OnTap Magazine

WORLD OF BEER came to South Africa in 1997 and happened to meet a bunch of homebrewers. ey shared a couple of their beers, but in lieu of labels the brews were simply marked with a circular sticker on the cap: one red, one blue. Ernest’s love for craft beer was born in South Africa and on his return to Singapore he started a microbrewery, naming it after the beer that inspired him: Red Dot. Collab brews are much more about the recipe design than the actual brew day, and we had spent several weeks in video calls and emails to perfect this brew. We decided on a session NEIPA but wanted to marry Asia and Africa, so planned to add sorghum and rice; two grains from opposite sides of the world but both extremely important to their home country. Red Dot’s brewer, Crystalla Ng, is Ernest’s daughter and was trained in Germany. We’ve done a lot of collaboration brews before, but have never met a brewer as strict with every part of the brewing process as Crystalla. We struggled to answer some of her more di cult questions about brewing with sorghum, but in the end decided to soak the sorghum overnight, as we did with the rice. e brewday went well, despite our concerns of a stuck mash with such a large percentage of The collab crew at Red Dot Brewery No strangers and a few familiar beers too, including Devil's Peak and Darling on tap Meeting Ash and Tim at Good Luck Beerhouse for dim sum and a range of beers from Singapore and beyond Street art, Chinatown style 44 | Winter 2020 | ontapmag.co.za