Category Archives: ~ Beer (lager / ale / stout) ~

Oktoberfest time

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Yup, that time of the year, which also indicates that Party Season 2014 is fast approaching.

Cool set-up

Cool set-up

Guinness Anchor Bhd’s Oktoberfest kicked off in style at The Tavern, the brewery bar. The Tavern’s been pimped up recently, and looks & feels a lot better.

Guests were treated to various drinks under the GAB stable, including Smirnoff Ice, as well as good German grub.

The spot

The spot

Take your pick

Take your pick

Sumtin called food

Stall scene. Fun

There was a Oompah band in action, and some games.

Oompah

It’s all about the horns

Beer mug-sliding game. Too easy

Beer mug-sliding game. Too easy ja

German stuff

Sipping German stuff

The tent

The tent

The highlight of the launch was the unveiling of the country’s largest fibreglass beer mug. Am not talkin bout a mug that’s the size of a bucket.

Let’s just say if filled with beer, it would knock out a neighbourhood. The mug’s gonna go on a nationwide tour too, for the “Guess the Litre” challenge.

The top 5 participants that provide the correct or closest estimated volume of liquid the mug can hold, win a year’s supply of Tiger Beer.

Hmmm. How much beer is that?

Yup, you could tread beer inside

Yup, you could tread beer inside

It stands at 2.6m high and 1.72m wide. These are its tour details:

Oct 2: Festival Walk, Ipoh
Oct 3 and 4: Setia Walk, Puchong and Auto City, Penang
Oct 10 and 11: Scott Garden, PJ and Upper Penang Road
Oct 16: Desa Sri Hartamas
Oct 17 and 18: Changkat Bukit Bintang and Jonker Street, Malacca
Oct 24 and 25: Sunway Giza, PJ and Sutera Mall, Johor Bharu

You can score the regular one-litre version as well. Details here.

Prost!

I 'made' a new friend at the bar

I ‘made’ a new friend at the bar

 

Brain damage: 8/10

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Heineken and Guinness rock on

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Heineken has launched a new label for some of its bottled beers, featuring six cities of the world. It’s a global campaign aimed at inspiring people to get out of their routines and start exploring their cities. A good idea.

Fortunately KL is one of them, so there was a cool party called Cities of the World to introduce the Cities bottle and campaign. It went down in an industrial zone in PJ, and the set-up (from scratch) was really good.

New Heineken Bottles.

Getting to the bar / music area required some navigation, and it felt like a maze, and i opened quite a few dud doors. There were exhibits and all along the way, and some salsa thing goin on.

Trippy.

IMG-20140901-WA0004

Goin somewhere?

The main room featured an island bar and DJs on ground-level decks. Among the performers were Goldfish and Blink, as well as Hulkas. The boys from Hulkas rocked it. Awesome house set.

Hulkas in action

Bust a move

Heineken says that the campaign aims to “inspire people to move away from their usual habits and discover more within their own backyard.” It would be interesting to see how they plan to do this.

Salud. (pix by @juzliv)

Salud (pix by @juzliv)

There’s a website that’s been built to give people a look into interesting locations around them. Not very impressed with it though. Lack of content.

I’ve seen a lot of my city, but coincidentally i plan to see more of the inner city soon, by booking a couple of days in a hotel downtown. And explore.

New Heineken Bottles

Drinkers will find a unique code under the cap of each limited-edition bottle, which gives people a chance to win prizes, including an opportunity to unlock worldly adventures in New York. You can checkout the site here.

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GUINNESS meanwhile has launched the Amplify campaign, one that’s based on music.

With this, the Arthur’s Day seems discontinued. Amplify seems more focused on local talent, and more personal as opposed to Arthur’s Day’s mega gigs.

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Launch in session at a bar in PJ

It’s a platform for extraordinary local musicians to showcase their talent alongside international stars, and will feature fourteen of Malaysia’s best acts including Kyoto Protocol, Paperplane Pursuit, OJ Law, Froya, and An Honest Mistake. International act Howie Day will be joining the party on Sept 6 at The Bee, which is the kick-off.

4. Guinness Amplify Live Tour Listings

Admission to the 6 shows in the Guinness Amplify Live Tour will be free of charge and on a first-come, first-served basis, and will feature special promos on Guinness throughout the night. More details here.

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Kronenbourg’s rooftop BBQ

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French beer Kronenbourg 1664 wants us to get our butts off from working too much and get straight to drinking.

A great idea.

It recently launched, over many drinks, “Taste the French Way of Life” at Stratosphere at The Roof, which is a call to merge our culture of hard work and the French one of taking time off.

Party time

A sundown outdoor BBQ? On a grassy 360-view roof of a skyscraper? Perfection. To top it off, generous amounts of chilled beers were making their rounds.

It felt like we were chillin at a resort.

The series launched

The series launched

There was also entertainment by a band, fire-eaters and poi performers, and you could release some stress by slamming a giant hammer in the Mr Hammer game. And loads of grub. And of course, free breeze.

As Henrik Andersen (MD of Carlsberg Malaysia) says, “Together we will champion the art and beauty of work-life balance by simply treasuring good conversation and company.”

Saya sokong.

Slam it Henrik!

Slam it Henrik!

It was a nice evening out by Kronenbourg, pampering its guests very well. And fortunately they have six more events comin up! Including a comedy night, dining in the dark, and a Broadway show. Sounds great.

(The FB page is here).

 

Brain damage: 7.5/10

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Kirin launches

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Japanese lager Kirin has hit our shores officially, via GAB.

Good mix

Good mix

The launch party was awesome. And huge, taking place at Zebra Square in the city.

Party kicked off just before sunset about 7pm, the best time to start drinks.

Some welcome thing goin on

Some welcome thing goin on

There was Japanese cuisine awaiting guests as soon as we stepped in, with an outdoor BBQ goin on. A friend passed me some yakitori (meat & seafood), which went well with the beer.

 

Keep 'em comin buddy!

Keep ’em comin buddy!

The main party was actually indoors. The set-up was like a mini food street, with lil stalls serving up good Japanese stuff. Swallowed them all, ‘cept some green tea dessert shit.

Bumped into the bartender that kept us happy during my last event at Zebra Square. He did a super job this time too.

The Japanese ambassador launched it in front of about 400 guests.

Party goin on

Party goin on

We enjoyed Kirin from bottles all night. The beer is 100% malt, as many beers are. This means it’s all-barley malt, with are no adjuncts like rice or corn. Some brewers like Budweiser add those to help the beer taste lighter, and coz it’s cheaper.

However Kirin Breweries (which was established in 1869) uses only the first-press of the filtered malt, which means the malt mash is filtered only once, then the wort sent to fermentation. The first-press is usually lighter, so this makes the beer taste lighter as well. Dont panic coz alcohol content is the same at 5%.

Easy

Easy

I’d put this down as a pale lager / pilsner. Characteristics of Kirin – light start, quiet finish, no lingering taste, medium-high carbonation. Bitterness is minimal. I’d say it’s a beer you can enjoy at anytime with most meals. Breakfast included of course. Goes down easy.

There was a limited amount of Kirin draught available, which was enjoyable. Smooth.

I do think they should drop the ”ichiban” for the export market, coz itchy bun means something else in English. Cracked us up each time the MC said it! Doesn’t sound cool. I overheard some trade guys near me sayin sumtin about itchy bawah.

Kirin Ichiban Launch Event 22

I’ve always thought GAB needs a wider portfolio. As for bringing in Kirin (they have a 5-year deal), it would be facing-off with (and is probably a reaction to) Asahi from Carlsberg (CMB). Which has years’ head-start.

An advantage GAB has is CMB has done all the groundwork as far as making Malaysians try Japanese beer. So the consumer-education spend and effort will be a lot less.

However, CMB now brews Asahi here, so they price it reasonably. GAB does not have that advantage yet.

Look out for Kirin at bars and supermarkets in Peninsular Malaysia. It’s available in bottles and cans. and possibly draught in the second half of the year.

 

Brain damage: 7.5/10

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