Craft beer is beer produce by smaller brewery or microbrewery. Most craft beer are slowly entering to become commercial brand as well. So the term craft beer are refer to independent brewery that are not own by big commercial brand like AB InBev, Miller, Carlsberg, Heineken and etc.

Is Malaysian ready for craft beers?
For me the answer is yes. Many years back when Hoegaarden start selling in Malaysia, the pickup is slow as well, but today this beer has become many drinkers favourite. For most that don’t understand beer type and brands, they would have consider Hoegaarden as craft beer as market like Malaysia are only known for Anchor, Tiger, Carlsberg, Royal Stout and Guinness.

How come craft beers don’t grow fast in Malaysia?
Craft beers can’t grow fast in Malaysia for many reason, first thing – there is not enough outlet selling it. Therefore not many people know their existence. For those that really like them will drove all the way from Penang to KL to get those beers. For Johorean is easier to hope to Singapore to get those beer, compare to travel to KL to buy it.

Actually new brands that come to our market are not easy to sell as well. Not familiar beer brands will take time to grow, even commercial big brands are not hitting the market that easy. A lot of Advertising and Promotion (A&P) funds are spend to create the awareness. Hence, Malaysian are not well aware of craft beers.

Why do we need Craft Beers in Malaysia?
For beer lovers like me, I do want them as they have lot’s of different style of beer that hardly I can see in big commercial brands. Craft beers offering are more unique and have plenty of style and taste. For beginners that are not familiar with craft beers will always got the wrong idea of it, if outlet didn’t know their consumer profile and recommend the wrong beer to them, their craft beer experience will be spoil. Is not about choices but know what beer you are drinking.

Honestly I think, we need to have more brands and diversify of the products. The local commercial brands offering may have a lot of brands but most offer the same type of beers. Tiger, Carlsberg, Heineken, Anchor, Skol, Asahi and Tuborg is a lager/pilsner which have quite the same character. Then Paulaner, Erdinger, Konig Ludwig and Franziskaner are the basic Weissbier (of course in here you have the dunkel and blonde). These are the few major brands that we all quite familiar. So in a pub sometimes can have 6 draught that offering maybe only 3 different type of beers.

Craft beer have more variants that can give drinkers to choose their profile of taste. This will let consumer to know there are beer out there with different taste and character.

How come craft beers scene still so quiet?
They are not quiet, only people pay less interest to the thing they don’t understand. So craft beer market in Malaysia will hardly grow, but I do put the blame on the importers/supplier as they don’t do enough homework to sell the beer. They think by bringing craft beers consumer will just flock in and buy it because it’s unique. All this thing take time to build, without proper knowledge of the product is not easy to flair the market.

Just like the Brewfest 2012 that happen in May, the turn out was a failure, organiser are greedy and charge a high price for entry. Beer booth people are not well educated enough on this kind of event. After been there for one day, you won’t walk in for the next day as the event is boring. Marketing was bad to promote the event, ground staff are quite confuse and many more.

Will craft beers grow in this few years?
Hell, I do wish so. As many part of the world, the demand of craft beers are increasing and the microbreweries also have grown in size. More new independent brewery are setup daily around the world. Our market will never ready for craft beer if supplier don’t bring them in. Beer education in this country are bad, alcohol knowledge are almost flat. The drinking scene are lack a lot of passion, drinkers also not sure why they hang out at certain place. In all criteria, CHEAP is always what consumer are looking at.

Why is Craft Beer expensive?
Firstly anything import to Malaysia is expensive because of the high excise duty and import tax. Secondly as they are mostly independent brewery, they buy small amount of ingredients which are higher in price to make their beer. Thirdly most small breweries depend a lot on man power, this are time consuming and eat up a lot of profit.

But is it expensive? I don’t really thing so as the taste justify the price, not all craft beers worth their price but most craft beer are much more value then existing beer we have. Expensive and cheap is all on consumer hand. For me Craft Beer are reasonably price here in Malaysia.

How can Craft Beers grow in Malaysia?
It does not take 1 hand to clap. All segment have to have same mentality only can make this work. Sad to say so, is really hard as outlet normally won’t carry Craft Beers as is not easy to sell and the price are more pricey. Supplier have to bring in the right stuff for the consumer and not the other way round. Education from each end to end is important, as supplier can teach the outlet about the beer and outlet can tell what consumer are looking for beside CHEAP. Everyone have a role to play, if they are serious in bringing Craft Beers to the next level.

Conclusion
Craft Beers market in Malaysia still got long way to go before they hit 1% of the market. I can blame many things why Craft Beers are not successful in Malaysia but that is not important. The important thing is for importer to understand the market. Selling the beer and earn money are two different thing, having passion doing it is another. If can combine all these will be good.

As for consumer, is not that consumers are not smart for not choosing Craft Beers, is just that consumer don’t really know what is Craft Beers. To grow this market is not only selling, need passion to educate the consumer, need time to create marketing, need other method to do events, need to convert more people to love beer.

I hope in this few years, Craft Beers in Malaysia will grow. I bet many reader here will not agree to what I just written, this is just my opinion. Long Live Craft Beers! Cheers!

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When the beer poured out?
Have a strong aroma of sweetness of wine like with light alcohol.

How’s the taste?
The entry is woody with light bitter and touch of salty in it. The toasted/roasted aroma is very strong, coffee type of bitter. At 17.5% abv the beer is thick but oily smooth. Have lots of different depth of flavour. The bitter will stick to the throat with light minty end to showcase the sweetness. Can feel some heat from the alcohol at the end. Have a lot of roasted flavour of bitter and hint of sweetness after taste.

What’s the colour of the beer?
Deep dark brown.

Where to drink?
Have it in Taps Beer Bar @ Jalan Nagasari.

My Opinion:
This beer is in it’s own league. Plenty of character, is best to drink the beer slowly to capture the taste and depth of the beer. Very unique aged beer with plenty of taste. At 17.5% abv, the beer is really balance and can’t feel much on alcohol taste. The vapor of the alcohol make the after taste stay strong and flavour full. Very nice indeed. Have a try to understand the taste of the beer.

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Got this tasty Stouterik Stout from Kenny Cheers Mate! The brew hails from the Brasserie De La Senne Brewery in Brussels Belgium … Thought that I would review it with my favorite cookies from Malaysia: Famous Amos  double chocolate chip with pecans! Now PROPERBEERMATE doesn’t have much of a sweet-tooth but I really like these cookies! Unfortunately we can’t get these cookies in Australia so every time we head over to Beaut KL I make sure we pick up a pack or two from our favorite Famous Amos outlet at Sungei Wang Plaza near Bukit Bintang.

Beer with cookies… what the…  You say?  You bet! If ya have a quality Stout like this Belgian beauty and something chocolate for instance brownies, chocolate cake or even chocolate itself  they can match quite well.

The trick is to eat the cookie first and drink the Stout after running over any chocy bits left over ya mouth to bring out the chocy qualities of the dark brew and sweetening up any bitterness from the beer too!

Works really well if you have any friends or family who love chocolate (or even yourself) give this method a go it really does work well!

The stout I have here has a good malty aroma on the nose extremely smooth going down, slightly robust- finishes dry and doesn’t have any candy sweetness at all despite being from Belgium. A great brew kinda reminds be of a good Porter styled brew and to be honest my first from this little brewery. I really was expecting some Belgian candy sugar quality to this beer as pretty much all the Belgian brews I have tasted in the past have that sweetness included bar the lagers and Wit beers…. But again I  was pleasantly surprised it didn’t and thus went awesome with the cookies I chose for this review.

PROPERBEERMATE

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Saw this beer bottle used as vase at Brux Ale @ Jalan Telawi 2, Bangsar. Some beer bottles shape are quite unique and nice, if use it nicely for decoration it will turn out nice as well. Have fun trying.

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I remember not that long ago, beer are very bitter for me as well. But lately in most beer even when is bitter, it dance like sweetness in my mouth. Maybe my taste have developed or maybe it has been destroyed… haha

One thing for sure, many that have drank Tiger and Carlsberg may find beer like Asahi more bitter. Just like a little while back, when the launch of Little Creature Pale Ale – many people find the beer really bitter. For me the beer have plenty of sweet aroma in there and lovely too!

The ingredient that make beer bitter is “Hops”. This is one of the major ingredient in beer. To make beer, there are for standard ingredient which is Malt, Hops, Yeast and Water. Hops is the ingredient that give the taste of citrusy, fruity sweetness and bitter. Different hops have different bitterness and different citrusy level as well. Some have less bitter while others have more aromas.

Drinking beer is sometime like drinking coffee. Some like their coffee black, while some will have cream and sugar. Coffee is also bitter in nature after roasted. If you have develope that taste in it, then the coffee you drinking is based more on the balance of the aroma. The bitter in the coffee become a friendly taste.

Hence, we come back the taste development in drinking beer. The questions are how much we really like beer and what kind of beers we like? If you know the answer to this question then, you can slowly develope to a sharper taste bud towards the drink. Taste in beer can be variants depending from each individuals, if you like the taste then is good for you likewise if you hate it then you won’t like it.

This principal of beer is bitter adapt the same way our approach to other food and drink. Just like eating durian, raw fish, animal inner parts, vegetables and many more. All this relate back to taste development that take time or influence by others that change the perspective of your mind on that taste. Once it is develope is not easy to reverse back.

I bet many have develope their taste bud since their childhood, their teenage life and now young adulthood, all have different stage of liking certain food. I myself have develope plenty of palate for food that I used to hate to eating them regularly. Once you get by the thoughts and understand the taste, you can accept better in flavours. Not only in beer, the theory adapts to all matters that can change our taste palate.

Regular strong taste consumer like smoker, coffee drinkers or regular spicy food eater, normally don’t have the taste bud to detect light aroma. As the taste bud already got covered by the strong taste aroma or maybe destroyed by it. But our body is an interesting instrument, which can recover itself to the origin if we know how to protect them.

So the next time you drank beer and you find the beer is bitter, see what nice character of the bitter that you can relate. This will change you bitter profile, with that you can explore even more beer style as almost all beer are made with hops so the bitter will not stay away from beer. But your brain can change the perception of the bitter profile that you enquire and make it into something good.

If you find beer bitter, then is really hard for you to enjoy other style of beers that used a lot of hops to brew, which will not enhance much on your beer experience in total. Have fun exploring your taste bud, this will open up a new world in taste for you not only in beer but other food and drink as well. Cheers!

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