Blue Lion Beer – First German Beer Crafted for the Asian Palate
January 29, 2016
Chinese cuisine is full of bold, varied flavors and rich dishes, and it’s often served family-style so you end up with a meal overflowing with seafood, meat, rice or noodles all competing for your palate’s attention. Instead of matching a brew to each dish, I prefer to find a beer that works for the meal as a whole.
Blue Lion may be the most versatile beer with a Chinese meal. The earthy hop bitterness and carbonation are moderate, but enough to cut through any heavy sauces or rich meats.
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About Blue Lion Beer
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Blue Lion Beer is the brainchild of the Singapore and German offices of the Shriro Group, which has more than 3,500 staff in 15 markets across 4 continents. A family-owned business with more than 100 years of history, the Shriro Group owns businesses in diverse industries.
The idea of crafting a German brew customised for the beer-loving Asian palate emerged when Singaporean and German office colleagues were having a company dinner. It was unanimous among them that German lager was delicious but may be slightly heavy for the Asian palate. From a simple company-bonding dinner, it gave birth to a vision of using expert German brewing techniques to create a lager suited for the Asian market.
To understand how well Blue Lion pairs with Asian Food, we visited Swatow Teochew Restaurant to have a taste test.
Available during the Chinese New Year period is this classic Teochew-style abalone yusheng that uses freshly grated vegetables dressed with a homemade plum sauce. Such a great palate opener for us and the fruity malt base of Blue Lion complements the Yu Sheng as every bite was refreshing.
Teochew cooking uses less flavouring than most other Chinese cuisines and depends much on the freshness and quality of the ingredients for taste and flavour. “Through methods like poaching, slow-braising and steaming, we were able to extract the natural flavours of ingredients in Teochew cuisine,” Owner of Swatow Jimi Tan explains.
I get what he means when our cold crabs arrives. The crabs have been steamed, and cooled. What you taste is sea sweet flavors of the fresh crab meat that are intensified by a long cooling. Packed with roe, the meat was firm, and relatively fleshy for their size. Diving into the pile of crabs with a cold beer is bliss.
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PROMOTIONS:
– Flash this post and enjoy a Blue Lion beer bucket promotion of $30++ per bucket of 5 (U.P. $42.50).
– From now to 22 February 2016, spend a minimum of $250 in a single receipt (food & Blue Lion beer) and stand a chance to win a pair of return air tickets to Hong Kong.
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The Blue Lion project took two years to incubate, with a whole year spent on tasting through hundreds of beer samples using the same traditional Bavarian brewing recipe, used by various breweries in South-east Asia.
To ensure authenticity of the Bavarian identity, all ingredients, from hops, barley to malt are imported from Munich, Germany. The final result is a beer recipe made up of 95% malt and 5% rice, boasting citrus and floral notes with a less bitter and slightly sweeter finish. To achieve a purer and crisper lager style, the water used for brewing the beer is first passed through the state of the art 0.0014 micron liquid filtration system.
Some snacks to go with beer? Try Swatow’s Crispy Fish Skin with Salted Egg Sauce with Blue Lion, and I guarantee you can’t stop at just one. Every fried fish skin is thoroughly coated in salted egg sauce yet the skin maintains its crunch. Best beer food ever!
Serving the four stars of the quintessential Teochew-style bites are Chilled Jellied Pork Knuckles, Teochew Sliced Pork, Crispy Pork Roll and Swatow Kampong Chicken. Blue Lion citrusy and floral flavours are great with it, it matches up with things like the braising sauce and mellows things like chilli sauce.
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German recipe designed for the Asian palette.
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Classic fish dish is one of the best representations of Teochew cuisine. At Swatow, the silver pomfret is huge with shiny white flesh, decorated with plum, tomatoes and pickled vegetables. The saltiness of the pickled vegetable subtly plays up the savoury notes of the ginger, and acts as a layer of protection to seal the moistness and sweetness of the fish.
Crispy Oyster Omelette uses more eggs than flour, they are deep fried to a crisp exterior and served as an accompanying sweet and sour sauce with juicy oysters. Because of the sauce, I would reach for Blue Lion which can cut through that richness while grabbing onto the savoriness and matching the touch of sweetness.
Not forgetting the Stir Fried Hor Fun, which is pure comfort food: greasy and savory, rich and mild. It’s delicious with a glass of Blue Lion. The wok hei in the noodles melds seamlessly with the flavors in the beer. Plus I think it works well with garlic and other spices in the noodles.
Chinese food is one of the oldest and most diverse styles of cuisine in the world, varying immensely depending on region. But I am clearly surprised at how Blue Lion is suited for the Asian palatte as the dishes we tried in Swatow has proved that its flavours are a good complement to many dishes in the menu.
Blue Lion beer is available in both pint bottles and 330 ml cans. The brown tinted bottles ensure little to no light infiltration so that the most authentic taste is preserved. The eminent Blue Lion is printed on the front of the cans which come in an attractive silver.
For all your party and social needs, Blue Lion Beer can also be purchased online in a carton of 24. Blue Lion beer can be enjoyed island-wide in various retails, bars, clubs and restaurants. Find out if one is near you: http://www.bluelionbeer.com/our-presence/
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PROMOTIONS:
– Flash this post and enjoy a bucket promotion of $30++ per bucket of 5 (U.P. $42.50).
– From now to 22 February 2016, spend a minimum of $250 in a single receipt (food & Blue Lion beer) and stand a chance to win a pair of return air tickets to Hong Kong.
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Swatow Seafood Restaurant
Address: Blk 181 Toa Payoh Lorong 4 #02-602, Singapore 310181
Tel: +65 63631717
Website: http://www.swatow.com.sg/
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This post is brought to you in partnership with Blue Lion. For more information, visit http://www.bluelionbeer.com
