Tiger Beer

www.tigerbeer.com

Brewed by Singapore Brewery (Asia Pacific Breweries-Heineken)
Style: Pale Lager
Alexandra Point, Singapore

Launched in 1932, Tiger beer is a best selling brew from the small Asian country of Singapore. It is very popular and is Asia’s number one beer brand owned and run by Asia Pacific Breweries Ltd, formerly Malayan Breweries Ltd.

The brewing giant from The Netherlands, Heineken have always had a helping hand in the creation of this iconic brand. They came up with the idea of a brewery this side of the world, but were initially thinking of Indonesia, as the nation was a Dutch colony, but were denied. Singapore was then chosen. Together with Fraser and Neave (F&N), Heineken launched Malayan Breweries in 1931, and a year later we got Tiger Beer. Today, Heineken owns 42% of the shares of Asia Pacific Breweries.

Today Tiger Beer is brewed in 11 countries and is available in over 70 countries worldwide, from the US and the UK to the ever burgeoning market of China. The beer has also won numerous awards down through the years, including the Gold Medals for “International-Style Lager” and “European Style Pilsner” in the 2004 and 2010 editions of the World Beer Cup.

It is quite a popular beer, especially in Asia, and has used “There’s always time for a Tiger” as its catchphrase since the 1930s, made famous by the British author Anthony Burgess, him of A Clockwork Orange fame, named his 1956 first novel “Time for a Tiger” (the first part of the Malayan trilogy The Long Day Wanes) after the slogan of the iconic beer.

It’s not only Tiger lager that the brewery produces, they also have a “Tiger Crystal” which was launched in 2010, is a beer cooled down to a temperature of -1 degree Celsius. Its “Tiger Radler”, released in 2013, uses natural lemon juice with the beer. In 2016, Tiger Beer introduced “Tiger Black”, a type of black beer that is steeped with Asian black rice, which sounds very interesting, and “Tiger White”, a type of German wheat beer infused with coriander, clove and citrus.

Review: 500ml bottle of Tiger Beer: 4.8% vol.

Can find it as 5% vol. in other regions of the world. Comes in a bottle, can or from the tap. Popular in Asia especially as it is the perfect beer to have as the sun goes down.

Unlike a lot of other Asian beers, Tiger actually use quality ingredients from Australia and Europe. No shitty rice beers here!

Love the famous iconic branding, the famous tiger logo and nice big colourful lettering, the blue, orange and gold. Stands out for sure. On the bottle we get “World acclaimed Asian lager”, born in Singapore and this is an “award winning full bodied beer”.

On the pour I am getting a nice clear golden coloured beer with a white head that is a little on the small side. Some slight carbonation. Ok on the looks.

The aroma is not great, very light, an ok lagery smell, all malty and grainy on the nose but too light and a little too much corn and very sweet.

The taste is easy enough to appreciate, was very soft on the tongue, nice and crisp.

Nice frothy mouthfuls initially, and also getting some corn in the taste.

Tasted like a regular lager, no real complaints there. Perhaps a little creamy off taste but generally it was ok. Getting the malts and grains, and the fruits, with the hops on the low level.

To be frank I was a little disappointed as the overall taste was ok but nothing too exciting, a bit bland in fact, nothing to set it apart from the millions of lagers out there. Disappointed as I have had this beer many a time when I was in Asia. In fact it was my most favourite beer that side of the world, lovely from the taps. I just guess it doesn’t travel well, and not so exciting in a bottle thousands of miles away from home. Perfect for the hot humid Asian cityscape, not so when its piddling down in bog town Ireland!

Overall it was light, smooth and drinkable but with no kick or standout features. Boring.