Craft Beer Category Archives - ShaolinTiger - Kung-Fu Geekery https://www.shaolintiger.com/category/alcoholic-frolic/craft-beer/ Craft Beer, Travel, Children & Much More. Thu, 10 Mar 2016 15:30:52 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.3.1 Singapore Craft Beer: Druggists @ Kallang https://www.shaolintiger.com/2016/03/02/singapore-craft-beer-druggists-kallang/ Wed, 02 Mar 2016 11:45:13 +0000 http://www.shaolintiger.com/?p=34142 Druggists is another legend of the Singapore Craft Beer scene, and one which focuses entirely on draught (no bottles at all). Which is not surprising as it’s from the same owner of The Great Beer Experiment in PasarBella, so they’ve separated out into bottles and draught. Serving kickass craft beers all year round, with food […]

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Druggists is another legend of the Singapore Craft Beer scene, and one which focuses entirely on draught (no bottles at all). Which is not surprising as it’s from the same owner of The Great Beer Experiment in PasarBella, so they’ve separated out into bottles and draught.

Serving kickass craft beers all year round, with food that pairs beautifully with the brews. There’s nothing more perfect than walking into a restaurant with 23 taps serving kick-ass beers from cult breweries across the world. That’s what we thought and so Druggists will be tapping Mikkeller, TO-OL, Amager, DeStruise, DeMolen, Rooie Dop, Magic Rock, Thornbridge, Prairie Artisan, Birra Del Borgo all year round. Wait, there’s food too- hearty, delicious and curated to pair with these kick-ass beers. Momma would approve.

It’s situated in the Kallang area, or some people might say Jalan Besar, it’s about 4 blocks from the Lavender MRT station – so it’s probably a good idea to Uber there ;).

So, let’s talk about Druggists – they have a very impressive 23 taps which are pretty much always all in use. This gives you a pretty staggering range of beer and almost guarantees something for every palate, all the way from lager/pils up to barrel aged imperial stouts and some pretty nice sours.

For the beer geeks: If you want to order a big stout, order it a few glasses earlier and let it warm up as it’s served way too cold. Also note from my experience, big beers are usually best from the bottle (for some reason?).

Druggists - Singapore Craft Beer

It’s a pretty cool location, very trendy hipster-ish – repurposing a historic building and keeping the original facade and floor tiles intact give it a distinct feel. Less cookie cutter than the average modern, overly sculpted bar. Inspired by Chye Seng Huat maybe?

Druggists is situations in you guessed it, the old Chinese Druggists Association building – which was basically the pharmacists’ association back in the day.

Druggists - Singapore Craft Beer

It has a pretty interesting feel to it, not really like a bar, rather like you’re drinking excellent beer somewhere you aren’t supposed to – which is nice haha. It has the original facade, floor and keeps a very minimal almost kopitiam style inside with marble tables and classic chairs.

Druggists - Singapore Craft Beer

It has the original signboard (of something?) over the door on the inside too, reminiscent of those sifus and their medicine halls in the old kung-fu movies about Wong Fei Hung.

It’s not a huge place, nor is it cramped – there’s a lounge space and quite a bit of outdoor seating too for smokers – but beware it is a popular place and does get busy (especially at weekends).

Druggists - Singapore Craft Beer

Also note, popular kegs can finish really fast – so get there early if there’s something you really want to try.

It has a great range of beers, well served, but slightly on the pricey side. But then the location is very special and you always pay something for that. It’s definitely worth checking out.

When we were there we had:

– Shiga Kogen Sono 10 (Anniversary IPA)
– Thornbridge/Sierra Nevada Twin Peaks
– To Øl Black Ball
– Prairie Bomb! (Very disappointing on draught)
– Buxton Battle Horse

Yah I wonder where the glasses are from?

Druggists - Singapore Craft Beer

And why does The Great Beer Experiment have it’s own nice glasses, but we go there we have to drink from plastic cups? Haha, must be a Singapore thing – Thirsty is down with the plastic cups too.

Facebook: Druggists
Instagram: @druggists_sg
Address: 119 Tyrwhitt Rd, Singapore 207547
Phone: +65 6341 5967
Opening Hours: Tues-Sun: 16:00-00:00
Ratebeer location: Druggists | Singapore – RateBeer

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Singapore Craft Beer: Smith Street Taps @ Chinatown Complex https://www.shaolintiger.com/2016/02/03/singapore-craft-beer-smith-street-taps-chinatown-complex/ Wed, 03 Feb 2016 11:35:31 +0000 http://www.shaolintiger.com/?p=34129 What is more fitting in Asia than having draught craft beer in a food court! It doesn’t get much more rustic than that, and that’s what Smith Street Taps delivers – you can have a pint of freshly kegged IPA with your satay and claypot chicken rice. An all-taps popup beer hawker stall featuring around […]

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What is more fitting in Asia than having draught craft beer in a food court! It doesn’t get much more rustic than that, and that’s what Smith Street Taps delivers – you can have a pint of freshly kegged IPA with your satay and claypot chicken rice.

An all-taps popup beer hawker stall featuring around 10 premium and craft beers on tap in Singapore’s Chinatown.

Smith Street Taps - Singapore

Downside, as with any foodcourt in a tropical country – it’s bloody warm! But then again, it makes the cold beer even better.

Smith Street Taps is a little tricky to find, so allocate a few extra minutes to make your way there. If you Uber or take a Taxi get them to drop you at the Chinatown Complex, then make your way up to the 2nd floor (or 1st for if you’re British) you’ll find the stall at #62.

Smith Street Taps - Singapore

It won’t be too hard to find once you get in the vicinity, just follow the throngs of people drinking high-quality beer in proper glassware and you’ll find it eventually. If you go fairly late, the rest of the food court will be deserted anyway.

They have around 10 taps, which rotate fairly fast – especially if there’s only one keg of something. You might reach there, decide to try something and it’s finished by the time you reach the front of the queue! It’s self service (not table service) obviously, so depending on what just kegged and if it’s near last call – there can be quite a queue.

Smith Street Taps - Singapore

The range of beer is pretty impressive with beers from Japan, Sweden, USA, England, Scotland, Germany and Denmark on tap when I was there. Plus a good variety of styles from fairly light ales and wheats up to eye watering triple IPAs and imperial stouts.

The setup is pretty bare bones, with what is basically a bunch of kegerators with towers on top (2 taps on each fridge), but from what I saw it’s run properly with all connectors, taps and tubes being sanitized during keg changes to prevent contamination (the kind of things that are important to any beer geek worth his salt).

Smith Street Taps - Singapore

As for opening hours, due to the food court regulations it’s not open too late – last call is at 10:15pm and closing is at 10:30pm. So it’s a good spot to head for dinner and a nice beer before heading off somewhere else open a bit later (like Nickledime or Druggists)

Smith Street Taps - Singapore

Overall I had a good experience at Smith Street Taps and would recommend it, good beer served well in a proper Asian environment. It’s a must visit for tourists and a nice option for people from Singapore and Malaysia to have some cheaper food with great beer on draught.

Prices are reasonable, starting all the down at $6 for macro beer (Sapporo) and the rest around around $14-17 for a US Pint – which represents good value for high quality beer.

Smith Street Taps - Singapore

We had a good time there and I look forwards to visiting again. I mainly went because they were closed on my last trip due to Beerfest Asia 2015 preparation and also they kegged their own beer, a session IPA collaboration brew with Hitachino made in Japan and brewed with koji.

Smith Street Taps - Singapore

Thank you Smith Street Taps, I will see you again.

Beers I drank here were:

– Hitachino X Smith Street Sumisu Sutoreeto
– Dugges Two Packed
– Stone Double Bastard Ale
– Tempest Red Eye Flight

Facebook: Smith Street Taps
Twitter: @smithsttaps
Address: 335 Smith Street, #02-062, Chinatown Complex, Singapore 050335
Phone: +65 9430 2750
Opening Hours: 6.30pm-10.30pm Tueday-Saturday
Ratebeer location: Smith Street Taps | Singapore – RateBeer

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Singapore Craft Beer: Thirsty Craft Beer Shop @ Holland Village https://www.shaolintiger.com/2015/11/20/singapore-crafolland-village/ Fri, 20 Nov 2015 11:58:28 +0000 http://www.shaolintiger.com/?p=34093 So we’d already visited Thirsty at Liang Court and heard there was another branch in Holland Village with more interesting stuff. I also wanted to buy a rice cooker and it happened PaRiSiLk was around there – always get good prices and find what I want there, so it was a fortunate coincidence. Thirsty is […]

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So we’d already visited Thirsty at Liang Court and heard there was another branch in Holland Village with more interesting stuff.

I also wanted to buy a rice cooker and it happened PaRiSiLk was around there – always get good prices and find what I want there, so it was a fortunate coincidence.

Thirsty is the leading craft beer shop in Singapore, offering the largest selection of the most sought after craft beers from around the world.

Create your own six-pack or pick up a mixed case from any of our stores or order craft beers online and get your beers delivered right to your doorstep.

Thirsty Craft Beer Shop - Holland Village

Holland Village Shopping Center is not an upmarket mall, it’s a regular old school every day mall in a residential area, it’s a very short walk from the nearest MRT station, no prizes for guessing correctly – Holland Village MRT Station.

There’s also a nice little Whisky shop inside the mall, quite near Thirsty called The Standish, where I grabbed a bottle of Glendronach.

The Thirsty here is small, but well stocked shop and IMHO has a greater range of World Beers than the Liang Court branch. It’s definitely less US and IPA centric, with many more tasty brews from Europe.

Thirsty Craft Beer Shop - Holland Village

Stuff from Nøgne Ø, Siren, Wild Beer, Buxton, BrewDog and many more.

Thirsty Craft Beer Shop - Holland Village

Of course they have the great US stuff and IPAs too from Ninkasi, Green Flash, Stone, Lagunitas, Bear Republic, Deschutes and so on.

Thirsty Craft Beer Shop - Holland Village

There is a small well stocked fridge too for drinking on premise.

Thirsty Craft Beer Shop - Holland Village

They just had a bunch of Omnipollo stuff land when we were there too, which was fortunate as we were waiting for those! Excellent timing haha, the beer gods smiling on us.

Thirsty Craft Beer Shop - Holland Village

Bottles I picked up here:

– Buxton Stronge Extra Stout
– BrewDog / Victory Brewing U-Boat
– Omnipollo Hypnopompa
– Omnipollo Nebuchadnezzar

It’s a great little shop, and I would have liked to have spent a little time having some tasty beverages there, will definitely be back again.

Very much recommended!

Facebook: Thirsty Craft Beer Shop
Instagram: @thirstybeershop
Address: #02-16 Holland Village Shopping Centre, 211 Holland Ave, Singapore 278967
Phone: +65 9354 1952
Opening Hours: 10.30am-8m 7 days a week
Ratebeer location: Thirsty – The Beer Shop | Singapore – RateBeer

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Beerfest Asia 2015 In Singapore – My Review https://www.shaolintiger.com/2015/11/11/beerfest-asia-2015-in-singapore-my-review/ Wed, 11 Nov 2015 13:15:39 +0000 http://www.shaolintiger.com/?p=34082 It just so happened when our group was heading down to Singapore for the Yellow Belly tasting and to do a little craft beer tour around Singapore, it was the same weekend as Beerfest Asia 2015 – it wasn’t the purpose of our visit, but we thought why not drop by for a while seen […]

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It just so happened when our group was heading down to Singapore for the Yellow Belly tasting and to do a little craft beer tour around Singapore, it was the same weekend as Beerfest Asia 2015 – it wasn’t the purpose of our visit, but we thought why not drop by for a while seen as though we’re there.

Beerfest Asia 2015 - Singapore

I’ve actually never been before, the event itself has been running since for a number of years and has garnered quite a following (18,000 people in 2013, 30,000 last year and 32,000 this year) – so it’s quite a large scale event. It wasn’t that busy though, perhaps because we were quite late.

Beerfest Asia 2015 - Singapore

It’s not really a high end beer event, and in many aspects, it’s not even a craft beer event. The amount of craft beer there as compared to the beer available in general, is in a small minority with the festival being dominated by subsidiaries of SABMiller and ABInBev.

Don’t expect to see stuff from 3 Floyds, Bruery, Alesmith, Mikkeller, Jester King, Hill Farmstead, Russian River, Toppling Goliath or anything similar. The beer list is dominated by stuff like Singha, Strongbow, Koppaberg, Heineken, Grolsch and so on.

There’s the odd few good beers from the guys at Smith Street Taps and TSA Wines, and even the guys with the good beers combined themselves into just 2 stands rather than splitting themselves out – as the appreciation for the high quality beers you find at places like The Great Beer Experiment and Thirsty just isn’t really there at a large scale festival like this.

Beerfest Asia 2015 - Singapore

But do you know who the main festival sponsors are? Yah, not even macro beer brands..Jagermeister and Monster Energy – really? At a beer event?

This is no CBC or GABF – that’s for sure.

And even small scale beer events in the UK like Indy Man Beer Con or Birmingham Beer Bash put them to shame in terms of variety, quality and focus.

Mostly it felt like a music festival, the music was too loud, it was hot, there’s wasn’t any really exciting beer to try, there was lots of companies with corporate accounts having free flow or sponsored VIP seats.

Beerfest Asia 2015 - Singapore

The crowd was fairly young, mostly drinking the more normal beers, there wasn’t a huge gathering at the more specialist beer stands.

The outdoor area, UOB area and VIP areas (with Jagermeister girls, free flow beer etc) were far busier than the mostly craft beer side of the festival.

Beerfest Asia 2015 - Singapore

We had fun though as the importers opened some special bottles for us, so we got to try some really interesting UK beers. Mostly stuff from Siren and Weird Beard like Sadako, Whiskey Sour etc.

Beerfest Asia 2015 - Singapore

The ‘welcome’ beers which you get with the rather expensive ticket were very disappointing. And the ticket price, at $40SGD, wasn’t cheap for one macro beer and that’s all (food had to be paid for, all other beers had to be bought using tokens so the organisers could take a cut from the vendors).

Would I go back again? Honestly I don’t know, if I got free tickets and happened to be in Singapore – maybe, to support the craft beer guys in Singapore.

But likely? Not really, huge noisy, sweaty, unfocused events are not really my cup of tea now I’m old anyway – I’d prefer to go support the Singapore craft beer scene at their bars and bottle shops.

Beerfest Asia 2015 - Singapore

We had a good day anyway, having been at Thirsty and having some wicked ramen at Tampopo haha.

Plus met up with some friends, and there were a few good beers for sale, we managed to pick up some Belgian sours, Moa Imperial Stout and a couple of other nice drinkers. Nothing spectacular though.

I’d love to see a proper beer festival in Asia, for the love of beer, all about craft beer (or great beer from big brewers like Fuller’s Imperial Stout). Where you pay your ticket price, you get a glass and you can basically drink whatever you want.

Some things only have 1 keg, some beers are only made by the brewer specifically for that festival and the focus is trying new amazing beers! People would definitely travel regionally for something like that, and possibly even internationally if it was really World class.

There are some rumblings regionally, like Beertopia in Hong Kong which had some superb beers and has very relevant sponsors, including Spiegelau glasses! Here’s the beer list of 551 beers, tell me how many macro breweries you spot in there?

And they have incredible beers from Founders, Jolly Pumpkin, Stillwater, Omnipollo, De Molen, 8 Wired and MANY more. Maybe I’ll head over there next year instead 😉

For me, I hope to see more events in Asia promoting the spirit of craft beer, experimentation, pushing the small guys up, supporting the local craft beer scene in the region and much more about education and consumer awareness rather than just volume.

More cultured, less commercial events with guided tastings, food pairing events, local beer judging contents, home-brew contests – those kind of things that really help the craft beer scene take hold as a part of the FnB scene overall.

Beerfest Asia 2015 - Singapore

Another small detail that annoyed me was the fact that the website and organisers stated it was a non-smoking event and venue, and that it would be enforced with fines. But I saw people smoking in the venue, and no one really gave a second glance (including security who walked right past) – as long as they keep paying right?

Oh yah, one more..last one I promise. Where was the event companion app? The app based guide which helped me search for beers, locate which stall they were at, and where I could find that stall? You could roll out a simple webview app for this with almost no budget, forget geolocation and fancy tricks, just a basic listing app with a search function and a static map which can show you where to go (like the directories in shopping malls).

Beerfast Asia is a booze and music event, not a craft beer event – so don’t be mistaken. As for supporting the local scene, they had Archipelago probably because it’s a subsidiary of Asia Pacific Breweries, but where was RedDot, Brewerkz, 1925, The Pump Room, LeVeL 33, and Hospoda? I think Jungle Beer has gone MIA – but still – I was kinda disappointed at the showing of local Singapore brews.

I guess it’s worth going once, and if you’re around next year in Singapore you can keep up with what they’re doing below.

Website: https://www.beerfestasia.com/
Twitter: @beerfestasia
Facebook: Beerfest Asia

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Singapore Craft Beer: Thirsty Craft Beer Shop @ Liang Court https://www.shaolintiger.com/2015/10/27/singapore-craft-beer-thirsty-craft-beer-shop-liang-court/ Tue, 27 Oct 2015 10:56:50 +0000 http://www.shaolintiger.com/?p=34073 After lunch at Nickeldime Drafthouse, we headed to Thirsty Craft Beer Shop at Liang Court, this joint is another bottle shop in Singapore, this time in a shopping centre around the popular Clark Quay area. It’s a small square with a rather huge range of American centric craft beers, if you love IPA – this […]

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After lunch at Nickeldime Drafthouse, we headed to Thirsty Craft Beer Shop at Liang Court, this joint is another bottle shop in Singapore, this time in a shopping centre around the popular Clark Quay area. It’s a small square with a rather huge range of American centric craft beers, if you love IPA – this is the place in Singapore you need to visit.

Thirsty is the leading craft beer shop in Singapore, offering the largest selection of the most sought after craft beers from around the world.

Create your own six-pack or pick up a mixed case from any of our stores or order craft beers online and get your beers delivered right to your doorstep.

You can drink on premise, with plastic cups as usual. They do have some ‘big’ beers occasionally, but it really depends on your luck and it’s most likely to be from the hop forward breweries (Stone, Dogfish Head, Ballast Point) rather than wild ale, sours or the other more ‘out there’ styles.

It’s pretty easy to find, on the 2nd floor on Liang Court, you can get there via the MRT (City Hall) and a short bus journey or walk.

Thirsty Craft Beer Shop - Liang Court Singapore

They open at midday every day at close at 10pm when the mall closes (last orders 9.30pm). It’s a pretty cool place to hang-out with 2-3 small tables in side and plenty of good food around (especially Japanese) like Tampopo Ramen on the ground floor.

Thirsty Craft Beer Shop - Liang Court Singapore

They have a pretty broad range of bottles with a small selection of English beers, Japanese beers and a few others from Belgium, Australia etc. But I can safely say it’s at least 85% US Craft brews with some that I hadn’t seen before like Ironfire Brewing.

Plus some real classics like Lagunitas Maximus, Ballast Point Sculpin, Dogfish Head 90 minutes and so on. And other well known brewers like New Belgium, Sierra Nevada, Flying Dog and so on.

Thirsty Craft Beer Shop - Liang Court Singapore

They try and keep pretty much at least one of everything in the fridge ready to drink, if what you want isn’t there you can get them to put it in the fridge and start with something else.

Thirsty Craft Beer Shop - Liang Court Singapore

The group shot, without us of course (as usual) haha, these are the beers we had at Thirsty:

– Flying Dog Gonzo Imperial Porter
– Lagunitas Maximus IPA
– Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA
– Ballast Point Sculpin
– Ballast Point Big Eye
– Ironfire Brewing Comnpany Collateral Damage
– Anchor Porter
– Lindemans Kriek
– New Belgium Fat Tire
– Sierra Nevada Torpedo
– Mike Hess Solis
– Mike Hess Jucundus
– Hangar 24 Orange Wheat

13 beers in total, and you can see, very IPA heavy, those non IPA beers we tried, were not so great.

The surprise stand-out of the session for me was Mike Hess, who I’ve never heard of – but makes wonderfully balanced beers, the Solis Occasus was fantastic. Of course 90 Minute IPA and Sculpin are up there amongst the best there is out there (both top 50 for Imperial IPA and IPA respectively).

Thirsty Craft Beer Shop - Liang Court Singapore

All in all, worth a visit if you want to have bit of a light beer session. Don’t go here looking for any super heavy, big dark or interesting Belgium (De Struise) or American (Alesmith, Bruery etc) brews. For that kind of stuff, you’re way better off at The Great Beer Experiment.

But for IPA and lighter beers, including really legendary stuff, they have probably the best selection in Singapore by a fare distance. They do have a few really top notch brews in other categories like the legendary Scotch Ale called Old Chub by Oskar Blues (I just wish they had Ten Fidy as well!).

As the name gives you a clue, it is a great place to have an ice cold IPA when you’re thirsty.

Facebook: Thirsty Craft Beer Shop
Instagram: @thirstybeershop
Address: 177 River Valley Road, #02-34, Liang Court Shopping Centre, Singapore 179030
Phone: +65 6256 0261
Opening Hours: 12pm-10pm 7 days a week
Ratebeer location: Thirsty – The Beer Shop | Singapore – RateBeer

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Singapore Craft Beer: Nickeldime Drafthouse @ Novena https://www.shaolintiger.com/2015/10/20/singapore-craft-beer-nickeldime-drafthouse-novena/ https://www.shaolintiger.com/2015/10/20/singapore-craft-beer-nickeldime-drafthouse-novena/#comments Tue, 20 Oct 2015 12:42:43 +0000 http://www.shaolintiger.com/?p=34064 Our second entry about the Singapore craft beer scene after The Great Beer Experiment, now we look at Nickledime Drafthouse in Novena (just literally 200m from Novena station). Our knowledgeable, friendly staff, cozy atmosphere, and great food and beer will make you want to keep coming back. We celebrate choice and quality with an extraordinary […]

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Our second entry about the Singapore craft beer scene after The Great Beer Experiment, now we look at Nickledime Drafthouse in Novena (just literally 200m from Novena station).

Our knowledgeable, friendly staff, cozy atmosphere, and great food and beer will make you want to keep coming back.

We celebrate choice and quality with an extraordinary range of strange and wonderful brews. Offering the best variety of beer available, and our dedication to providing excellent service in comfortable surroundings. the emphasis is on draught beer from the best international, national, and local breweries supplemented with a large selection of bottled beers, ciders, and wine.

It’s a fairly accessible location due to the proximity of the station, with a nice space that has an industrial type interior and 15 taps of well served draft craft beer.

Nickledime Drafthouse

It may look slightly different now, as the left side of the picture has now been turned into 501 Sake Bar rather than the previous bottle shop.

Nickledime Drafthouse

It’s quite a fun space with colour draft boards and sport on the televisions, a good social beer drinking environment rather than a hardcore beer geek hangout.

Nickledime Drafthouse

In saying that though, it’s definitely a place suitable for beer geeks as they have a big focus on serving beer the right way, and you can taste it in the glass. They clean every beer line with a 2 week cadence and they have a system to ensure the correct temperature delivery of the beer from keg to glass. So the focus on beer and quality is there for sure.

While we were there they had beer on draft from breweries like Anderson Valley, Heretic, Rogue, BBNO, Well’s, Lost Coast and Stone.

Nickledime Drafthouse

Another aspect that pleased me is the integration of beer with food, which is actually a large part of craft beer. Where as wine in some ways is rather simplistic (it basically has 1 ingredient) it struggles a little with bold flavours, beer is there. Beer can be served with anything from delicate fresh salmon, to fiery hot curry and all the way to rich indulgent chocolate truffles.

EVERY item on the menu is cooked with some kind of beer! I had the fish and chips with ale batter and apparently the burgers are excellent.

Nickledime Drafthouse

They have items like IPA burgers, stout meatballs, beer dough pizza, stout braised beef ragu (delicious) and much more. Definitely some interesting stuff.

We mainly headed there for lunch, so we didn’t do a heavy session and we’ve had a lot of what was on tap, we just had 5 beers at Nickledime which were:

– Lost Coast Brewery Great White
– CREW Republic Drunken Sailor
– BrewFist Space Frontier
– Brew By Numbers 01|08 Saison Wai-Iti & Lemon
– Summer Wine Brewery Sin City

And they were a pretty light selection, as we’d had quite a heavy night before that and we were heading to Thirsty straight after haha. So nothing super memorable.

A tasting paddle of 5 beers, available for SGD25 at 150ML per tasting glass (before 7pm only).

Nickledime Drafthouse

They did have some excellent bottles though, I picked up a few there (including Stone Imperial Russian Stout which a Ratebeer Top 50 entrant at #48) and a couple of others I wanted to from the selection including Japanese (Minoh Imperial Stout) and British breweries (Buxton Stronge).

Nickledime Drafthouse

Overall Nickledime is a great place to chill, have some lunch or dinner and get some great, fresh, correctly served craft beer. They have a small but extremely varied selection of bottled beers to takeaway, which is always a bonus.

Definitely worth a look for craft beer lovers in Singapore.

Facebook: Nickledime Drafthouse
Address: 273 Thomson Rd, #01-06 Novena Gardens, Singapore 307644
Phone: +65 6256 0261
Opening Hours: Mon-Thu & Sun: 11am-11pm Fri & Sat: 11am-1am
Ratebeer location: Nickeldime Drafthouse | Singapore – RateBeer

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Singapore Craft Beer: The Great Beer Experiment @ PasarBella https://www.shaolintiger.com/2015/10/13/singapore-craft-beer-the-great-beer-experiment-pasarbella/ https://www.shaolintiger.com/2015/10/13/singapore-craft-beer-the-great-beer-experiment-pasarbella/#comments Tue, 13 Oct 2015 10:19:36 +0000 http://www.shaolintiger.com/?p=34039 So where do you drink good craft beer in Singapore? That’s a tough question and one I tried to answer in my recent trip down for the special Singapore Yellow Belly Tasting. So let’s begin with the favourite of the group and also the place I personally enjoyed the most during our trip. The GREAT […]

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So where do you drink good craft beer in Singapore? That’s a tough question and one I tried to answer in my recent trip down for the special Singapore Yellow Belly Tasting. So let’s begin with the favourite of the group and also the place I personally enjoyed the most during our trip.

The GREAT BEER EXPERIMENT, a craft beer and cider bottle shop & bar, is a playground which promises to “Tickle, Test and Tempt” all palates and preferences. There’s a gob-smacking range of craft beer labels to please both beer noobs and beer geeks, plus rare and limited edition brews. Awesome beers are released on tap weekly so follow us on Facebook to get the latest update.

A wide range of international craft beers across all different types and styles
FRUIT, TRAPPIST, ABBEY, BLOND-PALE-GOLDEN-DARK, SAISON, LAMBIC, SOUR, BARREL-AGED, IPAS & more.

Granted a few places were closed, and there’s a few we skipped, but for this trip in June 2015 The Great Beer Experiment won in all aspects including comfort, beer selection, environment and food availability – a 360 degree win.

The Great Beer Experiment - Singapore

It’s located in the Bukit Timah area of Singapore on Turf Club Road as part of The Grandstand in a rather upmarket food court called PasarBella, right at the back left corner.

I think I like it as well because of the food there, it’s a rather up-market ‘Western’ style food-court modelled in some ways after Borough Market in London, the food there is great and there’s a wide variety including local fare like siu yuk and western stuff like paella, charcuterie and cheese. We also had a tasting platter including AOP cave aged cheeses which was amazing.

The vendors there are knowledgeable and passionate about food, and even if you’re not into beer it’s worth going there just to eat.

The shop/bar itself has 3 taps which rotate, when we were there they had Magic Rock on tap – excellent beer.

The Great Beer Experiment - Singapore

And they have an impressive range of bottles, which is was drew us there and kept us there. As a retail environment it’s quite intelligently laid out, with a stand next to the counter with the newst arrivals, which have descriptive tags attached and they also often bundle sampler packs.

The Great Beer Experiment - Singapore

And what was great for us, was they have a large section of their beers ready in the fridge for drinking – which kept us there many hours.

The Great Beer Experiment - Singapore

Overall bottle wise they have a fantastic selection of both American and European breweries from the likes of Mikkeller, Kaapse, Amager, De Molen, Prairie, Rooie Dop, To Øl, Rochefort, Rodenbach, De Struise and many many more.

The Great Beer Experiment - Singapore

A good few Trappist beers too (Rochefort, Westmalle, Orval), but of course no Westvleteren haha.

Enjoyed a Bea by Kaapse brewery too, the first time I’d heard of them and had something – it was good. So good in fact I later visited their brewery and brewpub in Rotterdam, and their beer was EVEN better fresh.

Kaapse - Bea

And yah, I’m sure if you’re eating in PasarBella, you might well find your missing husband here haha.

The Great Beer Experiment - Singapore

A great place to hang out.

The Great Beer Experiment - Singapore

And of course, beer geeks taking pictures of beer – because that’s what they do. Look at the focus of the torch-bearer Peter ensuring optimal lighting for master Tai to take what we affectionately refer to as the ‘group shot’ haha.

Basically all the bottles after we finish a session tasting.

Beer Geeks Taking Photos of Beer

Here’s my version of the bottle shot. A respectable 16 beers between 4 of us. Quite a selection and variety of styles.

The Great Beer Experiment - Singapore

What we had:

– Mikkeller Better Half
– Mikkeller Keeper
– Mikkeller Beer Geek Vanilla Shake
– Mikkeller George! Barrel Aged (Calvados Edition)
– Rochefort Trappistes 10
– De Molen Bloed, Zweet & Tranen (Blood, Sweat & Tears)
– Kaapse Carrie
– Kaapse Bea
– Rodenbach Grand Cru
– Rodenbach
– Amager The Sinner Series: Gluttony
– Amager / Grassroots Black Nitro
– Prairie Eliza5beth
– Prairie Fred’s Blend
– Rooie Dop Tupinquin
– Struise Pannepot Grand Reserva 2010

Highlights for me were definitely Fred’s Blend with it’s really strong coffee nose, viscous engine oil pour which follows with a really mild mellow chilli burn afterwards – beautiful beer. Also George! Calvados which was rich, sweet, savoury, sweet, malty, brandy – wow.

Maybe it was the company it was in, but Pannepot Grand Reserva 2010 was surprisingly disappointing.

So yah, great place – if you’re in Singapore and you’re into beer this is an absolute must visit. If you’re with a group, prepare to spend quite a long time there as we did (I think almost 7 hours in total from lunch time we left just before dinner).

Another plus point, because obviously you’ll be drinking a lot of beer! The bathroom is right next door haha.

I also fully recommend the roast pork from Keith Crackling Roast and the cheese tasting platter from The Cheese Ark.

Facebook: TheGreatBeerExperiment
Instagram: @greatbeerexperiment
Address: Stall #46, PasarBella @ The Grandstand (200 Turf Club Rd.), 287994, Singapore
Phone: +65 6469 7291
Opening Hours: Mon: 10:00-19:30 Tues-Sun: 10:00-22:00
Ratebeer location: The Great Beer Experiment | Singapore – RateBeer

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A Beer Tasting In Singapore With Omnipollo / Buxton Yellow Belly https://www.shaolintiger.com/2015/10/07/a-beer-tasting-in-singapore-with-omnipollo-buxton-yellow-belly/ Wed, 07 Oct 2015 06:17:42 +0000 http://www.shaolintiger.com/?p=34053 So it turns out my passion is beer, craft beer, not macro beer. I love it, it’s interesting, varied (and not as expensive as whisky). So I’ve decided instead of neglecting my blog, I’d better write about beer instead – so here we are. My first attempt at reviving my blog with a direction haha […]

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So it turns out my passion is beer, craft beer, not macro beer. I love it, it’s interesting, varied (and not as expensive as whisky). So I’ve decided instead of neglecting my blog, I’d better write about beer instead – so here we are. My first attempt at reviving my blog with a direction haha (no, I’ll not write exclusively about beer, I’ll still cover other stuff too) – but at least I have a bunch of content to write about now.

Recently a group of us (my craft beer geek tasting group) had an invite down for a beer tasting in Singapore to try a very special beer from a very special beer supplier in the southern island called Applehops. Applehops specialises in distributing English beer (yay) to Singapore and Malaysia and brings in fantastic stuff from Weird Beard, Siren, Wild Beer, Beavertown and many more.

He’s also expanding his range with stuff from Omnipollo and coming soon Brekeriet – I can’t wait to see what else he brings in.

The tasting also coincided with Beerfest Asia 2015, so we decided to spend a few days in Singapore exporing the beer scene, which is growing fast there. I’ll cover the whole trip, the venues we visited and Beerfest in following posts, but for now I’m going to start with the tasting itself and the reason we went pretty much – Omnipollo/Buxton Yellow Belly a legendary beer.

I was really, really late! I drove down from KL and there was a jam, I left late due to some work stuff and I got there after the tasting had started. Very luckily for me, my hotel was literally a 2 minute walk from the place we had the tasting, a small joint called Artistry Cafe, which apparently serves amazing brunch.

I stayed at the Village Hotel Bugis, which was a great place in a good location with parking and nice modernised rooms in a fairly old building.

When I arrived, I was greeted with this – a very rare beer Weird Beard Sadako (Ardbeg BA) – strong peaty whisky on the nose, iodine, Ardbeg in the mouth, barrel forwards with a smooth oily finish. Rather nice! Some might call it a long whisky cocktail, fortunately for me I rather like Ardbeg so it’s ok for me!

Weird Beard Sadako

There was quite a few bottles popped when I arrived, but thankfully for me..there was something left in all of them – even The Kernel ale, which was my first time having a taste of the legendary brewery.

Yellow Belly Tasting Singapore

And the beer I came all the way to Singapore to try? Still very much wrapped up, and yes it kind of look like a KKK member..it’s intentional as it’s a beer against racism.

To us, one of the most cowardly deeds is to act anonymously, hiding behind a group. A signifying trait of institutionalised racism.
This beer is brewed to celebrate all things new, open minded and progressive. A peanut butter biscuit stout with no biscuits, butter or nuts. Taste, enjoy, and don’t be prejudiced.

Omnipollo / Buxton Yellow Belly

And as with every post of course, the beer geeks taking group shots haha.

Beer Geek Activity

And here’s the money shot!

What we had (from left to right):

– Beavertown Bloody ’Ell
– Siren / Omnipollo / Rick Gordon Lindqvist Nacken (BA with Brett)
– Siren Barrel Aged Daydream
– Siren Long Forgotten Journey
– Omnipollo / Buxton Yellow Belly
– The Kernel Pale Ale (Simcoe, Nelson Sauvin, Ella Rakau)
– Weird Beard / London Amateur Brewers Hive Mind
– Weird Beard Something Something Darkside
– Weird Beard Sadako (Ardbeg BA)
– Wild Beer Bibble

Yellow Belly Tasting Singapore

Just 10 beers, but enough to knock me out after a long drive down from KL haha, and some of them were heavy stuff. Here’s a very rare, shot of us – as a group haha. The Singapore beer invaders.

Yellow Belly Tasting Singapore

And a not so serious shot..yah well we did just have 10 rather strong beers!

Yellow Belly Tasting Singapore

Anyway back to the topic at hand, how was the tasting you ask? How was Yellow Belly pray tell? Does it live up to the hype?

It was a tasting that changed my perception on English beers honestly and opened up my mind to what was out there, by that time I’d already had some great beers – but due to the stuff we get in KL I wasn’t so in tune with the amazing, mind-bending beers coming out the UK.

It was a really interesting tasting with a small selection that has a staggeringly wide palate, Bloody ‘Ell, Hive Mind and Bibble were honestly just ok – pretty simple, easy to drink session beers. But most of the rest, were quite interesting and different in some way.

Notable being the Ardbeg BA Sadako as described above..along with Nacken which smelled like cider gone bad, had some white wine to it and a whole lot of funk. The barrel aged Daydream was something special too with vanilla and bacon, strong and sweet.

And of course my first beer by The Kernel was enlightening, one of the most balanced beers I’ve had, so mellow but so tasty at the same time. An incident which motivated me to visit them in London.

Yellow Belly Tasting Singapore

And the big one, Yellow Belly? How was it? It was genuinely life changing. It’s one of the best beers I’ve ever had, if you melted a snickers and put it in a bottle with some really awesome kind of imperial stout – you’d get Yellow Belly.

A sweet medicinal nose, in the mouth it’s sweet, sour, smooth, velvety, cheap milk chocolate like kinder eggs, dark roasted, almost burnt peanuts, in caramel topped with whipped cream. Yah don’t lose focus, a beer tasted like all of that. Seriously.

Mind.

Blown.

Yellow Belly, I love you, I need more.

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