This was one of the early place that developed my interest in craft beer about 2 years ago when it was still named Heart of House. The partnership of this gastropub has split and one of the owner has branch out and set up his own place.

Now Derek, the owner of Potbellies has set out on his own to set up this gastropub that focus on good food and affordable good craft beer. Lots of American craft beer, Germans, Belgians and ciders to be offered here.

If IPA, Saison, Porter, Cider and Weissbier are something that hit hard on your thirst, then Potbellies is the place for you. According to Derek (the owner), they have struck an exclusive deal with Singapore’s American Craft Beer Club. They will provide some very attractive price to their offerings of American craftbeer to add on top of the delicious food like Otah-otah pizza and fried chicken wings that is to be offered. More beer varieties will be offered on tap and also some limited edition American craftbeer.

So, if you happen be around Tiong Bahru area in Singapore, make sure you pay a visit to Potbellies. It is situated right beside NTUC along Kim Tian Road, you will not missed the outdoor table and flooring tiled with craftbeer bottle caps that beautifully decorate the place. However be informed though, that Potbellies will be rename to Lee Tai Fu soon, due to unintentional infringement of the same name of an establishment in the USA. Address can be found as follow.

Lee Tai Fu (formerly known as Potbellies)
16 Kim Tian Road
Singapore 169251

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I was walking on BIG grocer the other day, as usual – doing my routine check on prices and see got any new beer available in the market. Then I found something doesn’t fit the bill.

A fully imported Chang Beer only cost RM6.99? By normal local tax itself, before the beer price a bottle of beer already need to pay almost RM4 on excise duty per can, that was before import tax, sales tax and logistic. Can big supermarket now selling smuggle beer openly?

A local make Tiger Beer cost RM6.60 at the same grocer. I’m really scratching my head, because normally this type of smuggle beer normally available at local sundry shop. Today big legit supermarket also start selling all this beer? Of course they can’t be consider smuggle as each bottle have a proper tax stamp on it.

It’s only 2 way for this, first our local make beer are freaking expensive or the imported beer went through different method to enter the country and don’t need to pay so much tax on it. To be honest, beer is this country are way too high. Need to reduce the excise for this alcoholic drinks.

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On the 8th of June 2012, while I was going to board the train in Singapore heading back to Malaysia I was stop by the Malaysia custom to check my bag as I got beers in my bag. Inside my bag have 3 bottles of beers, 1 home brewed beer and 2 branded beers. So I was told by the customs I can only have 1 bottle exempted tax while the rest have to pay tax.

Then I was curious about the tax thing, all this while I was bringing more beers back to Malaysia and each time the custom officers let me pass. But this time they said I must pay tax. As I was tired and it was about 11:30pm at night. After all the walking and beerfest activity, I just want to have a peaceful night. I asked them to calculate the amount and I’ll paid for it.

I did argue that how come Langkawi and Airport you can bring over a carton of beers and here you are only allowed to bring 1 liter over and not the same treatment, they just answer me that’s is different. Which not a very satisfy answer.

So they start calculating the 2 branded beer which is 750ml + 500ml = 1250ml.
Per liter of beer is tax at RM7.40 per liter + 15% Ad Valorem
(RM7.40 x 1.25l) + 15% = RM10.64

But because I don’t know how much the beer, as it is given to me, the 15% ad valorem will not include my price, I just need to pay the tax.

Then the custom officer said, is not 15% but 30% because this is not local product. So again we do the calculation and we do the maths again.
(RM7.40 x 1.25l) + 30% = RM12.03.

Which I said I’ll paid. Then came something shocking and really piss me off. They asked me to give SGD$5o for the tax. I got tick and said, are you crazy. I was tax in Malaysia custom but asked to paid in SGD (Singapore Dollar) and not RM. Plus that amount is also way too much.

I told them, do you know how much is SGD$50 or not when u convert to RM. During that time exchange rate is almost 2.5 which is RM125. That’s where I told them what kind of calculation is this. The tax for my beer is only RM12 but I need to pay RM125 for the total tax, that is 10 times the amount I need to pay.

Plus this is Malaysia custom, what the hell do I pay in SGD? I said, show me in black and white that my tax I need to pay is RM125 only I will pay that amount which can’t be that high. What struck next is something really not smart from them. They said, this is not beer but hard liquor and I should be tax on hard liquor and not beer.

If calculate by liquor tax, this is even cheaper. Which is RM30 per liter x (by the %ABV) = in my case RM30 per liter x (12% abv) = RM 3.60 per liter. I almost pengsan by then. I told them this will never end. If they would have known how to calculate, I would have give them a respect. So it went on another 5min. Then they said all I need to do is paid SGD10. By then, I just want to get home and basically solved the whole thing. I just paid it and before going, I still told them that “deep down you know I overpaid my beer tax”. For the RM12 which I need to pay, I end up paying RM25.

If the beer is purchase by me, then it will be tax this way
RM7.40 x 1.25l = RM9.25 (a)
[RM200 (the amount if I pay for the beer) + RM9.25 (excise duty)] 15%
= RM31.39 (b)
But because it’s consider import, it became 30%
[RM200 (the amount if I pay for the beer) + RM9.25 (excise duty)] 30%
= RM62.78 (c)

Normal condition I need to pay a+b = RM40.64
Under border crossing my tax for those beer is a+c = RM72.03

But on this condition, the beer was never purchase by me. I even show them my name card that I blog about beer and this beer are brought back for reviews. The initial amount of SGD50 is really too crazy, for RM125. If they would have known how to calculate, I would have give them more respect. But because they don’t know how to calculate and just simply open a figure for tax, it’s just a disgrace. Plus What the hell did I pay SGD when I’m in Malaysian custom?

Hell, crossing back to Malaysia is best to take bus where you’ll be more lucky if they check your baggage. Yes, that 2 bottles of beers cost around RM200 here in Malaysia. Is best to know your trade in all this thing. This is the calculation I know, if I did count wrongly or explain wrongly, please do let me know. So I can learn the correct way. Cheers, please don’t get bully by the Malaysia customs officer.

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Hey Guys I’m going to show you how I brew my beer at home here in Australia. Today I’m doing an all grain brew using the Brew In A Bag method (BIAB)  I’ll be brewing a Czech Dark Ale Version of one of my all time favie beers Budvar Dark!

Here’s my Grain bill and Ingredients which is a recipe from my local Home Brew Shop- Marks Home Brew here in beaut Newcastle Australia .

Grains:
Cracked extra fine (0.9mm) for BIAB
Premium Pilsener  3.230 Kg
Munich Dark 0.586 Kg
Cara Munich T2  0.586 Kg
Wheat Chocolate (yummy!) 0.220 kg

Hops:
Saaz Czech (T90) 79g @60mins boil time

Yeast:
Safale US-05 ALE Yeast (I’m using Muntons Prenium Gold this time round though)

Here’s my cleaned and sanitised Equipment + Grains

From Left :

1. Thermometer -decent scientific one.
2. Hydrometer  to calculate abv and gravity
3. Whirlfloc tablet- finning/to clear the brew at end of boil
4. Saaz Hop Pellets-Yay- Hops!
5. Grain bill-Malty goodness!
6. Burner- Mine’s an Italian spiral type

More Equipment:

-My good ‘ol faithful brew bag that holds 5 kgs of grain no worries! Cleaned and ready for action!

My Brew pot that I picked up In Thailand last year- 36 litre capacity and does the job. Filled up with just over 20 litres of good ‘ol H2O.

Here’s some Spare Pots from previous brewing adventures along with a strainer and my mash paddle which is also great for stir frys too!

I prop the burner up onto my old barbie (BBQ) for safety reasons pop the pot filled with water on top  and connect the gas up to the burner and let her rip! Aiming for 50 degrees Celsius strike water temp I grab the thermometer and monitor the temp.

Woo-hoo! After about 10 mins the water temp nears 50C strike temp- time to get the bag and grains ready!

So after the temp hits just over 50c I turn off the gas and take the pot down off the burner (with oven gloves on- as I don’t like getting burnt) . Now the bag goes in the pot followed by the grainy goodness being poured in nice ‘an slow.

Now the grain is given a good stir making sure I get all the lumpy bits mashed and all the grains are wet. Oohh it smells good! Once thats done I pull the tie on the bag to seal it up and pop the top on the brew pot.

Now I’ll put the brew to bed for 60mins to let it mash— have a beer and read some beerbeer.org and properbeermate!

What I use to wrap the pot up to maintain the mash temp is a towel and some old clean bed covers -does the trick!

In Part two the which will be posted  next week we’ll start the boil and add the magic that is HOPS!!

Cheers till then!

PROPERBEERMATE

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Article taken from TIME

The geniuses at the Kirin brewery have developed the perfect solution to lukewarm, unappetizing beer by making their own frozen foam. The company created the frozen foam by cooling its Ichiban brew to 23 degrees Fahrenheit, while a machine continuously blows air into the mixture. The result is a frothy, creamy topping that is frozen and made from beer.

This looks interesting, I can see not far from know they may add flavour to that foam that will enhance flavour to the beer, just keep it natural!

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