How nights out in Singapore inspired Myanmar’s first microbrewery
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How nights out in Singapore inspired Myanmar's starting time microbrewery
A tasting paddle of craft beer brewed past Burbrit Brewery in Yangon. (Photograph: Jack Lath)
YANGON: Friday nights in the tardily 90s were a ritual for Htin Lin and his friends - finish piece of work or report so start drinking beer.
At Brewerkz, a well-known drinking establishment, they had discovered something unlike: Craft beer with complexity and character, different the uncomplicated lagers they were used to.
"I was blown away," Htin Lin said of that time some 20 years ago. "We were all single and we were on liquid diets on Fridays. Brewerkz was the place. Yous'd order a beer, yous'd talk about work, the industry, sports and then politics and and then girls then retirement."
The grouping of young people from Myanmar spent years in Singapore doing this. They started to joke and dream about having their own microbrewery "somewhere exotic", like Bali or Phuket.
"No i was really serious about information technology," Htin said. Just the idea somehow never escaped them.
The friends moved on from their life in Singapore, returned to Myanmar and started families. Equally the country started to sally from the relative darkness of longtime military rule, opportunity knocked.
"Myanmar was exotic, every bit a land opening up and people were saying it's the terminal frontier in terms of economical development in Southeast Asia. There was a lot of hype at that time," Htin said.
His friends started to lobby him, pressure him to accept a punt on a microbrewery in Myanmar, something that had never existed before. However, Htin Lin was reluctant to take steps to plow a lighthearted idea into a real business organisation.
Eventually though, he became hooked on the idea. Years of "research" into craft beer as a consumer fuelled his passion. In 2014, he decided to employ for an official brewing licence with the Myanmar government.
"Instead of a formal awarding I included a lot of supporting documents with all the photos of breweries I'd visited in the earth and all the craft beer I drank and how craft beer was different to industrial beer," he said.
One and a half years subsequently he finally heard dorsum. The application was denied and the dream seemed doomed.
THE Bespeak OF NO Render
In early 2022 with a new democratic regime sweeping to power, Htin Lin filed his appeal. Within weeks, he had a greenish light to showtime brewing.
"Information technology was like 'wow', it's great. And then my adjacent feeling was, shit," he said. "At present I had the licence, I no longer had the excuse not to do information technology. And then information technology hit me, this is the point of no return. I have to go along. I was happy."
Starting a brewing operation was i affair, but disarming Myanmar customers to start ownership and drinking their unusual, strange concept beers was entirely another. It did not get-go well.
"It was my biggest nightmare at the time. Now we have the license but what if nobody drinks our beer? The first few weeks we didn't accept anyone."
Beer drinking in Myanmar remains a relatively contempo phenomenon. Mandalay Beer, a fraught business operation, was the merely option for drinkers until 1995 when Asia Pacific Breweries entered the market place and started producing Myanmar Beer and Tiger Beer in a joint venture with the armed services regime.
Even today, beer consumption compared to other Southeast Asian countries is depression. Data from 2022 shows per capita beer consumption at only 11.3 litres, compared to 27 in Thailand and xl litres in Kingdom of cambodia.
But with founding partner Maung Zaw as the operation's chief brewer, slowly Burbrit Brewery started to take shape and win over a brand new market place. After opening the brewery in January, 2017, now their operation and its associated Taproom in downtown Yangon - which started a yr later on - is a successful and growing business.
The Taproom has a familiar vibe to the Singaporean institution that inspired it, with open spaces, wooden furniture and a relaxed drinking hall atmosphere.
Burbrit currently has more than a dozen beer varieties bachelor, including four packaged in cans for retail sale in local supermarkets and hotels. The labels include locally-themed names like 'Rangoon Blonde', a High german-style lager, Burma Pale Ale, a fuller-bodied IPA and Nagani, a now award winning bright red beer brewed with dragon fruit and mint.
Like their craft beer counterparts in Thailand, the company is increasing its focus on unique, local ingredients. Maung Zaw says the brewing process has go more than consequent and drinkers - mostly affluent and urban - are starting to appreciate the flavours.
Toll has been an effect for locals, he says, just Burbrit's prices - i pint, for example costs almost US$four - are inexpensive compared to other craft beer offerings around the region.
The founders desire to scale upward their business and eventually be exported to other countries like Thailand and Singapore, where their story began. For at present, they are intent on cracking more of the Myanmar market, which is however immature and developing.
"We are still more than a few years ahead of our time in terms of arts and crafts beer interest," Htin Lin said. But they are optimistic that craft beer in Myanmar is here to stay.
"When I was twenty or 21, there was no beer culture, or beer stations. I didn't even dream about doing this," Maung Zaw said. "Things are irresolute."
Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/asia/myanmar-microbewery-burbrit-yangon-brewerkz-229966
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