Chip Bee Brewing

I recently discovered a little home brewery, Chip Bee Brewing, in my neighbourhood. 

It all began with Hitam Manis

In an Instagram post, I wrote about the Malay term Hitam Manis, which is the name of one of the streets in my neighbourhood. Literally, it is translated as Sweet Black. In and of itself, this is a wonderful name, evoking images and tastes of smokey pulut hitam, a pudding made of black glutinous rice, palm sugar and coconut cream.

But the term is actually figurative; I found out that it refers to the attractiveness of dark skin. The only other linguistic equivalent I can think of is moreno or morena in Spanish, which has positive, not negative connotations. This Malay term celebrates dark skin tone, which is wonderful and rare in a world that values fair skin and exoticises and denigrates non-fair skin tones.

What's this got to do with beer?

This post generated a friendly conversation between my neighbour, Steven, and myself. Steven revealed that he had named a sweet black stout he brewed Hitam Manis. 

I thought to myself, "Wow, what a great idea, and so fitting!". 

I found out that Steven actually brews four different types of beers and they are all named after the streets in the neighbourhood. 

What better way to honour Chip Bee Gardens and Holland Village than to name home-brewed beer after the streets?

Here's what I love about Chip Bee Brewing. In fact, I'll let Steven tell you in his own words.

The lightheartedness

There are three of us who brew together and each of us started making home brew by ourselves with mixed results. When I moved into Chip Bee Gardens, about nine years ago, I had the space to host and so we all started brewing together.

 

Steven Murphy 

Head of Sanitation

Chris Emerson

Hop Doctor

Andrew Dier 

The Right Honourable Minister for Beer

Tropical flavours

We are always trying new beers and don't often make the same beers twice. That said, there are a few like Clear White Road Wheat IPA, and Chip Bee Pale Ale that we do make often. Chip Bee Pale Ale is a not too hoppy pale ale that is easy to drink and has a floral aroma. It was the first beer we made more than once.

Clear White Road is a wheat IPA, which means that we are using a good portion of wheat in the grain mix rather than just barley. We also use a Belgian style yeast which adds a funky note to the beer.

While we use a mixture of hops in the flavouring, we also add lemongrass, coriander root, and kaffir lime leaves to the boil for some tropical flavours.

 

The names of the beers 

At the start, we didn't really name our beers. We rarely made the same beer twice. The naming started when we entered our beer in the iBrew Challenge for the first time.

As we had started to call ourselves Chip Bee Brewing we thought it would be a good idea to use the neighbourhood as inspiration for the names.

We liked the idea of using the English translations of the local street names in Chip Bee and Holland Village.

The sharing 

We make enough for each of us to have a keg of beer per batch. 

I have been trying to be healthy and cutting down on the amount of beer I drink. The best way to do that is to share what I make. The easiest way to do that is invite some friends over for a beer! 

At this time, we are all being physically distant, so I have been sending growlers of beer around to some of my friends in the neighbourhood.

So there you have it, a little slice (or rather, pint) of life in Chip Bee Gardens. 

 

If you’ve got any stories that you would like to share with me, I’d love to hear about them – passions, pets, pathos. Write in the comments below. I might make an illustration of them : ) 

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