Things have been quiet on the HERMAN front for a few weeks as Ani and I have been visiting family and holidaying in Malaysia and Singapore. With Melbourne getting cold, it was always time for a beer wherever we were in the tropics .

Tiger beer is popular in this part of the world, and although it is meant as an easy drinker, in my opinion it is much nicer than most megalagers in Australia. I would drink it any day over the locally made Carlsberg as well. One of the quirky things is that you have to specifically ask not to have ice in your beer in these places. It makes sense because it warms up so quickly that ice is standard serving practice.

A can of Tiger costs around 60 cents Australian locally. It was a bit of a shock to see a slab of 24 cans in my local liquor shop back in Melbourne for $45.

Night view of Singapore

Anyway, for a city, island and country that is very fussy about being neat and proper, where chewing gum is illegal, beer and other alcohol runs a plenty. Once the city began to wake up (at around 8pm at night), the mall closest to where we were staying was having a vodka party. The cocktail waiters were dancing and spinning their mixers with great fanfare. We decided that vodka shots was not our style though, and headed for Brewerkz on the river.

Enjoying an award winning IPA at Brewerkz.

The beer at Brewerkz was excellent, with about half of them collecting awards this year at the Australian International Beer Awards. The double IPA goes down too easily in this climate! They even had a hand-pumped English ale on tap. The waitress knew enough to warn me it would be flat.

While the beer was great and the atmosphere quite nice, they do not run tours which was disappointing.

We only had about 24 hours in Singapore, and nothing was open the next day until after noon. We couldn't even find a place to eat breakfast except for our hotel. By noon we were thirsty again, so found our way to the Pump Room brew pub. We didn't stay there long, but the bohemian pilsner was excellent and preferred over their own pump room lager.

The pump room at Clarke Quay.

Our next stop was the Paulaner Brauhaus. There was not much happening here so no tours but we were allowed to take lots of photos.

The place was more impressive than their beer which was a touch disappointing after our previous stops. I'm sure that the quality is much better in Munich as well.

Lots of shiny equipment to salivate over behind the bar.

The place we were most interested in seeing was our final stop before flying out. Raffles hotel is an icon of the British empire. One of the 'must do' items listed in the lonely planet is to visit Raffles, order a Singapore Sling, and throw peanut shells on the floor. Of course we did the tourist thing, and enjoyed the ambience of the place.

Sipping a Singapore sling at Raffles.

After two weeks of travelling, two weeks and two currencies, it was time to come back home. Now it is time to add a few refinements to HERMAN and brew again this weekend.