Drink to a tea-beer-infused aspiration — To Tai Wai
Text: Kingsley Wong, Skylar Cheung
Bunch of drinking pals showed up with a bunch of nice beverages, God's creation for substituting water they say. The patch included some fruit tea that tastes like liquor or vice versa. Interesting. Quite an astute series named “Tai Wai Beer”, which labels with pastel-colored dashing patterns of ink splatter on a blank white background , and flavors denoted by old Chinese characters boldly denoting numbers one to five, all accompanied a cinnabar chop showing characters “Hong Kong” boasting proud local hand-made production. Smasual (= smart + casual), but momentous, and readily identifiable even for those half-tipsy. The five, according to the writer a non-wine taster, all exhibiting that hops-laden slight bitter and fragrant refreshing taste, while each unique and elaborate.
We met brewers of Tai Wai Beer, Wendy and Henry, at the brewery of their brand in Kwai Chung. Originally planning on brewing whiskey, the procedures taking nothing less than years, the couple eventually landed on a sound schedule to produce beer. While beer presented itself in many first alcoholic experiences of many, the popular beverage also reminds us of enjoyable gatherings and cherished memories. Some grab one or two after work, others having several watching sports or movies. To share the joy, starting off brewing small lots for folks, and even presenting a ginger-stew flavored variant as return gifts at their wedding party, the duo eventually established the brand recently in 2017.
“Fruit tea and beer are great buddies!” remarked Henry the brewer, himself a beverage manager, and also an expert in British-styled tea. As a series of mix and match both of his passions, products have been named, seemingly arbitrarily, number one to five. “Not that you will forget. If you find that likable you can easily get another next round.” From No. 1, a Chamomile-tinted Pilsner, to a No. 5, a robust Rooibos-infused Porter, tastes and strengths slightly picking up, and a consecutive try for newcomers cannot astray too bad.
“Reaching thirty I would want something done” expressed Henry. On this motto the couple strives for their career, germinating in with this brewery. While most Hongkongers not unfamiliar with locally produced beer, some of larger brands, such as 1948-founded San Miguel, and Carlsberg having their brewery operating in Tai Po from 1981 to 1999. Perhaps accustomed to some long stereotyped tastes, consumers expect more. By 2008 when duties on beers and low-concentration alcoholic beverages abolished, initially imported products of diverse niches filled the shelves, and not long after local productions, often craft beers from various “microbreweries”, picked up pace and sprang like mushrooms. The latter of highly variable and innovative relish often emerges with surprises. These newcomers cater to the versatile tastes and crave of many local consumers, and gradually taking an upper hand in the market. As for Tai Wai Beer given limited manpower and selling points, as Wendy noted, collaboration with like-minded business partners are better preferred.
To put things most simple, to make beer one needs water, raw and roasted malt, hops and yeast. However, to ensemble these ingredients in proportions, or whether adding other material (such as tea leaves and herbs) to create specific flavours or textures, require unique and often tempered knowledge. As for the Tai Wai series, regardless of intending to recreate nice tea via brewing beer, or infusing tea scent into the liquor, the synthesis would require throughout understandings in both fields, and more importantly, trial and error. “Formulating some peculiar aroma in the mind, then gathering ingredients, and some trail brewing is always ahead.” While the combination is indeed unique, which cannot be more emphasised to reach a satisfiable state that both established in harmony. Often unexpected results would mean discard of formula and the trial ferment. Just as the ink splatter on the labels of the series, casual and elegant without traces of strokes, upon the empty leaving imprints of thousands, behind these mature sways of vitality crouches accumulation of know-how. And for Henry, the artist, each of the five is each a painstaking sculpture, and equally favoured.
Raw and roasted malt
Hops
Other Ingredients
Main components of beer
The beer itself is nothing new in human history. Accompanying the Agricultural Revolution (the change of lifestyle from nomadic hunter-gathering to sedentary farming), cereals in excess placed in air-tight (anaerobic) conditions ferments into beer, and the beverage had been a humble witness to ups and downs in the course of history. Earliest records of beer can be traced to rock carvings some six thousand years from now, where ancient Sumerians at the Mesopotamia drinking through reeds as straws from a ceramic pot, this supported by later verses on placing malt dough into containers for brewing purposes.
As for the past millennia, malt served as the prime ingredient of beer, and the resultant beverage broadly includes two categories according to yeast employed: fermented in upper portions of the vessel under higher temperatures (20 to 26˚C) produces ale, often full-bodied and fruity, whereas another, lagers, often in bottom portions and distinctly lower temperatures (below 10˚C), displays a crispy and refreshing taste. Diversity of tastes is further enhanced by adjusting proportions of raw and roasted malt, and other additives.
That acute sense of taste, as a prerequisite of a brewer, Henry admitted that being a skill perfected with time: any from improper handling, or that ingredient-taste causative link, are trained. As for that “wine-tasting” course for many others (the writer included), “Try more! How else do you know which you grow fond of and which not?”
