Young Master Ales Brewery

I have visited the Fuller's Griffin Brewery at Chiswick, several brewpubs at Shanghai, Warsaw, Gdansk, Oslo, Flams, or even Phuket. None in Hong Kong.  That was a very disappointing and frustrating fact.

Now no more disappointment, thanks to the more and more popular craft beer becomes in town.  Eventually I read a Mr Rohit operating a rather new brewery in an industrial building in Ap Lei Chau, and was really excited.  I tried its IPA some time ago at Roundhouse in Soho.

Later when I learnt from my buddy that there would be a brewery tour to the Young Master Ales, I joined almost immediately.

Brewery at the southern side of the island

Ap Lei Chau seems to be far away, but actually the ride from Sheung Wan to the industrial building lasted only 35 minutes.  The set-up is actually rather humble: a unit on the fourth floor of the building, maybe around 3,000 square feet, comprising various stainless steel tanks and fermenters which perform the magical process of beer brewing.

The whole process of mashing, sparging, boiling, hops-adding, cold-crashing, pitching, racking into kegs, is done inside the unit.  That is quite a Hong Kong-style of operation: highly compact and efficient (of course very different from what I saw in the Fuller's).

Since the brewery not only aims at mass commercial production, but also producing some unfiltered, unpasteurized craft beer, the variety produced by this relatively small-scale set of equipment is quite great indeed.  There would be some five beers for us to taste after the visit in the brewery!

Unlike some other tour members who tasted the beers professionally (scanning the colour, smelling, sniffing, etc), I just drank in a pace that pleases myself. I am happy to drink any beer in the way I like.  I just appreciate drinking beers at the place where they are being brewed.  It is just a wonderful experience!

Which one do I like? Which one is the best?  I like them all, especially the Imperial IPA of 1842 Island.

Thank you, Mr Rohit, for doing a good work for our city of Hong Kong!

Phuket Days Three, Four and Five: Leo; Singha vs Chang; and stick to Singha

Leo and Chang

Eventually, I had opportunities to try Leo and Chang beer, in two separate occasions.  To be frank, they taste quite similarly.

I don't like Leo beer.  Not crispy at all to be any kind of suitable lager in a hot country.  I checked info at the website and know that Leo is by the same brewery of Singha.

Then I tried Chang, which tasted a bit better than Leo.

To figure out more clearly what difference there is between Singha and Chang, the two most popular beer in Thailand.  I bought a bottle each and bring them back to the villa and did a tasting comparison again.

Singha vs Chang

As you could see from the photo, their colours are actually very similar, with Singha a bit paler and Chang a bit more golden yellow (although both are pale lager already).  Bubbling also very similar.

I tried them very chilly in the first place.  When forced to tell their differences, I could say that Chang has a taste more like biscuit and Singha offered a bit flowery aroma.  Given that they are cold for drinking, you could not really tell much about their differences.

I wait for half an hour, and tried them again then.

The comparison is much easier.  Chang reminded the old days when I was young and was quite disgusted by the "bitter" taste of local San Miguel (when the brewery was still along the Castle Peak Road.  I remember those construction site workers pouring down bottles of San Miguel during lunch in those days because the beer is "tasty (or actually "bitterly") enough".  The taste of San Miguel is very different nowadays and therefore cannot be used as comparison in this case.)

On the other hand, warm/not chilly Singha was still drinkable.

As a conclusion, Singha is much better, to me.

Singha from bottle

On our final day in Phuket.  We walked along a beautiful beach in the morning and stopped at a cafe just beside the beach.  As my last bottle of beer for the trip, I ordered Singha (don't be cheated by the outside cover of Chang logo) and drank it straightly from the bottle.  That's the way all the tourists in Phuket drink beer: Singha directly from the bottle.  Cheers!!

Phuket Days One and Two: Singha, Full Moon Brewery

The five-day trip to Phuket, a new place to me, was relaxing, especially when I had no planning at all before departure.

Singha in a glass

When did I have my first glass of beer upon arrival?

It must be either Singha or Chang beer (everybody drinks either Singha or Chang in Phuket.  As I recalled, just one guy I saw drank Heineken in those five days.  And I found no sign of Carlsberg in the whole trip), during our first dinner in Phuket.  I had quite a poor memory now and I have to work it out from the colour of the beer halfly shown in the above photo.

I made a guess: it should be Singha, as Singha is always listed at the top of the beer list.  Always above Chang.  I don't know why (I guess I know later when I tried both a few days).

So just assume it was Singha.  Frankly speaking, I did not appreciate it as I should in that first time, because I didn't appreciate it against the local hot weather, the way people drink it, and its easy accessibility.

I have not tried Chang until our third day in Phuket.

Full Moon Brewwork

I did some internet research and found out this (the only one) microbrewery in Phuket.  It is located at Jungceylon, a very big shopping mall in Patong ("behind the ship", as it advertises itself).  So the first thing I got to Patong was to check the place out.

Three types of craft beer were available: Phuket Lager, Andaman Dark Ale and Oriental Wheat.  This time, I worked against the order of listing shown on the menu and chose Andaman Dark Ale.  No problem, it came chilly, but the taste was something between porter and bitter: not bitter enough for a ale-drinker like me, and not stout enough as I think a dark ale could do.  Maybe next time, I should try the Phuket Lager.  And I really appreciate the effort paid by the company to brew lager in such a hot place like Phuket.

Eventually, I finished half of the pint of beer (50% discount promotion for a pint: 85THB, and it is even cheaper than a half-pint (110THB as shown on menu)!).  That's enough for a tasting session, I think.

Belgian Beer Cafe

In the same internet research I did, I found out there is one cafe in Patong specialising in Belgian Beer.  What a great news to me.  I did not jot down its address as it was placed in some kind of luxury hotel and I did not think I would take a taxi especially for the place.

BUT you never know in what specific way our Lord loves us.  When I walked out of the long Patong beach back to the Beach Road because of the shower, I found a sign written as "Belgian Beer Cafe" just ahead of us.

I am in love of Kasteel beer recently (especially its beautiful glass) and I tried Kasteel Hoppy (for the first time) and Veronica ordered Kriek by St. Louis.  After a few minutes, I just took off my England shirt and put on my Chang beer vest (just because of it design bettering Singha, not its taste).

After some time, both of us were in Chang beer vests!!

A very cozy atmosphere in the beer cafe: friendly while elegant.  That was the attractiveness of Belgian beer. Such was that wonderful night!

(to be continued)

Home Brewing (1)

After reading all those descriptions on how beer is made, it is finally time to have my own trial on beer brewing.  Initially, I think equipment and ingredients are the difficult part.  But it was lucky for me to come across the booth of "The Beer Necessities" at Beertopia in April, and this online store sells various kinds of brewing equipment and ingredient.  Good!!

I started with its small batch all-grain system, comprising a set of equipment needed for brewing one gallon of beer.  For the beer, I chose Edinburgh IPA, expecting to obtain some hoppy juice for tasting purpose in the worst case.

In the beginning, it looked like this:

The grain came as milled and packaged, and all we have to do is to add it into a pot of hot liquor (mineral water, not tap water, suggested in this case) for Mashing.

Mashing lasted for an hour, to make sure all the grist are soaked up.  Temperature has to be kept as 62-67 degree Celsius.

After an hour, and strain away all the grist residue, you get the Wort now.

Then came the boiling and addition of hops.  Adding hops could be tricky and varies depending on the style of beer you are brewing.  For the Edinburgh IPA, two hops are used.  They came in the form of extract and are easier to be handled.

The first kind of hops (A) were added at the beginning of boiling, while the second one (B) were added in four different batches during the hour-long boiling.

After an hour of boiling, you got the hopped wort (with fermentable sugar) and you are ready to add the magical yeast for the process of fermentation.

We are using a packet of dried yeast in this case.  After addition, yeast will reproduce itself in the wort in the first phase of aerobic fermentation.

Three days later, we used the air lock to keep the big jar from any more air coming in contact with the wort (or you could say half-beer), then allow it for 7-11 days of fermentation.  In this phase, the yeast would eat up the sugar, transform it into alcohol and carbon dioxide.

When all the bubbling stops, we could assume that the active fermentation also stops somehow.  We would transfer the beer into bottles (or cask if you have a spacious home!), and wait for maybe two to three weeks (wishing the beer to become more matured).

I prepared five bottles of homemade Edinburgh IPA today.  Although all the stupid mistakes made in the process, I consider my first trial of home brewing half-finished.  Why not take a preliminary taste of that!

A really hoppy juice indeed.

Warsaw, Poland (2)

I have to put a full-stop of my summer journey to Poland here somehow, so I travelled back to Warsaw by a five-hour train.

It was already late in the evening when we were back to hotel and the royal route.  The only think we could practically did was to have a dinner, of course with beer.  We decided to go to a microbrewery nearby: Browarmia Krolewska (meaning Royal Brewery).

I don't have to do much description here, because of what I retrieved from it website (English version!)

Browarmia Królewska was established in August 2005 as Warsaw’s first restaurant–brewery. At present, we brew 12 types of beer, which are brewed according to traditional european recipes.

The restaurant is situated on the ground floor. The basement is assigned to the brewhouse. The atmosphere is relaxed yet sophisticated. Our kitchen serves traditional Polish and International dishes, which satisfies even our most demanding guests.

Yes, I could have a glimpse of copper and other brewery settings when I walked to the washroom in the basement.  The place was not small, and there were some plaques demonstrating various prizes received by the establishment.

I tried the Pils and it was reasonably good.  The place was crowed, with locals and tourists.  They were mostly sitting outside, while we stayed indoor.  The TV showed a live football match, and I recognised the Legia Warszawa was playing (and eventually won 3-0).  Everything was nice and seemed to be in some kind of order, just a bit too touristic maybe.

After visiting some microbreweries and you came across some good and some bad stuff.  I am sure I will treasure the bottled beer more when I would be back to Hong Kong, because of its professional quality (which you know was not attained easily).

Cheers, mate!!

Gdansk, Poland

I have never been this city in Poland before, although I have to admit that the name of the city sounds quite familiar to me as it appeared so frequently in the TV news (格但斯克船廠) when I was small (should be the 80s).  That's exactly the same period that Kieslowski (my favourite film director, Polish, also a philosopher) created its best films: Blind Chance, Camera Buff, Decalogue, etc.  I believe that difficult times activate people's hearts and minds, as people need to express themselves in the times of adversity.  Anyway, I was here, 17 years after the death of Kieslowski.

It was mostly daytime when I traveled around and visited various places in the city, so I did not visit any bar at all.  But it didn't stop my search.  On a side street within the Main Town, I came across this bar and beer shop, which sells hundreds of local and imported beer.  I was more than delighted when I found this shop.

I tried three bottled beers from some local independent breweries.  I liked the citric one while the IPA style tasted too hoppy for me (they always are).

The point is not about their taste being good or not, it's about you seeing people in Gdansk is serious about their beer drinking.

We planed to depart for Warsaw by noon, but the earliest available train would only leave after 2pm when we arrived at the station.  We had to pick an eatery, so we came across a microbrewery (again!) just opposite the train station.

 

I have talked about the popularity of microbreweries in Europe (at least in Poland and Norway) now.  But when it becomes popular, the question of quality pops up immediately.  And this Lubrow Minibrowar served a good example of how ordinary beers could be.

Regardless of its menu, I ordered a set of tasting samples.  Basically, they were all undrinkable if you appreciate quality beer.  Anyway it was a good experience when you could visit a microbrewery somewhere (while you could find none in this Asian Metropolitan).

The Main Town of Gdansk is very beautiful, and I found the city very lively (compared to the business-look of Warsaw). I am sure I will remember this city for long long time...

Bergen & Flam, Norway

I had a short stay in Bergen actually, as our aim was a trip to fjord.  So it was rather a stop-over, and we did not even visit a bar there (and reluctant to mention that we were rejected by a supermarket cashier when we intended to buy a bottle of beer after 8pm).

Departing for the fjord at 8am, and we arrived at Flam before noon.  Flam is a beautiful, small port by the tip of a fjord, also at the bottom tip of a steep railway line.  There was a museum depicting the struggle in opening up the railway.  I always cannot imagine the hardship of railway workers a century ago, when we could comfortably sit in a train and enjoy the scenery along the rail.  How could we pay tribute to them?  In a respectable and proper way ...

I have not read much tourist information about this small port town, therefore it was quite a surprise to us when we found a microbrewery there - AEgir Bryggeri.  More correctly when I noticed that this one is only second-best after the Oslo one (much better than the ones in Warsaw and Gdansk).

They sell a set of five tasting samples and we tried that.  There should be enough time for us as the ferry would only leave in one and a half hours.

They are usually presented in a order from light through hoppy/bitter flavour to port or stout, as you could see them from left to right (not necessary fitted with your imagination on the colours).  They are all good, but in general showing a rather pale finish (as you could always describe as crispy).  This is a general observation I could conclude in visiting several microbreweries (except the Oslo one), the beer brewed are mainly light or pale, except any single one of IPA which showed the strong character of hoppyness.  Among the five, the like the first one the most, i.e. Boyla Blonde Ale (4.7% ABV).  The taste is very well-balanced and refreshing - perfect for a Norwegian summer afternoon!

The ferry took us through Aurlandsfjord and Naeroyfjord, and eventually back to Bergen in the late evening.

We have nothing to complain but gratitude to everything we've seen: the fjords, seabirds, a big waterfall, steep railway, a microbrewery and all the beautiful scenery.