Beer in Asia – volume 1
Rapidly modernizing Asia is a potential hotbed of great beer activity, but for the most part this potential is just that. There are a lot of challenges to building beer markets here – economic development, lack of beer culture, Islam and complex regulatory regimes. Yet from ex-pat entrepreneurs to companies like Paulaner, craft beer progress is being made in Asia, and these challenges are being overcome. Since I am in Kuala Lumpur for the time being and have spent about six of the last eight months in Asia, I am fairly well qualified to report on the current state of Asian brewing. I will present in the coming weeks a series of articles about the state of Asian brewing, and will begin with a feature on Beerfest Asia.
There are not a lot of beer festivals in Asia – I guess the Great Japan Beer Festival would be the most famous – so when we realized we could make the Beerfest Asia we made the necessary arrangements. We arrived in Singapore after the grueling 70-minute flight from KL and immediately got started…eating. What? It’s Singapore. We had laksa from a hawker stall. That’s how it works.
A quick brewpub visit later and we were getting ready for the festival. Spread over five days, Beerfest Asia is a fairly ambitious undertaking. It is set on the waterfront along the Formula One track behind the Singapore Flyer, which is the world’s largest Ferris wheel. The festival had many of the usual trappings of a beer fest like tents, Bavarian-style keller tables and brewery booths. However, there were also a few Asian touches, like beer girls. Beer girls represent particular brands and are common in Asian bars, roaming the floors plugging their beers to anybody who does not have a drink in his or her hand. Lots of beer brands on hand, so lots of beer girls.
There were fewer micros and more imports, which is a function of Asia not having many microbreweries. Only two of the Singapore breweries showed up, along with micros from Taiwan and Indonesia, so much of the beer drinking came from American or Australian microbreweries instead, or the classics from Belgium and England. The Brewer’s Association basically sent a stack of beers not normally available in Singapore to be represented, so even I found some new scores there, which I thought was pretty damn cool. For the Vancouver readers, Dead Frog was there! I can’t really figure out why, but yes, Dead Frog attended Beerfest Asia with four of their brands. They didn’t seem to have any of their smoked ale, to my dismay.
The fest took advantage of the World Cup to run until 5am (the late matches start at 2:30am here) and on the Saturday night we were able to stick around almost to the bitter end. That is also something I would consider uniquely Asian. The crowd was great to see. We attended Friday, Saturday and Sunday, with those first two days being very busy indeed. We arrived early enough to get a seat with a view of the soccer screen on Friday, but on Saturday we basically had to bribe our way to a seat, even with the media pass.
I do have a couple of complaints about the festival. The first is the lack of drinking water. Charging for water at a beer festival – especially one in a sweaty tropical climate – is a no-no. People need to hydrate. It’s a health issue. The second is the food. In Singapore, there is no excuse for lazy, crappy food. I don’t expect any of Singapore’s Michelin stars to be there, but this is supposed to be one of the world’s greatest food cities and we could barely look at the food let alone eat it. Nothing but deep-fried crap…not good enough. The third was the lineups at the women’s toilets. Those were ridiculous. They must have loved watching the guys breeze in and out of our bathroom while they stood there waiting for 15-20 minutes to go.
Other than that, however, this was a pretty well-run festival. There were a lot of beers, with more than enough interesting beers to keep us entertained for three days. We found many of the booth staff – be they brewers or beer girls – to be friendly and helpful. We also got cooperation from the weather gods as there were no thunderstorms while we were there. Beerfest Asia is definitely worth attending if you’re in Southeast Asia in June.
Next up in the Beers of Asia series – Singapore!
7 Comments to “Beer in Asia – volume 1”
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I think you’ve highlighted some great factors why these markets are still emerging and progressing. They do need to get their reps out to more European and US festivals for the experience of how a festival is to be run. This is a hot bed market for US and EU brewers yet not enough seemed to be prepared to attend. It seems people don’t know how to export to Asia which could be the problem.
I enjoyed reading this and it is interesting to see how craft beer is promoted elsewhere. Japan does have its Geisha ways which I think is the reason for the Asian booth girls and it also common for women to pour beer for men. As a man you should be expecting a female host to pour your beer in Japan.
It’s a traditional element which I’ve watched in a lot movies. We don’t do it over here at all and men are deemed as the ones to pour and work the pumps, even though females show patience which is a virtue for pouring good beer. I’ve enjoyed the Polish-Czech female workers in pubs here. They certainly know that beer takes time to be poured unlike rude pushy bar man.
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@tdtm82 “Japan does have its Geisha ways which I think is the reason for the Asian booth girls and it also common for women to pour beer for men. As a man you should be expecting a female host to pour your beer in Japan.”
The festival was in Singapore, so I don’t see any relevance to geisha/tradition of women pouring beer for men in Japan. Beer festivals in Japan do NOT have beer girls and moreover, unless the festival is run by one of the big guys (they try to organize a couple), the big guys aren’t allowed in.
It’s just marketing. The tactic prevented the lines from being long at the beer tables, which was great! No need to elbow through the crowd. Most of the people are there to drink with friends and not sample like us nerds! They are hanging out and watch World Cup or watching the bands, buying the next bucket of bottles from whatever brewery girl happens to come over. If the beer girls don’t come around, they would sell a lot less beer. Of course some hot men would have been a nice touch too but most men aren’t used to milking their looks in this way.
The beer girls smile, and they appealed both to male and female customers–which was 50-50 male/female crowd. Some of the girls just stand around looking cute peddling beer to passers-by–one even handed me a free can of Jaz beer! At one point there was a little line dance just to sex it up a little more…it’s very silly but fun party atmosphere.
I’m from Miami so used to this kind of thing. The injection of sexiness actually reminded me of South Florida’s first beer festival, with less silicone and smaller butts.
check out the pix, they even had a beergirl pageant–sooo horribly cheesey!
http://www.beerfestasia.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=48&Itemid=122
I know it was in Singapore but I was emphasising on the Asian theme quite loosly and I believe this beer girl pouring culture is direct from Geishas which is an old Japanese tradition. I think it’s great. Lovely blog!
good cheese is the best cheese
sounds like an awesome time. love the quippy south miami reference