Once upon a time, the beer lover visiting London was told that all London pubs were shite, but that Michael Jackson had recommended the White Horse on Parson’s Green as a good one to visit. Well, last time out I tapped that White Horse of all its new beers, which is not a good sign for a serious beer bar in a country in which I do not live. But this time, there was no risk of that at the Rake, a much better situated pub. I had expected the usual American and Belgian suspects – nothing exciting for me in other words – but was wrong about that. The selection was very good, with a lot of beers I hadn’t seen before. Especially heartening was the presence of some interesting beers from England. I don’t normally get so excited about barrel-aged imperial stout, but for the English to make – for the domestic market – was pretty exciting to see.

In between the Rake and the now-legendary Market Porter lies Brew Wharf, a new brewpub. I’d already had beers from the new Sambrook micro and the next day I was able to hit up some bottles from the Kernel, another new micro. London – which once was home only to Fuller’s, Young’s and a handful of crappy brewpubs – is starting to put together a bit of a brewing scene for itself.

After London, our trip into England takes us to the Southwest, where we based ourselves in Bath. The town is beautiful and historic, dating to Roman times, and has a lot to offer the visitor even for a two week stay. The city is blessed with seemingly no end of quality pubs. It is rare, indeed, to find a pub in Bath that actually sucks. There are small characterful pubs like the Coeur de Lion, the Old Green Tree and the Volunteer Rifleman’s Arms. There are more modern, open pubs with racks of casks like the Royal Oak, the Raven and the Bell. You can get Bass served from the gravity barrel (“from the jug”, they call it here, in reference to the pitcher that the use to transfer the beer from the barrel to the glass) at the Star Inn, another great historic pub.

The local Abbey Ales can be sampled at the Farmhouse Inn, which adjoins the brewery. Another budding pub crawl is emerging in the Bathwick district with the Pulteney Arms – a rugby pub, the Barley and whatever that loud pub across the street is called. You can try Hobgoblin on cask at the eponymous rocker pub and see just how different that beer is when sampled in its proper, live format (the same can be said for the aforementioned Bass at the Star Inn, too).

Add to this some impressive pubs in the outlying towns, villages and rural areas. The Cross Guns in Avoncliff is stellar, as is the George Inn in Croscombe, the City Arms in Wells and there a couple others we haven’t been able to check out yet that would almost certainly make the list of great pubs in the area.

It’s easy to track down good pubs, of course, as the English take this stuff seriously. In addition to CAMRA’s Good Beer Guide, there is also the Real Ale Pub Guide, and any pub that carries a Cask Marque sticker is also a fairly safe bet for a decent pint. Around the Southwest, it appears, there is no shortage of great pubs and small breweries to serve them.

And then there’s the bottled beers. Many small towns have well-stocked beer stores, although curiously Bath seems to lack a killer beer store. When you visit such stores in other towns, however, you can find not only some interesting beers (Moor Fusion, Bristol Beer Factory Milk Stout) but also barrels of cider sold bulk and on the cheap. Did I mention the cider here? Crazy good. Except in Bath – it seems to be a country thing. Which is too bad, because some of the stuff we’ve come across has been exceptional.

All in all, I see many new breweries opening up in England, hopefully enough to replace ones closing down. I also see a lot of good pubs (yes, I’m sure there’s a lot of crap out there still) but my impression as someone who doesn’t spend much time here is that the scene is improving. As Britons take a greater interest in local food, they seem to also be taking an interest in local beer and cider as well.

Incidentally, Ratebeer has an excellent discussion ongoing about the English beer scene, with input from people who know it quite a bit better than myself – actual English (and Scottish) people!

India might be one of the most disappointing stories in craft beer. India’s mainstream beer scene is notoriously weak. A handful of lousy pale lagers compete with a near limitless supply of horrible malt liquors. The land of IPA this is not. Still, with an improving economy and a large number of drinkers one would expect that India would follow its East Asian bretheren into craft brewing. Only in the past couple of years has there been any attempt to brew good beer in India. As of now, there is evidence of craft brewing (or contract craft brewing) in New Delhi, Pune and Bangalore. Hopefully, the Indians get it together with respect to craft beer and leave the legacy of malt liquor alcoholism behind them.

A Swiss (I think) expat has a brewery in Bhutan, one of the most unlikely locations for anything approaching craft beer. In Nepal, chang is a traditional beer that may be found by the intrepid beer hunter.

Central Asia fares a little bit better, thanks to the Russian tradition. Russian craft brewing is something unique, and for the most part remains well off the radar of North American and European beer geeks. But most cities in Russia have craft brewers (several in the case of Moscow). Even the Muslim former colonies, breweries remain to serve local and Russian populations, often using Russian brewing talent. Few beer lovers travel in the region, so my visit in 2004 remains one of the only sources of English-language information, meaning that there is no guarantee of accuracy. In particular, the breweries in the violence-prone south of Kyrgyzstan (in Osh and Jalal-Abad) may not exist. Still, brewpubs have been recorded in Bishkek, Tashkent and Ashgabat. I would not be at all surprised if there was a brewpub or two in Almaty (the region’s wealthiest city) or the Kazakh capital of Astana. Don’t expect much out of Tajikistan.

Finding beers in Pakistan or Bangladesh can be done, but it isn’t easy. Iran has a number of non-alcoholic beers; of which the beers from Delster appear to be the best.

Craft brewing anywhere in Asia is a relatively new concept. Many Asian countries have specific associations that must be overcome. For example, there is the idea that only German beer is worth drinking, which locals sometimes take to mean that mediocre kit beer made on German equipment is better than authentic beer from any other nation. There are a number of legal issues throughout the region. Really, sharia is the least of concerns for beer in Asia because it is usually only enforced in Muslim areas and often then only on Muslim people. Cultures of corruption that make small breweries difficult to set up (Malaysia) or narrow-minded views about what small breweries can sell (Vietnam) often do more damage to the growth of craft brewing than anything else.

But good beer can be found. Ratebeer has the best pan-Asian coverage anywhere by far, so is a natural starting point for research. However, it is worth checking local blogs and doing extensive Google searches, since many parts of Asia remain poorly documented.

Here’s some (non-Japan) Asian beer awards (personal opinion only):

Best macro (pale lager): Beer Lao (Laos)
Best macro (stout): Lion Stout (Sri Lanka)
Best brewpub to visit: Louisiane Brewhouse (Nha Trang, Vietnam)
Best brewpub for beer: Boxing Cat (Shanghai)
Best beer bar: Café Brussels (Wuhan, China)
Best city for beer culture: Singapore

The best place to start is Popeye. Another top beer geek spot is Ushi-Tora.
Japanese brewers range in quality, so finding a place where a wide range can be sampled and where the staff and customers know the scene is essential for the beginner. I have never been to Japan, so cannot offer personal insights beyond the handful of microbrews I’ve been lucky enough to sample, but I would recommend that the English-language blogosphere be searched out. Bento.com has a regular column on Japanese beer. Other resources include http://beerinjapan.com/bij/; Good Beer and Country Boys (a blog that used to be based in Japan – search the archives); and Boozelist, with tap listings from Tokyo-area brewpubs.

While we have at Ratebeer people on the ground in Japan, allowing us to cover the country to our usual world-beating standards, we aren’t so lucky in South Korea. At the 2008 World Beer Cup, Sunshine and I met a couple of brewers from South Korea – one expat European and the other a native Korean – and they indicated that there were around 100 microbrewers in South Korea. There is, however, little information in English. The man who had described himself as Korea’s beer ambassador, American Phillip Kelm, appears to be brewing in Palau now, with no apparent replacement for bridging the large linguistic and cultural gulf. It is hoped that over time, somebody can help us out and more information about South Korean microbrews can be revealed.

We might actually know more about North Korean microbrewing than we do about South Korean. There are a few brewpubs in North Korea, in Pyongyang and in Sinuiju. The major macrobrewer there, Taedonggang, makes beer in the older Usher’s brewery and apparently to a pretty high standard.

Even Mongolia has a small craft beer scene. The hordes in Ulanbaator flock to the Chinggis Club, which brews a range of German-style beers. Khan Bräu is another relatively new brewery, albeit with a more macro orientation.

Not far from the North Korean and Chinese borders, Russia’s Pacific port city of Vladivostok is home to a couple of brewpubs – Republic and Munich. Although there are no other reports I could find of brewpubs in other cities of Russia’s Far East, Siberian cities such as Krasnoyarsk also have brewpubs and there are likely many that the English-language world does not know about.

Next week – South Asia, Central Asia and some personal picks.

Thailand gets the most visitors to the region and consequently has the highest number of breweries. Some cater to Western audiences, such as the Londoner Brewpub in central Bangkok, while other establishments are geared mainly to Thai drinkers. The country has brewpubs scattered around the country, including good brewpubs in Chiang Mai and in Pattaya. However, good beer faces an uphill battle in Thailand.

Next door, Cambodia has the best selection of stouts in the region, which serves the visitors to Siem Reap and Angkor well. The capital city of Phnom Penh has a couple of brewpubs. Man Han Lou is a Chinese place, serving four varieties of decently-made kit beer. The highlight is the spirulina beer, one of three known examples in the world. The Munich Beer Restaurant is less interesting. Cambodia’s lack of tight controls on the beer industry is relatively unique in the region, and the result has been new macrobrewery startups. A Singapore-based beer bar has also set up shop in Phnom Penh, making it one of the better cities in which to drink in SE Asia.

When I visited Laos in 2004, a microbrewery existed in the southern province of Champassak. Whether this beer still exists today is unknown, but its beers are worth looking for. They are made with local palm sap as an adjunct in cooperation with some sort of French aid project. The beers tasted French, too, with lots of yeast and that characteristic unrefined rusticity of French microbrews.

Malaysia is a tightly-controlled duopoly between Guinness and Carlsberg. InBev products have decent distribution and there are a number of German and Belgian theme bars as a result. Taxes are ridiculous, making drinking out in Malaysia around the same price as drinking out in Norway, except at tax haven islands like Langkawi and Labuan. The country has a small third brewery that produces the decent macrobrew Jaz Beer and the green-tasting Starker Fresh Beer, which is marketed as a premium product in wooden barrels at a handful of KL bars. There are rumours of a brewpub coming to Malaysia in the city of Kuching in Sarawak province on the island of Borneo. Sarawak has a degree of autonomy and Kuching has a large Chinese population. The Malaysian owner of the 1308 Drei Kronen brewpub in Beijing is reportedly mulling a large-scale expansion across the region with Kuching as a major target city. Malaysia is famous for its wealth of food blogs and the best source of information about beer in the country comes from a blog as well: Beerbeer.org.

Despite being the world’s largest Muslim country, Indonesia is actually a mash-up of different religions and cultures. The result is that it now supports three small breweries in addition to a pair of larger industrial brewers. The most well-known craft brewer is Storm Brewing, run by expats on Bali. This micro makes a range of familiar beer types including Pale Ale and Stout. They are generally fresh-tasting, high quality brews but can be difficult to find outside of Bali. Another brewpub run by foreigners is Length Dragon, which is situated on the island of Batam. Batam is across from Singapore and its economy is based on trade with its richer neighbour. Length Dragon has a spirulina beer. The final small brewer in Indonesia is the newly-opened Paulaner Brauhaus, which is in the Kempinski Hotel in Jakarta.

Manila has a couple of brewpubs, one called Pivo Prada in the back of Grappa’s Restaurant and the other run by San Miguel in the Dusit Hotel called Fiesta San Miguel. There is a healthy selection of imported beers in Manila as well, by the sounds of it better than just about anywhere else in the region except Singapore. Otherwise, the Philippines is all San Miguel all the time.

Of the remaining countries, Myanmar has some industrial brewing but no craft brewing. Brunei and East Timor do not have breweries at all. East Timor may one day acquire one, but Brunei will not, even to serve the country’s Chinese and ex-pat populations, who must currently import their alcohol from neighbouring towns in Malaysia.

Next week: Japan and Korea

The East End Brewery is the old-established of Hong Kong’s two craft brewers. They make a small range of beers, the most interesting of which is probably their Aldrich Bay Pale Ale. Ratebeer lists a few more promising brands but a visit over the Christmas holiday yielded none of these – and it’s the only reasonable time of year for a Hong Kong brewery to produce a porter, much less a Winter Brew. Ah well. Their beers can mainly be found at a trio of bars on Hong Kong Island, mostly in expatty areas, and these bars also feature a healthy range of second-tier Belgian ales as well.

A recent arrival to the Hong Kong scene is the tiny Typhoon microbrewery. This venture, operated part-time by an airline pilot, is situated on Lantau Island, where there is perhaps more room to spread out (I’ve actually seen houses on Lantau, something you seldom see anywhere in the SAR). Typhoon’s flagship is T8, an English bitter that is cask-conditioned. Despite being a British colony until 1997, Hong Kong knows little of cask ale, and the only bar to consistently find Typhoon beer is the Globe in Central. That also happens to be one of the best bars in town for beer lovers.

There are a number of imports available in Hong Kong. Fresh Mill Street Tankhouse from Toronto can be found at Canadian bars in Lan Kwai Fong; a wide range of Belgian and Japanese micros are at City Super grocery stores; and American micros including Mendocino White Hawk IPA can be found at shops in Mid-Levels and other ex-pat friendly areas. So despite a shortage of great local microbrew, you can drink reasonably well.

Across the Pearl River estuary from Hong Kong lies Macau, the other SAR. The former Portuguese colony is perhaps better known for casinos, pork chop sandwiches and egg tarts but it also has its own brewery. Under other circumstances, a national brewery would be considered a macrobrewer, but Cervejeria Macau is too small for that designation. And besides, their beer is too good. They make only one now, a Blonde Ale, and it is one of the hoppiest “national” beers in the world and one of the most flavoursome mainstream beers in Asia. It’s hard to find outside Macau, too, which adds to its allure.

Taiwan is the island to which the Kuomintang fled at the end of the Chinese civil war, and has never been part of the People’s Republic. So it was able to develop its own culture and economy, including its own beer traditions. Sadly, this has not amounted to much (beer wise!). There are, however, several fledgling microbreweries that the intrepid beer hunter can track down. What looks like 2-3 brewpubs in Taipei mainly produce Germanic beers, something typical of Asian brewpubs. Taipei has a familiar face in Gordon Biersch, which has a production brewery and also a restaurant.

Perhaps the most interesting venture is the North Taiwan Brewery, which brews a pair of abbey ales, a witbier and some sticky sweet fruit beers. The Abbey 6 is at least a somewhat faithful rendition of the style and the White is a perfectly reasonable example. Neither is spectacular, but I love seeing attempts like this made in Asia because so many of the region’s breweries lean on German or Czech kit beer, which gets monotonous after a while. So – there is room for optimism in Greater China after all.

Next week – Southeast Asia

Beijing is home to one of the largest collections of brewpubs in Asia, ranging from a branch of Paulaner to the Tsingtao Beer Palace. Many of the brewpubs are concentrated in the upmarket Chaoyang District, home to embassies and branches of literally hundreds of foreign firms. This brings in a large ex-pat population and the more well-heeled locals as well. PolyPoly has a good reputation among Beijing brewpubs but many score moderately well. Selection can be limited, however, to just pale and dark lagers, as is typical all over Asia.

Shanghai has several brewpubs as well. The best of these might be China’s best brewer period. Boxing Cat is a relatively new entrant, with Texan brewer Gary Heyne running the brewhouse. Heyne came to Shanghai with Henry’s Brewery, but when that venture went under he decided to stay in town to soak up the excitement of China’s great leap towards global supremacy. There is something of a crackle of electricity about Shanghai. Boxing Cat, like most of the other brewpubs in Shanghai, is situated in the ex-pat friendly French Concession, which also contains several high-end shopping districts and most of the other good drinking spots in town. Boxing Cat is a strictly American experience, from the vibe to the menu to the beer and for China that is a great thing. Their Pilsner and IPA are the hoppiest beers I’ve had in Asia, and that’s just the starting point. Shanghai also has a Paulaner, along with other brewpubs serving German styles brewed to varying degrees of quality. I have heard through sources that a Korean district in town has “Korean-style” brewpubs catering to that community, which have apparently slipped entirely under the radar of the English-language media.

Beyond the two largest cities, there are only a few successful craft breweries in China. The Kawei Beer House is a Wuhan-based chain that has spread to several other cities. They make decent German styles. The best place by far to sample their work is at Café Brussels on the Hankou side of the city. This gorgeous heritage building houses a small brewery making Kaiwei’s standards and it also sells a large range of Belgian ales in impeccable condition. Belgian beer is becoming available in China, with a focus on the Trappists and other high-end brands. The ones available at Café Brussels are imported by Morels in Beijing. In Shanghai, Kaiba is the place to get your Belgian fix.

Wuhan also hosts China’s national brewing academy, the Wuhan Brautechnische Akademie. This Sino-German venture teaches young Chinese about the art of brewing; sadly most of the students go on to make watery Chinese macrobrew. Still, if you visit the Akademie they can sell you some of their own Zentrumsbier Weizen, which when fresh is one of the best hefeweizens I’ve had, and by far the best one in Asia.

When economic reform began in the late 1970s, Shenzhen was a fishing village near the border with Hong Kong. Today, its population is exploding so quickly that it is difficult to know just exactly how many people live there, with estimates ranging between 10-15 million. Shenzhen is hardly a beer mecca but does have three brewpubs – Löwenburg, Galleon and a Kaiwei. Lowenburg is situated on a cruise ship that has been parked permanently in the ex-pat oriented Shekou district, which is best accessed by ferry from Hong Kong. The Galleon is in the Intercontinental and its beers are reported to be better than those of Lowenburg.

There are a handful of other brewpubs scattered throughout the country. A long-running brewpub is Le Vôtre, run by a Frenchman with a Chinese brewer amid the jaw-dropping scenery of Yangshuo, near Guilin in southern Guangxi Province. Brewpubs appear from time to time in other cities, but China’s brewpub industry seems fairly unstable and many operations close quickly.

There is little to talk about with respect to Chinese macrobrews. Once in a while you find a dark lager, but of those only Tsingtao Dark is truly worthy of mention. China grows a lot of hops, mostly in the Xinjiang region. You’d be hard pressed to actually taste a distinctive hop note in any of the beers, however.

There are a lot of ethnic minorities in China, some of which have grain-based session drinks. Lijiang Yinjiu is a wine-strength drink fermented from three types of grain by the Naxi people and sulima is a lighter grain-based drink from the Mosuo people, both in Yunnan Province. The prospect of finding such drinks makes serious beer exploration in China fun, even if the country as a whole is awash in 3.3% alcohol pale lagers.

The one thing I should also mention is that it is believed most halfway wealthy Chinese cities have a brewpub or two. There is often little information in English, as most of these establishments will be for local clientele. They will serve pale and dark lager and probably nothing else. However, it is worth a search of English-language resources for anybody visiting any of China’s other major cities because English-language documentation is fairly poor. Not all cities have good beer, though. Hangzhou surprisingly has nothing, so a visitor to China should definitely be prepared to suck back nothing but swill.

Next in the Beer in Asia series – Greater China, Mongolia and Korea

Most brewpubs in Vietnam have been set up with the assistance of the Czech government or with German technology and equipment. The result is that Vietnam’s large number of breweries belies the actual selection of beer available. These brewpubs typically offer just a pale (vang) and a dark (den) lager. The quality also is quite variable. The best ones, such as the Hoa Vien chain or Windmill in Hanoi, are wonderful breweries (and the Hanoi Hoa Vien and Windmill are both architectural treats as well). Some other ones make one good beer, maybe both are ok. But in general, touring the brewpubs of Hanoi (or Saigon) everything becomes very samey. That said, the good stuff is genuinely good and there are other reasons for optimism about the Vietnamese beer scene as well.

The first other reason is the craft beer that bears other influences besides Czech. Smack right on the beach in the resort town of Nha Trang is the Louisiane Brewhouse, where you can rent a beach lounger and have craft beer brought to your umbrella all day long. There are very few brewpubs actually on the beach with sand up to the door so this place is special right away. The brewmaster is Australian and the beers bear that same character as well, which makes Louisiane unique among Vietnamese brewpubs. Australia’s take on craft beer is fairly mellow and balanced, maybe not so interesting if you’re from there but for those of us who’ve never been it is a nice break in Vietnam. In addition to its own private beach (complete with security to keep the hawkers away) Louisiane also has a pool, pool table and other delights. If it had rooms, you’d need nowhere else in Nha Trang.

The other non-Czech micro is located in Saigon. The Fifth Ocean brewery originally hails from Moscow (where it is rightfully known as Pyatiy Okean) but the communist Vietnamese still have strong ties with Russia. So, in light of those ties and in light of the large amount of Russian tourists in both Saigon and the southern beach resorts (like Mui Ne), Fifth Ocean has set up shop in southern Vietnam to provide “live beer” to Russian vacationers and other beer fans in the area. The beer is the same as the Svetloe (“pale”) from Moscow and makes a welcome addition to the Vietnamese beer scene.

Lastly, Vietnam has a tradition of “people’s beer” called bia hoi. This is dirt cheap beer served from barrels in shops on the street corner. It’s not very good, but it is an interesting tradition that adds to the pleasure of beer drinking in Vietnam. Bia hoi is widely available in Hanoi, but it harder to come by elsewhere. San Miguel makes a good bia hoi in Nha Trang; bia hoi from an unknown brewer in Da Nang in the central part of the country can be found there an in the nearby UNESCO town of Hoi An; and bia hoi from Sabeco can be tracked down in Saigon, although it is thin on the ground in the city center.

The nation has a number of macrobrewers as well, roughly one in each major city. Their names are uniquely communistic. In Hanoi they have Habeco (Hanoi Beverage Company) and in Saigon they have Sabeco (Saigon Beverage Company). In Hue they have the Hue Brewery, with three beers (plus a malt liquor for export) and one macrobrewer even makes a dark beer. Most importantly for the beer lover, SAB Miller sends some Castle Milk Stout which can be found in the bigger supermarkets and in ex-pat stores in places like Nha Trang. Hanoi has some beer bars in the My Way chain and Saigon has some Belgian and English stuff available in high end shops, so it’s not that hard to find good beer in the cities, even if the countryside is dominated by swill.

Next up: Beer in Asia, part Four: The People’s Republic of China

Depending on how you look at it the issue, the grand-daddy of all Singapore craft brewers is Brewerkz. Located along the Singapore River – a small canal really – Brewerkz’s flagship location is in a rather plastic section of town most notable for its high concentration of ang mos (Caucasians). Singapore is among the most cosmopolitan of all cities in the world, a true global city, and the high proportion of ex-pats contributes to this tapestry. It is also one of the reasons so many brewpubs thrive here.

Brewerkz is helmed by a Canadian, Scott Robertson, whose father Bev runs the Bushwakker brewpub in Regina. I interviewed Scott in 2005 about his involvement in the Singapore beer scene. Brewerkz feels like a brewpub back home, with baseball on TV and hockey memorabilia on the wall. There’s around 12 beers on tap at any one time, including 2-3 seasonal beers and a cask ale, Hopback. I found Hopback to be the best beer on my visit, but there are a lot of other interesting brews in the lineup that may be available at any given point in time.

The oldest brewery in Singapore is Archipegalo, which is the dominant macrobrewer, making the rancid Tiger and the tasty ABC Stout. They have a smaller brewery that they use to produce craft beer for limited distribution, and this is done under the direction of former Seattle star Fal Allen. The Archipelago lineup once featured a range of beers featuring Asian spices and herbs, but that has recently been replaced by a more standard range of moderately-flavoured brews. That’s a bit of a shame but that’s how the business goes.

On Clarke Quay, across the river from Brewerkz, is the Pump Room. With both a Western and a local brewer, the Pump Room does a range of Western beer styles. It is a more Asian-style brewpub, though, with a nightclubbish feel to it. The IPA I think is their best beer as some of the others have obvious flaws such as diacetyl.

Near the Botanical Gardens there are two other brewpubs. The first is the Red Dot Brewhouse, which has a lovely garden setting. Red Dot had seven beers on tap during our visit, six regulars and a seasonal. The Red Dot beers, contrary to reports on Ratebeer, are actually quite good. Maybe they have a new brewer? In 2010, they are nice brews with the possible exception of the silly Lime Wheat. The highlight here is probably the Monster Green beer, which is one of only three spirulina beers I know of in the world. (The others will be covered in other sections of the Asia Beer Guide). It comes out looking like a bad St. Paddy’s Day joke – fluorescent green – but it has a fresh, clean taste with a hint of that beneficial algae. Spirulina has a high level of protein, fatty acids and vitamins. Of their other beers, the English Ale is the most immediately interesting because of its slight hop character but none are poor. Combined with the setting, Red Dot is definitely one of the more interesting brewpubs to visit in Singapore.

Right behind Red Dot is Tawandang, which is the local branch of the older Tawandang German Brewery in Bangkok. This outlet brews its own, but is much smaller than the cavernous flagship outlet in Thailand. The beers are closer to the Asian standard – kit beers in German styles – but they are not bad for that type. Once Red Dot opens their outlet down by the Singapore River, there will be less reason to trek out this far so Tawandang may not see as many beer hunters at that point.

Lastly, Singapore is one of many Asian cities to host a Paulaner brewpub. German-themed bars in general are quite popular in this part of Asia, given the market muscle of Paulaner and Erdinger, combined with high rates of German tourism and the desire of the Chinese community for alternate pork-selling outlets in a region dominated by halal food. Paulaner Singapore does two basic beers – a pale and a dark. They have a seasonal beer as well, which was a zwickel-ish beer called Diamond on my visit, having just missed the Maibock. They sell Paulaner Hefeweizen in the bottle only.

It should be noted that beer prices in Singapore are pretty steep. Most brewpubs have happy hours and it is strongly encouraged that visiting beer geeks take advantage of that. However, it is heartening to see the city emerge as a true leader in Asian brewing. The brewpubs exhibit Western, Asian and German styles, which makes brewpub crawling more fun here than, say, Hanoi.

It is also worth noting that many of these brewers have multiple outlets. There are four Brewerkz bars plus a couple of others owned by the same company that carry the beers (Café Iguana next door to the flagship Brewerkz, for example). Archipelago is mainly a micro, with a flagship outlet in the entertainment district but also other outlets around town. Red Dot is opening a second location (and also has an outlet in Kuala Lumpur), and Tawandang has another location as well.

Next week: Beer in Asia Vol 3 – Vietnam

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!

The festival is held on the grounds of the Formula One track, so there should be ample space. Unusual for a beer festival, the Asia Beerfest runs all night, so as to accommodate the World Cup, the late games of which show at 2:30am. The beer list is large and somewhat unusual. Since most of the beers are imports, they will come from a large number of different locations. The Americans, Belgians, Poles and Australians are represented by national tables – I’m hoping for a few nice surprises out of each table. Some of the other beers hardly even make sense, like four Armenian lagers and the beers from the small Dead Frog Brewery in suburban Vancouver.

I don’t really know what to expect from a beer festival in South East Asia. I’ve never even been to Singapore before. So this is going to be an entirely new experience for me, and I hope it goes well. I’m told the beer comes by the bottle, which is a little bit discouraging, but may keep me from ticking crap. I also know that beer in Singapore is almost as expensive as beer in KL, which is something of a limiting factor as well.

Check back next week for a full festival report, the lead off in a series about Asia’s beer scenes.