Made In Singapore: How Tiger Beer bottled a nation's soul
Tiger Beer is one of Singapore's most recognisable cultural exports. ST PHOTO: JORDAN LEE & JAMIE KOH
SINGAPORE – One useful piece of pub quiz trivia is that the first official can of Tiger Beer rolled off the line in 1965, the same year Singapore became an independent republic.
However, the brewery's story started long before 1965. In many ways, it runs parallel to the island's sprint from colonial-era entrepot to the bustling city-state that it is today.
Mr Shue Toh Ting, a 67-year-old retiree who spent his entire career at Asia Pacific Breweries Singapore (APBS), manufacturer of Tiger Beer, recalls a time before the 1980s when Tiger Beer was available only in hawker centres and kopitiams.
These days, the beer is not only easy to find in Singapore, but it has also become one of the island's most recognisable exports.
Brewed to meet a local craving for a lighter and cheaper pint, Tiger Beer has evolved through Singapore's wartime years to post-independence and rapid economic development.
The Straits Times looks back at the brand's lesser-known roots.
Birth of the tiger
Raffles Hotel is said to be the birthplace of Tiger Beer, says hotel managing director Christian Westbeld.
'In 1931, nearly a century ago, a conversation between executives from Heineken and Fraser & Neave (F&N) played a role in the establishment of the then Malayan Breweries,' says Mr Westbeld.
'You must not miss your Tiger' was one early slogan used in print advertisements in the 1930s.
PHOTO: ST FILE
This is because of the hotel's Bar & Billiard Room's unusual connection to the tiger: One was shot and put down in the bar in 1902 after it escaped from a nearby circus.
'This story, coupled with the executives' conversation in the restaurant, seems to have in part inspired the naming of the Tiger Beer brand and its use of the Travellers' Palm – a symbol which has also inspired Raffles Hotel's very own palm logo – in its insignia,' Mr Westbeld adds.
That conversation saw F&N and Heineken sinking $1 million into Malayan Breweries, Singapore's first modern brewing plant, located in Alexandra Road.
A 1935 print advertisement depicting the tiger slaying at Raffles Hotel that inspired Tiger Beer's name.
PHOTO: ST FILE
What fuelled this investment, according to media reports from the time, was the high price of imported ale – which could come up to half a labourer's daily wage for a single bottle – and the tropical weather demanding a lighter brew.
In 1932, the beer debuted with the slogan 'Time for a Tiger'. It launched with a free-flow event for 200 guests.
A report in ST said then: 'An eloquent tribute to the new beverage lay in the fact that many who were not regular drinkers asked for a second glass, while others had a third.'
Ms Audre Ang , who wrote her undergraduate dissertation in 2017 on Tiger Beer's print advertisements, says the beer's branding has followed the city's evolution: 'It's interesting that Tiger Beer goes from selling itself to a very segmented racial society to becoming a Singapore beer.'
This can be seen in the beer's earliest advertisements, which not only presented itself in the different languages of multicultural Singapore, but also tailored its messaging depending on the audience.
'You can see that for the Europeans, there were ads that were more driven towards middle-class pandering, more business-oriented. Even the aesthetics w ere more cartoonish, more westernised,' says Ms Ang.
The first few decades of Tiger Beer's advertisements are intertwined with Singapore's colonial history.
PHOTOS: ST FILE
In contrast, ads in Chinese newspapers featured women in Shanghainese attire , and emphasised how the drink was a cure for boredom and frustration. Meanwhile, ads in Jawi placed greater emphasis on the kampung spirit and how Tiger Beer was a good fit for festivities.
The beer was a hit. Within two years of founding, Tiger reportedly accounted for two-thirds of all beer drunk in British Malaya.
From the empire's pint to national drink
As Singapore lurched towards the Second World War, Malayan Breweries' branding took on a more patriotic and war-like tone, says Ms Ang.
'You see advertisements that had Tiger Beer with the 'V for victory' sign,' she says. 'It was a reference to a Winston Churchill speech.' Churchill was prime minister of the British Empire during the war.
' Ads were saying 'drink Tiger to support the British', so it was very blatant that this was not just a beer for consumption, but also a beer to promote war efforts,' she adds.
This messaging and approach resonated, with Tiger becoming synonymous with British presence in Malaya. British author Anthony Burgess later immortalised the Tiger Beer slogan with the title of his first book, Time For A Tiger, published in 1956 and set in Malaya as it was decolonising.
British servicemen guzzled 3.3 million bottles in 1950 – about 14 for each soldier a month, according to a report by ST.
The Singapore Standard also declared beer 'the national drink of Malaya' in 1951, based on sales volume.
Ms Audre Ang says the brand's early advertisements sold the beer to a more racially segmented society.
ST PHOTO: JORDAN LEE & JAMIE KOH
Dr Leonard Bels, the brewery's brewmaster, told the newspaper in 1968 that British forces were prolific consumers who took the beer's reputation with them wherever they went. 'For example, we are doing well in London because British soldiers ask their club manager for Singapore beer. So accustomed are they to the taste.'
The wartime years also saw the creation of the 'Tiger Cub', a lighter, lower-alcohol brew that stayed on shelves until 1947 due to malt shortages.
As war gave way to peace and decolonisation, Tiger Beer's branding reflected the national shift in sentiment, says Ms Ang.
'There was actually an ad campaign on the Tiger Cub,' she says, pointing to ads depicting the cub growing bigger and lifting weights.
'They wanted to show that Tiger Beer was not the strongest in alcohol percentage, but that it was slowly growing through the years and getting better as standards of living improved after the war.'
When Singapore was looking at independence, there was also an ad from Tiger Beer that said 'vote for Tiger Beer'.
Ms Ang says: 'It mentioned that this is not just a beer, but also a Singapore beer. So, you see that reflection of national identity coming out through the years in Tiger Beer's ads .'
As the decades rolled on, Tiger Beer's branding increasingly intertwined with that of the city-state it was born in.
Mr Gerald Yeo, marketing director of APBS , notes that as Singapore entered its post-independence years, the brand increasingly embraced its Singapore branding, with tie-ins with hawker food and tourist attractions.
APBS created its first TV commercial for Tiger Beer in 1973. Called Earthquake, it was set in a kopitiam.
'You have a table of Tiger Beer drinkers and suddenly, there's an earthquake,' says Mr Yeo. 'It's never happened in Singapore, but there's an earthquake, everyone starts running out shaking and all that, and you see the Tiger Beer drinkers all gather around the table to enjoy the Tiger Beer unfazed.
'The 70s were volatile. So, the message was about giving confidence to Singapore to be resilient and steadfast.'
'My first and maybe last job'
One of the people who had a front-row seat to Tiger Beer's journey was Mr Shue Toh Ting, who worked for 44 years at APBS in what was his 'first and maybe last job'.
Now retired, he had worked his way up from lab technician to safety manager and efficiency controller.
Mr Shue Toh Ting spent his 44-year career working at the breweries behind Tiger Beer.
ST PHOTO: JORDAN LEE & JAMIE KOH
By Mr Shue's time, Tiger Beer's association with military men had shifted away from soldiers of the British Empire to soldiers of newly independent Singapore.
His first brush with Tiger Beer came during national service, when servicemen could buy up to six cans duty-free each month. Mr Shue jokes that with a $90 NS salary, 'if we wanted to buy more, we couldn't afford it'.
A common myth at the time was that this 'armed forces beer' was diluted in some way . Mr Shue says working at the company made him realise it was the same brew sold to the public, just in a different container.
In 1980, he began working for Malayan Breweries, mostly because its old location in Alexandra Road – close to where Swedish furniture retailer Ikea is today – was less than a 10-minute walk from his home.
While he thought his starting wage of $316 was low, he was able to save money by walking home for lunch.
Mr Shue Toh Ting's first contract with Malayan Breweries.
PHOTO: SHUE TOH TING
Singapore's labour force at the time numbered just over 1.1 million, of which 30 per cent worked in the manufacturing sector – the largest sector at the time, according to the Department of Statistics. The median wage at the time was $400.
When Mr Shue was starting out, brewing was akin to a full-body workout. 'It was like doing gongfu ,' he says. 'To open the valve or close the valve, you had to kick .'
Using older equipment meant a lot of manual labour: scrubbing tanks, calculating the concentration of ingredients and donning jackets to step into freezing rooms, because cooling technology was far more rudimentary at the time.
Mr Shue Toh Ting recalls a time when brewing was a more labour-intensive process.
PHOTO: SHUE TOH TING
The work could also be dangerous. For instance, Mr Shue recalls a time before the Ministry of Manpower mandated the presence of carbon dioxide sensors that could trigger evacuation alerts. 'Sometimes you go in, you cannot breathe, you quickly run out.'
The big leap came in 1989, when production moved to a more automated plant at the brewery's current location in Tuas.
Even though it meant growing pains, Mr Shue says the shift towards automation was a lot of fun because it meant learning by doing.
'We'd start a programme and we couldn't find where the water was coming from – because there was no water. Then we would go and chase, and find out the water was going to the wrong tank.
'The brewing process used to have a lot of manual work. Now, everything is on a conveyor, all smooth, very minimum manpower needed,' he adds.
Mr Shue says automation has come a long way since his days as a lab technician at Malayan Breweries.
ST PHOTO: JORDAN LEE & JAMIE KOH
One of his fondest memories of his time working at Tiger Beer was helping to introduce on-the-job-training at the factory with the National Training Centre.
Workers learnt not only how to use different machinery, but also how to repair them – a sign of the pace of technological advancement and constant upskilling necessary to stay competitive.
Mr Shue also recalls being a seven-time champion of the company's tasting competition.
Mr Shue says the brewing process in his day involved more manual labour.
ST PHOTO: JORDAN LEE & JAMIE KOH
All batches brewed by the brewery had to go through a tasting panel, but the company also instituted a contest to see whose taste buds were the most discerning.
Mr Shue still has the cups he won, a memento of his achievement before the company ended this practice. He does note, however, that Tiger employees still get free-flow after-hours booze.
Going global while staying Singaporean
APBS marketing head Mr Yeo notes that Tiger's branding has been more about evolution than revolution throughout its history.
Asia Pacific Breweries Singapore marketing director Gerald Yeo at the Tiger Brewery.
ST PHOTO: JORDAN LEE & JAMIE KOH
Its first slogan, 'time for a Tiger' morphed into the catchphrase 'it's Tiger time' from the 1980s onwards.
'It's truly a global brand with local origin that's maintained its roar since the 1930s,' says Mr Jeff Cheong, chief executive of advertising agency DDB Group Singapore. The agency had worked with APBS in 2001 and 2021.
Mr Cheong adds: 'It went from local brewery to national pride to internationally awarded brand to a global lifestyle brand without losing its Asian roots.'
He notes that while the packaging has evolved with the times, with sleeker and slimmer cans to reach younger audiences , the colours and logotype have stayed mostly consistent.
To Mr Cheong, the biggest difference is how the beer has increasingly embarked on sponsorships and pushed for international recognition.
For instance, Tiger Beer took the gold medal at the World Beer Cup for International-Style Lager in 2010.
' Over the years, Tiger has successfully stayed true to its Asian roots while remaining relevant to international audiences – a delicate balance that many brands struggle to maintain when expanding globally,' he adds.
This global push emerged in the 2000s, when APBS began sponsoring celebrities such as American actress Jessica Alba and, later, British football teams Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur.
'We took an intentional approach to push Tiger beyond Asia into the rest of the world,' says Mr Yeo. 'You can find Tiger in over 60 countries in the world today. All the way in the Fiji Islands in the South Pacific to Mount Fuji in Japan to Kazakhstan. '
The beer even made a cameo in the TV series The Falcon And The Winter Soldier (2021).
'You see Bucky Barnes drinking Tiger Beer. Cross my heart, we did not pay for that,' says Mr Yeo.
Additional research by Gokelam Ponniah Achary and Jagjit Kaur Major Singh.
This is the second instalment of Made In Singapore, a series examining the Singaporean roots of global creations.
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