Asia Pacific Breweries

Asia Pacific Breweries

Type	Public (SGX: A46) Subsidiary of Fraser and Neave
Industry	Beverages
Founded	1931 1990 (current corporation)
Headquarters	Singapore
Key people	Simon Israel (Chairman) Roland Pirmez (CEO)
Products	Beers and lagers
Parent	Fraser and Neave
Website	Asia Pacific Breweries Homepage

Asia Pacific Breweries (SGX: A46) is an Asian brewery company founded as Malayan Breweries Limited (MBL) in 1931, in a joint venture between Heineken International and Fraser and Neave, and given its present name in 1990. It currently controls 30 breweries in 12 countries in the Asia Pacific region, selling over 120 brands of beer and beer variants. Heineken is the largest shareholder with a 42.5% stake. The company is listed on the Singapore Exchange.

Key brands

The company’s main brands are: Tiger Beer, Anchor, Baron’s Strong Brew, ABC Extra Stout and Archipelago Brewery Company range of beers. It also brews Heineken under a license from its parent company.

Tiger Beer

Tiger Beer truck in Langkawi, Malaysia

Tiger Beer transport in Bangkok

Launched in 1932, Tiger Beer became Singapore's first locally brewed beer.^[1] It is a 5% abv bottled pale lager. As APB's exclusive flagship brand, it is available in more than 60 countries worldwide including the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and various countries in the Middle East, Europe and Latin America.

Distribution

• APB has breweries in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, China, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, India, Sri Lanka, Laos and Mongolia. The company has a strong market share in several countries within the Asia Pacific Region, primarily in Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand.
• In Malaysia, Tiger Beer is produced and marketed by Guinness Anchor Berhad (GAB).
• In the USA, Tiger Beer’s brand is well known in New York and San Francisco.
• In the UK, Tiger Beer can be found in more than 8,000 premium bars/clubs and distribution outlets in its major cities.
• Tiger Beer gained considerable popularity in Detroit in October 2006 due to the Detroit Tigers Baseball Team's entrance into the 2006 World Series.^[2]

Tiger in Popular Culture

The “It's Time for a Tiger” slogan for Tiger Beer has run for decades since its inception in the 1930s.

The writer Anthony Burgess named his first novel Time for a Tiger (the first part of the Malayan trilogy The Long Day Wanes) after the advertising slogan.^{[citation needed]} The beer was popular in the Malaya of the 1950s, where Burgess was working.

Burgess reveals in his autobiography that, when his Time for a Tiger was published, he asked the manufacturer, then Fraser and Neave, for a complimentary clock with the Tiger beer slogan. The brewery declined to offer this or any other free gift to him. But fourteen years later, when Burgess was more famous, it relented. In 1970, the company offered Burgess a privilege of which he could consume any of their beers free of charge while in Singapore. However, in his own words Burgess wrote in response: “But it was too late, I had become wholly a gin man.”

The beer can was also seen being poured in the 2002 movie The Transporter with Jason Statham. Crates of Tiger Beer appeared in the 2008 film Tropic Thunder. Also, in the 2001 Hong Kong action thriller The Accidental Spy it's the preferred beer of Buck Yuen (played by Jackie Chan) who orders it by name in a bar and, also has an empty bottle of Tiger Beer by his bed clearly displayed in the foreground of the next scene as he wakes up from a dream.

See also

• Beer and breweries in Asia
• Get Your Sexy Back - A moderate drinking campaign in Singapore

References

1. ^ www.tigerbeer.com, The Name Behind the Brand, Milestones
2. ^ "Guzzling Tiger Beer catches on in Detroit". Detroit Free Press. 2006-10-19. http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061018/ENT05/610180305/1048/BUSINESS05. 

External links

• Asia Pacific Breweries
• Tiger Beer