golden Ale or maybe the Wheat Ale, damn I’ll have both, enjoying beer shouldn’t be about choices!

Next, a new microbrew is opening in Singapore! Tawandang Microbrewery from Thailand will open their taps at Dempsey on 3rd July. We’ll do a field report and let you know how it rates.

A lot of friends or people we meet overseas ask us where’s the best beer pub in Singapore so we’re taking this opportunity to list the microbrews here.

Of course, the first place we recommend is Brewerkz. Absolutely crazy happy hour prices, huge TV screen for sports and free WIFI! Despite having expanded, the best location is still Riverside where reservations mean everything on Friday and Saturday nights.

Here’s the others in no order of preference.

The Pump Room – At Clarke Quay and Great World City. Our pick: Scottish Ale.

Red Dot BrewHouse -  The other microbrew at Dempsey Road and it’s opened by a Singaporean who had a dream, we salute you. Our pick: Monster Green Lager.

Archipelago - Setup by Asia Pacific Breweries, who brew Tiger beer. Our pick: Explorer, which you can only get at Duty Free at Changi Airport.

Paulaner Brauhaus – Part of the Paulaner chain which you’ll find in numerous other cities. Our pick: Oktoberfest beer.

Lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of....

They were carrying a nice extensive range of mainly foreign beers, cos Singapore only have one, at most two, national beers. Archipelago, Hoe, James Squire, Golden and Ambers, Carlsberg Gold, Chimay, Duvel, Konig Ludwig Weissbier, Real Belgian Pil. Erdinger, San Mig Light and Pale, Sol, Corona, Chang. Tiger, of course.  I left out a few of the more common ones and the stouts. What stood out also was the wider-than-usual range of alcopops. Like the Singapore Sling – good grief.

Nice pretty pink packaging.. ahem

Here’s the gem: Organic beer. I had heard of it, but this is the first time I had seen one in my local mini-supermart. It costs quite a pretty penny (S$10.75) for a pint bottle but I guess that goes with the organic territory. The name? Duchy Originals Organic Ale.

Organic beer - looks like a small bottle of wine though