Bintang Pilsener

Any trip to Bali seems punctuated with these bottles.

Regardless of age, gender, or social class you'll be putting these away at some point. And to be honest there are far worse beers. It's a wet Asian lager that puts across a sweet and initially slightly sickly sort of malt and very little hops / bitterness to speak of.

Bintang shares a theme here with several other lagers from around the region, most notably Tsingtao in my recent memory. That beer has a bit more character though while this is pretty one dimensional.

Still, it's hard to complain. It's not metallic, stuffed with pride of ringwood or overly carbonated and as a result does the job it's designed to do. Not bad. 3.0

Bali Hai Premium Lager

Surely in the heat, even a bad lager would --

Argh oh god Jesus no. Oddly even the ingredients are listed as water, malt yeast, and hops in that order - wouldn't surprise me if there were less hops than yeast if that's what it means.

Buy something else seriously, beer or not, hell even this thing was a better beer:

Coffee cola's where it's at. Anything to forget the terror. 0.5

Storm Iron Stout

I'm just going to come right out and say it - best beer in Bali, hands down.

Storm have delibered a very respectable effort with this one mark my words. It's a 5.2% light stout, on the watery side of the spectrum but again justifiably so. Where this delivers is in producing a nice round experience in both the aroma and flavours, which speak of a pleasant valley stocked with roast coffee, bitter hops, and balanced toasty chocolate.

Sometimes lighter beers from this field can go overboard in trying to hide the emptiness and come out feeling artificial, but this comes across as balanced and not overly sweet.

It even looks better in person than in the photo .. perhaps it's camera shy? Regardless, make sure you pick this one up if encountered on your Balinese travels. It will both soothe your lager-ravaged palate, and support a brewer clearly doing some good things. 7.0

Storm Golden Ale

Number two from Storm, who with a bronze ale and a lager of some description from memory seem heavily stacked in the mid-range light drinking beer genre.

Bit more substance in the head as compared to their pale ale but still a bit weak in colouring. Visible aeration.

It's a something-nothing sort of beer this one.. there's a slightly golden (ie caramel / sweet malt) nose but not a lot else going on. Taste-wise it's much the same story, the elements of a golden ale have been assembled here to an extent but it's as if you're squinting at it from a distance, it's all rather indistinct and as a result, unsatisfying.

This is not a failure of a beer but I'd like to see them step up the malt presence to give it some heart and differentiate it from the pale ale and the rest of the stable further also.  4.0

Storm Pale Ale

The first encounter with Bali's self professed craft brewer Storm.
 

It comes at an Italian restaurant and the waitress, flush with success with all the pasta names, insists this one's pronounced "pah-ley ah-ley".. who am I to argue with the locals?

This is a pale ale true enough and pours a light amber colour with a fizzy unsatisfying cap. It sports an aroma in line with a light American Pale Ale with a couple of citrus lemony sour notes.

It's pretty light to drink but you get the feeling that a) it's on purpose and b) that's probably a good thing in a place where you're almost constantly sweating. The label informs that it's made with pilsner malt and that explains a lot about the characteristics displayed. Starian golding hops also come through to lend an earthy grassy character, balanced with a tinge of wider sweeter malt.

I'm actually pretty pleasantly surprised with this beer. It's not a delicious beer per se but a highly drinkable, deliberate stab at a relevant local pale. Deserving of respect.  5.5

Panther Ginseng Stout

Now here's a name that fires up the imagination.

What self-respecting man (or indeed lady) among us doesn't want to fire up on stout and ginseng at once, those undisputed twin towers of pantherdom?

This has the characters for 人参 on the label which means 'carrot' in Japanese. We'll take their word for it being 'ginseng'. Flavour wise you probably wouldn't pick it, although there is a slightly mineral sort of edge in there amongst the light coffee roast flavours that could be a mark of its influence.

There's not a lot more to say about this. Far from ripping us a proverbial new one, it goes down without so much as a mew. 2.5

Guiness Foreign Extra Stout (Indo edition)

The well known classic.

 How embarassing then when it's probably the least drinkable stout encountered in the whole trip?

This edition is brewed under licence at the Bintang premises by the looks and I suppose the water condition and any number of other factors may influence the result. But on the flip side it's tempting to think that brewers brewing under licence in these circumstances probably deserve to be judged on the fruits of these labours.

Regardless, this plonks into a glass with little ceremony and a flat meniscus of off-white head. It's got a strange fruity sort of quality going on in both the nose and the taste delivery and that plus a burnt dark sugar treacle gambit is about the extent of what this has to say.

None of it is too appealing to be honest. There aren't too many outright bad notes, but it's tempting to compare to a less than impressive homebrew and I would like a lot more character in taste to make up for the lack of round body.  3.0

Anker Stout

Bali edition continues with this, a canned stout seemingly brewed by a contractor of San Miguel.

Pours OK as you can see, a little watery out of the can but nice solid colour. Head is accomplished enough but, as is so often the case, disappointingly ephemeral.

The aroma here is reasonable - bit of chocolate and not a lot else. Taste follows the pattern established thus far delivering a pretty thin experience, but no real off note as such. Slight chocolate character is the main currency but there's a little bit of vanilla present in what is quite a dry and dusty finish.

 

Much like with the first Balinese contender, I've had far worse beers in the class than this. It's watery but there's enough there if you search and hey, its better than the lagers by a stretch. One could even argue it's a stout built to slake the thirst in these humid conditions, and kicking back by the pool you'd be a fool to argue. 4.5

Bali Hai El Diablo Strong Brew

BALI EDITION! ACTIVATE!

First up, the timely arrival of the dark lord himself, in 500ml can format no less. Can't say I was expecting too much here but it pours a reasonably solid body and decent (though shortlived) head to boot.

The aroma of this beer is not its strong point, bringing across sour bitter lager notes and not a great deal else. Tastewise though there's evident malt with a slight accompanying fruitiness almost like a less than average golden ale, and this pushes it just above the standard lager. It's very plain in the scheme of things but sails down pretty happily.

My main issue with it is the label - nothing about this beer deserves the label 'strong brew'. It's 5% flat for crying out loud.

All in all, not that great but at least a bit more character than your average lager. Not sure about the sessionability, but if you're stuck in Bali and totally off the Bintang it's certainly worth a punch. 4.0