Here's me posing out front. I may look calm but my insides and all excited in the anticipation to find out what The Experience it all about!You enter the front of the building and are greeted by several girls in tight little Tiger Beer outfits. We bought our tickets and were led to the first of many tour rooms. Our guide, a girl, talked about the beer making process. The first room was decorated with hops, barley, running water... all the necessary things required to make a nice cold glass of beer. The room was filled with Tiger Beer logos as well as beer bottles being transported along a conveyor belt. Once the beer making process tour was complete a gush of air filled the room and a secret door on the right opened. The gush of air was an interested addition. I felt like I was entering a space airlock and not a brewery tour. We went through the newly appeared door and once we were all through, the door sealed behind us. I could have sworn I heard the sound of a lock locking itself into place. Were we being kidnapped by Tiger Beer?
The second room was decorated like a small town. There were three buildings with large windows. The lights in the room went down and one of the windows lit up revealing two guys loading boxes of Tiger Beer into a warehouse. I guess they were the comic relief because their personalities were way over the top and silly. Think of the movie Dumb & Dumber only with gay Singaporeans. They talked about how working in the warehouse is hard work but well worth it because, well, it's for Tiger Beer after all! After several minutes of silly banter and some on the job drinking (Tiger Beer of course), the warehouse worker's window went black and one of the other windows lit up. This time it was a beer master working in a lab trying to create the most perfect glass of beer. He was overly excited about his job; a little too excited. I think, like the warehouse workers before him, he was drunk. He talked about the importance of fresh ingredients and patience to make the most perfect beer. After a few minutes his window went black and was replaced by a third window, this time with two older ladies knitting. I kid you not: old ladies knitting. I couldn't quite understand how old ladies knitting related to Tiger Beer but as they talked I saw the connection. They were talking about a brief history of Singapore. From their standpoint it was the early 1960s. After several minutes of this history lesson a third woman excitedly ran up to the two other woman and explained that Singapore has just become an independent Republic. The time frame here was back in August 9, 1965. All three ladies were extremely excited! Guess how they celebrated? With a tall cold glass of Tiger Beer of course! This windowed presentation went on for several more minutes rotating from window to window. During the last bit all three windows came on at the same time and the people said good bye. They toasted us with bottles of Tiger Beer and once the windows went black, another gush of air filled the room and another secret doorway slid open. This is where The Experience starts!
We walked in the third room and noticed a very industrial looking landscape of metal and wiring. We were led onto a large circular metal platform and were told to sit down. We seat belted ourselves in, put on the 3D glasses given to us, and sat back to take in Tiger LIVE: The 4D Experience! The lights went down and the whole room started to shake. Smoke shot out of the walls and a huge screen in front of us blipped into existence. On the screen was a 3D computer generated cartoon representation of wheat. Yes, wheat. Our hero in this story is a piece of wheat. The wheat, called Charlie, was harvested from a farm and found himself in a container with another piece of wheat, female this time. Our two heroes were brought through the whole beer making process. Somewhere along the line the two wheats had sex ... I think that was referring to the chemical reactions produced during the yeast fermentation process of beer but it was hard to understand since this 4D show kept blasting us with smoke, air and lights. At one point the whole stage lifted itself up and twisted us around so we were facing a different screen. Imagine the money thrown into this show? All this for beer! The show ended and we were led into a pub: our final stop. At this pub the bartender showed us the proper way to tap a glass of Tiger Beer. He asked for volunteers and I jumped to the challenge!
First I'm instructed to wash the glass. Make sense, who wants a dirty beer glass?
Secondly, I pour the glass. Gently Kenn, gently... don't spill any of the nectar of the Gods (the Singaporean Gods that is)!
Finally, here's me displaying my kinship glass of Tiger Beer. I look like a proud father don't I?
Here's Aimee proudly posing in front of the Tiger Beer sign. During our tour Aimee sampled Tiger Beer for the first time. She took a sip and said, "Mmm, it's pretty good", and then immediately handed her glass to me so I could finish it. I'm not quite sure what that means... she likes it enough to give it away? Girls perplex me... I'm so confused.
On our way out there was a photo booth. The booth had a big sign that read, "Give us your best Tiger pose. Pick your background and we'll superpose you on it." After the photo was taken a message appeared on the screen that read, "Tell us your e-mail address and we'll clean up the photo and send it to you." What's interesting about the line "we'll clean up the photo and send it to you" is the photo they ended up e-mailing me was worse than the first example photo taken. Oh well, bad photo or not, at least it proves we were happily enjoying our Tiger Beer Experience!After this experience I feel I need to fulfill my Asian beer experience by taking the San Miguel brewery tour. Hopefully I can write a blog about that in the coming months...
Cheers! Toast!
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