2023 A Year on Ice for Craft Beers (But 2024 Might Be Lit 🔥)

2023 was a scorcher, alright. Not just because Singapore sweltered through its hottest year ever, but also because craft beer sales felt a bit...chilled. Sure, the global economic meltdown didn't happen but the cost of living (from record prices of COE to our local kopi) burns, leaving pockets feeling emptier than a pint glass at last call. Didn’t help that Singapore in December kinda feel like ghost town - where’s everyone?!

But hey, before we drown our sorrows in a lukewarm lager, let's remember: 2024 is a blank canvas. The CDC vouchers are due (wondering out loud if we could buy craft beers with that), whispers of travel bubbles are swirling and Singapore's still the vibrant city we know and love.

So, let's raise a glass (of something hoppy and delicious, naturally) to a fresh year, bold decisions and precious moments with friends and fam. Legggooooo!

100% you’ll be thirsty

Plenty of delicious beers from Vocation have landed and here are TWO beers you're gonna lurrrrve ❤️

JUMP FOR JUICE A 'zhng-ed' up version of Vocation's Hop, Skip & Juice Pale Ale. Brewed with Yuzu (Passionfruit version also available), JUMP FOR JUICE will keep you calm and cool even when everyone's lost theirs. Here's what fans are saying about this special series.

The second beer we're super excited is one for the SOURHEADS.

SPRINKLE & SQUEEZE (44CL) Homage to the pancake. Vocation brewed a tart lemon pastry sour with vanilla and caramelised sugar, combining to recreate the nostalgic sweet & sour hit of still-warm, buttery pancakes, sticky with sugar and golden syrup and spiked with lemon juice. Sour lemon up front, with a medium-rich, smooth mouthfeel and a sweet finish. Who's gonna resist this?!

And there’s more - both kegs and cans. Hit us up for latest list before they’re wiped out!

Craft Beer Festivals

Towards the end of 2022, along with the removal of residual Covid-10 restrictions in Singapore, large-scale gatherings resumed. Festivals returned and in less than 3 months, we participated in two craft beer festivals Brewlahlah and Urban Beer Festival among several other industry parties.

Always, you get to drink (really good stuff), you get fed (by everyone else) and you get to know everyone else on festival ground much better- even if an hour ago you were mere acquaintance. And this is really what craft beer vibes are about. Community.

So the next time you hear of a craft beer party happening, be sure to join!

British Stouts & Porters

Landing soon

Post #1: 2023

Hello fam, hope you've had a wonderful 2023 so far. Once the CNY festivities are over, it’ll be pedal to the metal work-wise.😅

There’s been talks of a global recession in 2023 and if all optimists are right on this, it will be soft and short recession. How will it impact F&B? How will it impact craft beers consumption?

We founded this business 2 years before the 2009 Global Financial Crisis. When news that Lehman Brothers has collapsed, we were more intrigued than worried as to how this economic crisis would impact us. Interestingly, the local F&B sector held super steady. Beer-related events - Beer Festivals, Beer Dinners etc were seemingly unaffected. None of our clients shut down or retrenched.

Will the F&B sector be OK this time round? If recessions typically result in a job retrenchments and a freeze on hiring, yet in our severely manpower-starved F&B sector, what is there to retrench?! What are your thoughts on the impact of a global recession on local F&B sector?

What I'll be drinking this Christmas (or maybe, in Nov)

X'MAS = INDULGE, right?

Towards the end of the year, we usually get a bumper crop of rich tasty and powerful brews from the breweries. On one spectrum, there would be beers jammed with fruits and spices and on the other, barrel-aged beers dripping with complexity. Featuring the latter series

BANOFFEE PARDUS Inspired by the British Banoffee Pie, packed with toasty tones and treacle notes to complement the rich banana and toffee sweetness.

NECESSARY EVIL BOURBON BARREL AGED A heavy hitter at 13%, this imperial stout spent 8 long months in bourbon barrels so get ready to bathe in the sweet bourbon, vanilla, oak and plenty of rich chocolate.

BRACIA BOURBON BARREL AGED Brewed with Italian chestnut honey, this 12% Dark Ale is heavily layered. Everything you imagine as indulgent,thi is it. Chocolate, dark fruit, hazelnut, honey, liquorice, tobacco, oak.... BRACIA BBA = BOOTIFUL!

Ready for delivery from 1 Nov 2022.

Cryo XPA: Something your guests will drink plenty of

In recent years, as brewers attempt to extract maximum aroma and flavours from hops, Yakima Chief developed what is fast becoming the solution, Cryo Hops. Using cryogenic processes, the power of hop pellets is turbo-charged. This form of hops is essentially a highly-concentrated version of lupulin (an oil inside the hop that creates the expressive flavours and aromas that craft beer drinkers love) minus the astringency or vegetative characteristics that can be present in hops.

Feral Brewing’s latest core beer CRYO XPA is exclusively cryo-hopped. And coming off at 4.8%, this easy drinking beer has all the vibrant tropical notes without the cloying heaviness. In other words, this is the beer that your guest will be saying “get me another one of this!”

We’re Ready for delivery across Singapore starting 27 Oct 2022. Get in touch with us to stock.

For private & home consumption, please visit online craft beer shop The Great Beer Experiment to purchase.

Don't get salty on Gose

Our first taste of Gose (pronounced GO-ZUH) was 15 years ago, in 2007. We were still operating out of a 1-room storeroom, 1-room office back then, in our 1st year of hobby business. A traditional German brewery had shipped two cases of Gose over. Because we started our craft beer journey few years before it became a business proper, we thought our palate was reasonably experienced & mature. We were familiar (and in love) with Flemish Red Ales, Lambics and smoked Imperial Stouts, pretty much the extreme end of beer flavours. Pretty much ALL the extreme flavours right? WRONG.

Gose tipped the extreme of extreme. It’s a German wheat beer with dominant saltiness and sourness, and that first taste was akin to drinking cold salted-veg soup that we find on the dinner table, or liquified potato chips. That first bottle took a while to empty and equally left a deep impression in both of us.

In recent years, sours have taken off in the craft beer universe. Customers were asking us for more because their customers couldn’t get enough. Gose has re-emerged as a popular style as well, riding along with this trend for sour beers. What we do notice however, is that the saltiness have tamped down, with more shine given to the sour than salty characteristic. Nonetheless, a very quaffable and delicious beer style, particularly suited for our tropical Singapore climate.

So stock up on Gose! New stocks just in. Contact us for pricelist

Geek Out!

The emergence of craft beers could not have happened 3 decades ago without the desire for experimentation. Craft beer is not only tasty but it keeps drinkers hooked because there’s always something different to try. Brewers are like scientists - they toy with new techniques and unusual ingredients, and sometimes they push it further by teasing apart the expression of variants of an ingredient.

For several years, To-OL and Dry & Bitter have taken on such projects and in our latest shipment, the Stereo Mono and Versus series from them demonstrates how far they take the science of brewing to.

Give it a try! Orders are ready for delivery after 15 July 2022.

Sours from TO-OL

15 years since we shipped the first sour beer (Rodenbach Flemish Ale) to Singapore, our community’s appetite for sours have certainly grown. While some have a preference for the super-sours (think Super Lemon sweet), many prefer a milder sour.

Tip your toes in the world of sours. Here’s FOUR we recommend!

Request for pricelist

Omnipollo Restocked

Kicking off 2022 with the no other than the legend of the craft beer universe, Omnipollo A mix of imperial stouts and plenty plenty of sours, more importantly, hitting your favourite stores real soon. Check our IG page to find out who they are!

LORELEI (33CL) IMPERIAL PORTER W/ TOASTED COCONUT & MAPLE SYRUP

NOA PECAN MUD CAKE (33CL) IMPERIAL PASTRY STOUT

PLUCKIN FEATHERS (33CL) IMPERIAL STOUT W/ BLUEBERRY, COCONUT & HAZELNUT

CRISP CRISP CRISP (33CL) AMERICAN PALE ALE

BALATON (33CL) IPA W/ STRATA

MAZ AMERICAN PALE ALE

TEFNUT PASS OUT (33CL) IMPERIAL GOSE W/ BLACKBERRY, BLACKCURRANT, BLACK RASPBERRY, BLACK GRAPES, BLACK TOMATO, BLACK CORN, CHARCOAL, SQUID INK & BLACK LAVA

TEFNUT POMPELMOCELLO (33CL) IMPERIAL GOSE W/ GRAPEFRUIT, ORANGE JUICE & VANILLA

TEFNUT STRAWBERRY (33CL) IMPERIAL GOSE W/ STRAWBERRY

BIANCA LIMONCELLO LASSI GOSE (44CL) FRUIT GOSE

BIANCA NOA STRAWBERRY PECAN MUD CAKE LASSI GOSE (44CL) FRUIT GOSE

BIANCA BLACKBERRY MAPLE PANCAKE LASSI GOSE (44CL) FRUIT GOSE

BIANCA BLACKBERRY BLUEBERRY MARSHMALLOW LASSI GOSE (44CL) FRUIT GOSE

BIANCA DOUBLE TANGERINE LASSI GOSE (44CL) FRUIT GOSE

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Scandi Spotlight

Scandinavia is more than just great design. Omnipollo changed the way we thought beers could taste like with their Bianca Lassi Gose while TO-OL brewed imperial IPAs and barrel aged imperial stouts that redefined IPAs and stouts. Couple of months back, we began repping Danish craft brewery Dry & Bitter. Their 1st shipment definitely smashed and raised the level of craft beers. Since then we’ve had couple more shipments with one landing next week. What to look out for, you say? Geek out on these 2 series

Round 1: Different Yeast, Same Base (New England IPA)

This series explores the differences between two NEIPA yeasts, while keeping the process and all other ingredients the same. For Versus Hew (44cl), Lallemand’s Verdant yeast was used. For Versus Hue (44cl), White Labs’ London Fog yeast was used. Both beer were dry-hopped with Citra, El Dorado and Chinook.

Round 2: Different Hop Varietals (single), Same Base (New England IPA)

This series AMPERSAND explores 3 different hop varietals (Idaho7, Mouteka, Strata). Using a balanced, medium-bodied New England IPA as base, and adding different hops to each batch, this allows each hop’s distinctive personality shine through. If experiments like this speak to the nerd in you, shoot us a line for stocks.

Westvleteren 12

What a find when you do housekeeping! In the midst of the semi-lockdown, we (re)discovered a stash of Westvleteren 12 (a fantastic Belgian quad if you're not familiar!) that's been cellaring quietly for 7 years. In normal times we'll gift some to friends and donate the rest to raise funds for charitable causes.


First, a little about Westvleteren 12 (also known as Westie 12). This is a Belgian quadrupel brewed at the hallowed grounds of Sint Sixtus Westvleteren Trappist Monastery. Long revered as one of the best beers in the world (a 100 pointer on Ratebeer, BeerAdvocate and by numerous beer reviewers), this is also one of the rarest beers in the world.

What’s happened to our stash?

We’d given them away! To enliven the limbo state that the F&B industry were in, 7 craft beer venues Druggists, Almost Famous, In Bad Co, Freebird, Chooby’s, Bunker Bunker and The Otherside gathered together and held lucky draws. Watch results announcement by Lincoln here

Photography Yves Herman/Reuters

Photography Yves Herman/Reuters

Craft Beer Launches

December and January were busy months! Kicked off with the launch of Melbourne’s very popular craft brewery Bodriggy, followed by the launch of cult brand Omnipollo in Singapore. All we heard for the rest of the month was “Do you have more Bianca Lassi Gose?” Sorry folks, we’re out but new stuffs are on the way.

Then in January, we hit the jackpot when Danish craft breweries Dry & Bitter and Gamma Brewing agreed to ship us their liquids. They first came to our radar back in 2018-2019 when our Swedish friends said we would love their beers. Spot on, we did, and so did Singapore. 36 cartons of beer flew outta warehouse on Day One.

We’re always looking for new spots to launch great beers and new partners to collaborate with. If you’d like to get first dips or be part of our future launch campaigns, whatsApp us at +65 93851752 with “Hey Corrine, I’d like to join your upcoming launch campaign. Send me more deets “ to get the conversation rolling. Be part of the fun!

2021 Trends

2020 was the year where we got bombed ad nauseam by the word "pivot". The equivalent in the craft beer community has been “juicy” and without a doubt, the upshot of the trending ‘New England IPA’ style. What do you think you’ll be seeing and hearing plenty of in 2021? Lager? Some have been saying this for years. Our money’s on Sour. Maybe not funky, but sour definitely. Then again, you know we’ve always had a soft spot for sours.

Speaking of sours, get your hands on these 2 gems from TO-OL. CONSIDERED CONSIDERATIONS and CUTTING CLOUDS are the 1st batch of ales under the "NATUR" series, inoculated with wild yeast and barrel aged at TO-OL's new space. Get them, age them! If it's TO-OL, you know its gonna be magic. Available in 75cl bottles and 30L kegs.

Promo of the Month

Crabbie’s Alcoholic Ginger Beer. Steeped in ginger, combined with quality ingredients and matured for 6 weeks to create a deliciously distinctive flavour. One of the most versatile beverage we have come across. On it’s own, the spiciness is terrific and refreshing. With food, it works wonderfully with red meat that’s BBQ, grilled, smoked, pan-fried, and with so many different local dishes it’s hard to go wrong with Crabbie’s. And if cocktail is your game, this set of recipes will come in handy.

Hit us up for more details on this trade promos. While stocks last.

Kegs on steroids

Rainy days may mean soggy shoes and restaurant cancellations but the cold weather also presents an opportunity for recommending fuller-bodied and robust beers that would otherwise have been a tad heavy for our humid weather. From the Land of Vikings, fantastic stouts from Amager and TO-OL have just landed. Personally, we've never had a mediocre stout from Amager & TO-OL so we say, grab them fast! Download catalogue.

3X SORT MAELK BARREL AGED (30L)  IMPERIAL MILK STOUT AGED IN WHISKY BARRELS FOR 3 YEARS  GOLIAT (20L) IMPERIAL COFFEE STOUT  GOLIAT MAPLE BACON EDITION (20L) IMPERIAL COFFEE STOUT WITH MAPLE SYRUP  JULE MAELK TEQUILA (20L) IMPERIAL MILK STOUT WITH T…

3X SORT MAELK BARREL AGED (30L)
IMPERIAL MILK STOUT AGED IN WHISKY BARRELS FOR 3 YEARS

GOLIAT (20L)
IMPERIAL COFFEE STOUT

GOLIAT MAPLE BACON EDITION (20L)
IMPERIAL COFFEE STOUT WITH MAPLE SYRUP

JULE MAELK TEQUILA (20L)
IMPERIAL MILK STOUT WITH TEQUILA OAK

MR BLUE 2019 (20L)
IMPERIAL BLACKCURRANT STOUT

AMAGER
BLACK NORDIC SKIES (30L)
IMPERIAL STOUT

CREAMY DELIGHT (30L)
IMPERIAL STOUT

FUEL TO FIRE (30L)
IMPERIAL STOUT WITH COFFEE, VANILLA AND COCOA

HR FREDERIKSEN (30L)
IMPERIAL STOUT

THE MORTICIAN (30L)
IMPERIAL STOUT

TO-OL: From Gypsy to City

After being a gypsy brewer for decade, To Øl has its own home. More aptly, a village. To Øl city comprises 12 massive buildings (taking up ¼ of the neighbourhood) with people producing beers, spirits, ciders, kombuchas and even fermenting vinegars and potatoes.

As a gypsy brewer, there is a certain constraint as beers are managed by an independent brewer. Having their own brewery currently provides them with massive flexibility to take on the wildest projects that’s limited only by their own imagination.

TO-OL City in Svinninge, Denmark

TO-OL City in Svinninge, Denmark

As a distributor, we have heard for years, from both industry folks as well as consumers how much they love the brews from TO-OL. They may not be particularly “noisy” in their marketing but their beers surely speak for themselves. Check out our craft beer catalogue for the latest TO-OL range.

To find out more about TO-OL city, watch this video.