I attended the trade event for Beerfest Asia 2015. All in all it was a good opportunity to meet fellow local brewers, local distributors and share a couple of beers. Here are some thoughts I had on the event:

• Archipelago was holding a beer-and-food-pairing workshop in partnership with the employment and employability institute.  I thought that was a good start to push for more craft awareness in the f&b industry.
• There wasn’t much ‘trade’ activity going on – distributors were busy making sure their booths were ready for the public session, neither was there much networking to be done. A good number of ‘trade visitors’ were from the media(myself included).
• The trade session quickly escalated into people getting started on drinking early.

Some thoughts on the rest of Beerfest Asia:

• Food options were limited and disappointing(akin to previous years). Pre-prepared bar snacks and fried offerings by Harry’s Bar led to me heading out to the nearest hawker offerings to re-line my stomach walls before continuing.
• Once the music started – there wasn’t really much appreciation of beer going on, let alone making conversation. Beerfest has always been a venue for having a good time with beer in a supporting role, rather than being the focus of appreciation.
• Beer promoters, with a mission to wear less and sell more(at least for some booths). No, I would not like another Jagermeister, thank you very much.
• Did not witness this first-hand on all the days – but music was pretty much identical to previous years. The separation of the promoters plus rock music and the specialty beer plus blues was a plus point though.
• More people asking for different beer styles! Looking good for Singapore.

Credits to Frank Shen.

So long until next year, BFA.