True stout lovers have a new dark one to whet tastebuds to. We’ve had to limit ourselves to Guinness, ABC, Royal Danish Stout and whatever’s brewed at Brewerkz. But Wala Wala at Holland Village now serves Connor’s Original Stout on tap. It’s brewed by Carlsberg Malaysia and if response is good, we’ll probably be seeing it at other outlets like KPO and Balaclava soon.

The World Cup is upon us, so you know you’ll be getting a good dose of soccer (football?) related posts from the good folks at 175proof. And you also know that brands will no doubt capitalise on the tried-n-tested emotional appeal type television commercials that will surely rile up your latent reservoirs of manly (or otherwise) feelings that would otherwise not see themselves manifest as tears during a sob movie, a tiny kitten lost beside a bustling main street  soaked with rain  or news of great grand aunt Susan passing. But I digress. This time we came across this not-too-bad ad from our favourite porter.

The theme of the ad is definitely about soccer and Guinness takes the safe route of sticking to its ‘greatness’ campaign tagline – ‘there’s a drop of greatness in every man’. We quite like this feel-good ad but it didn’t blow us away – not like the Somersby Apple Cider did. You decide for yourself. We’ll bring you more World Cup ads even as the big beer brands pour in lots of dough to serve you a campaign cocktail of beer, balls and babes.

So someone pointed me to this article which mentions six of the ‘best’ beer ads. Disappointing to say the least, even if you argue that creative preference is personal and subjective. I guess its the claim that I took issue with: ‘Once again Media has scoured the world for the best ads on a particular theme.’ Just look at the comments and you’ll see I’m not alone with this point of view. C’mon Media, you gotta do better than that.  Readers, you be the judge if these below ads that have been singled out by the article really deserve Hall of Fame status. No, they’re not horrible, but neither are they the ‘best’. Maybe the Carlton Flashbeer one. Maybe. Oh and I left out a North Korean beer ad that we’ve featured in a previous post. That’s interesting but hardly championship material either.

VB ad for the every-man

Budweiser ‘Wassup’ Ad

Boddington’s beer advert 1992

FLASH BEER Australia Flashdance , mmm Beer

Guinness – Surfer ( extended )

Guinness brings Arthur’s Day to KL

In the lead up to Arthur’s Day, Guinness is launching a global consumer promotion in July 2009. Arthur’s Day will feature a series of global events which will take place in September in Kuala Lumpur, Dublin, New York, Lagos, and Yaounde.

Where is Yaounde? Anyway, I love my Guinness draft – I love sitting at the bar, in an Irish pub, watching it being filled from the tap: the half pour, settle, the top up, settle and finally, if you’re lucky, a shamrock drawn with the downstream on the head. Slurp! Makes me wanna rush out for a pint at my fave Irish pub now.

Any other Guinness lovers out there?

I did a whirlwind business trip to Hong Kong this week. It’s a short trip as I was on the ground for about 46 hours, and if you know Hong Kong, this isn’t even enough to get your taste buds going with all the food and clubbing. Be warned, I rate Hong Kong as party central of Asia!

In my course of work, I end up visiting and checking out many hotels. This time round, I went round several in the Causeway Bay area and there’re basically only two 4-star hotels in that bustling area and a few boutique hotels. But the 5-star Crowne Plaza will be opening there in October.

Anyway, sticking to the subject if booze, I did a site inspection of Excelsior Hotel and checked out the basement Dickens Bar. The staff were preparing for lunch but what caught my eye was the number of beer taps and in particular, a Marston’s Pedigree draft.

I promised myself to attempt a return after the day’s business obligations and did exactly that.

Dicken’s has to be one of the best pub finds in Hong Kong. It has 11 taps including the Pedigree ale. As it was served, it looked like a typical British ale, light amber in colour and took some time to settle, building a nice, heavy layer of froth.

But what struck me was the sweet taste. At first, I thought the glass was dirty, shifted around the glass and took another gulp. But the sweet taste was unmistakable. It’s a sweet, fruity, creamy ale and the sweetness linger through the after taste. For the guys out there, if you like Hoegaarden but think it’s too girly to be seen with a pint in your hand, Pedigree could be your next best alternative. Unfortunately, I doubt you’d find this ale available readily in Asia Pacific.

The selling point of this joint must be the 11 beer taps, including Victoria Bitter! Seriously, how often do you find VB on tap? I’ve been to Sydney, Melbourne, Perth so many times and hardly seen the green label available fresh in most pubs. But here it is in Hong Kong! Other taps included are the usual suspects like Tiger, Heineken, Carlsberg, Strongbow, Hoegaarden, Kilkenny, Leffe, Guinness and San Miguel.

It does have a decent selection of bottles too including regional brews like Tsing Tao, Blue Girl or try the Guinness Foreign Extra Stout. Still, with 11 tap, it has to be one of the city’s most crowded bar tops and why would you drink bottles?

If you know of another pub in Hong Kong with more taps, do let us know!