Days since my last post: 3
Sometimes I think it's almost impossible that it's been a week since this has happened but...
We got to visit probably the best brewery ever.
But let me just tweak the news about 2 months back when Carlsberg first announced a contest for us to win a VIP tour to their brewery, and I thought I'd try my luck to win it for the sake of my dad who was a major fan of Carlsberg. And so luck as luck would have it, I really did win the ex-beer-rience and on the 25th of August 2017, we were whisked away in true VIP fashion.
Like getting a chauffeur pick us up from home.
And getting checked into a hotel room!
Before we got to visit the brewery, the team from Carlsberg were nice enough to have the driver take us back to Geno Hotel first, a hotel in Shah Alam where we were staying for the night. You could say it was an extremely no-frills experience where all we needed was an open mind to drink, drank, and be drunk.
Arrival at the Carlsberg Lounge.
And first, a picture with the ones I made this effort for.
Glad my other half made it in the end cause he nearly bailed due to work.
At approximately 4.30pm, we were whisked away into the same Vellfire as the one we were sent to the hotel in and was sent directly to the Carlsberg brewery. Our first stop was the Carlsberg Lounge aka #ProbablyTheBestLounge where we got to spend an hour or two just sampling beers.
Fresh beers on tap from left to right:
Carlsberg Smooth Draught, Kronenbourg 1664, Somersby, and Connor's Stout.
Bar space alongside a beer pong table.
And a display of Godly drinks.
The lounge was considerable in size, and perhaps was well to fit about 50 odd people but we had about 66 at a go, not factoring in the staff and waitresses who were roaming around with us the entire evening. It would have been nice if everyone was civil that evening, but more on that later.
A safety briefing.
At 6pm, a safety briefing was held by the staff of Carlsberg and unfortunately 80% of the people who were there just weren't listening. I thought it was such a sad experience for the staff, and that all these people were plainly taking advantage of this experience they could have otherwise enjoyed. Talk about being rude, including youngsters and aunties alike.
With the one I truly made the effort for.
My old folks who totally deserved this and more.
And thus began our journey through the brewery where we got to see how they combined hops and more to create different stages of Carlsberg beer before they could be officially sold in the market. The tour itself required everyone to wear covered shoes and long pants, preferably tops with sleeves as well and for ladies I would highly recommend you to tie your hair up because it's nothing but warm through the brewery. The temperature as we came to understand, was because the yeast and hops needed to be in a humid location to properly ferment and create the perfect brew.
Tasting different stages of beer.
Going through station by station.
We also got to taste beer before and after they went through stages such as before hops are added, or before yeast came to action, and finally before filtration and their aftermaths. This resulted in very different stages of beer tasting and I could officially say I am glad beer tastes as it does today or they're all just very weird otherwise.
Thank God for portable aircond units around.
Our final stage to the brewery was the production stage where we could watch how bottles of Carlsberg are bottled and packaged, but we were requested to not take pictures of them because they are after all trade secrets. It was at this stage however that I nearly got into a brawl with some uncles because they were still taking photos and videos, despite being told repeatedly by the Carlsberg staff not to do that.
It irked me that these people were so rude - firstly by ignoring the safety briefing earlier, and secondly by ignoring simple requests such as complying to a "no photography" rule. At some point I even called an uncle non-educated because he had the cheek to tell me "he knew what no photography meant" but went on to take more pictures of the production line. I wish there were easier ways for the Carlsberg team to control these people, so perhaps for the other winners who have not visited the brewery, I would recommend the staff to first take away the phones of the visitors before we enter the production line just for damage control sake.
We were taken back to the lounge after the entire experience, and that was our entire evening to boot where we got to have beer, beer, and even more beer! We were also served great food from Nicsman by Lewre, and every dish somehow integrated beer into its sauce or cooking methods.
Fresh beer on tap, ice cold to your liking!
Pouring stations.
We also got to try our hands on several activities lined up for us such as darts, beer pong, and beer pouring to win away a half yard of ale, exclusively from Carlsberg. For someone like me who has never tried my hands on pouring beer from tap, it was all quite exciting!
And so I won!
And before I knew it, I actually won myself one! This came from making the perfect half pint of Connors, and I even did it better than my father. The trick was to have a smooth foam top, and a great ratio of foam to beer in the glass. All hail the power of beer however because I was pretty sure I felt tipsy at that point and felt that bit of shakiness, and still I won one home!
Our evening continued with all the beer we could drink, and unfortunately a lot of people took this for granted. My father told us that there was more vomit in the men's toilet than there was waste and I thought about how disgraceful that was. One of the young man from the table next to us even ran off twice to vomit, and fell down flat on his face once. It irritated me at some point because he nearly hit my father with the bottled water he was waving around in all his drunk state, and I had to give dirty stares to his companions to control him.
Personalized Carlsberg beer tower.
My winning glory - a half yard of ale.
By the end of the evening, we were told we had surprises waiting in the Vellfire and it turned out to be personalized beer towers for all! I was ecstatic about this because it would be amazing for my home in the future when I'm running functions... for beer or not. I was also happy to bring home my half yard of ale because I've honestly never seen one in my life, but it'll take me a while to think of what to do with this. We'll see.
Probably? Definitely.
And so to end this ex-beer-rience, I would have absolutely said it was a lovely one. Big thanks to Carlsberg Malaysia for the experience, and the events team that ran the whole show. You guys are the true MVPs for all your patience, all your efforts, all your hardwork, and for giving us your everything to make this #DefinitelyTheBestBreweryTour ever. There were minor flaws to the tour, but please understand it was nobody's fault but those who made a shame of themselves by the end of the day. You guys were probably the best hosts ever. Period.
