31 January, 2009

Tiger Beer by Asia Pacific Breweries

While at a party last week, I was looking for a beer and Tiger caught my eye - must have been the cool 1930's-style font on the label and embossed above the shoulder of the bottle, I'm a sucker for prewar graphic design.

Tiger is a fairly middle-of-the-road American-style lager (despite it's Asia-Pacific origins.) It pours yellow with a pure-white head that settles down to a thin foam layer. Not too hoppy - I'd describe the taste as grainy with a touch of corn. The malt really comes through, and overall I'd say the taste is pretty similar to Miller High Life (but not as sweet.)

It would probably be a decent ice-cold quaff on a hot summer day, but to be honest, I'll probably never know: The package store charges import-beer prices for Tiger, but Tiger is definitely domestic-suds quality. I can get beer that's just as good or better for a lot less coin.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just as a test, I had a Tiger last night with dinner - it was as you say, though I think more Budweiser than Miller. Next round I got something else.

But in Singapore a couple weeks ago the Tigers tasted better (less of that irritating grain taste), and it wasn't the heat (only mid-80s).

I wonder if Anheuser-Busch InBev has a say in how the export version is brewed (I almost thought we had a Kirin situation, but the label clearly said that it was brewed and bottled in Singapore).

Dave said...

I compared Tiger to Miller because of the malty sweetness, but I can definitely agree that it's very Bud-like.

I wouldn't be surprised if APB had slightly different versions for different markets. I've run into that with other food products.