Easy Tiger
Tiger has established itself as the leading Asian beer but what do we really know about it? Dominic Roskrow found out
If Tiger beer is ever looking for a slogan it could do a lot worse than adopting and adapting the opening line from Jeff Beck’s Hi Ho Silver Lining: “We’re everywhere and nowhere baby, that’s where we’re at.” For while the rest of the lyrics are well wide off the mark, these words are as good a summary of the perceptions of the pan-Asian beer as you’re likely to get. Asian yes, but Asian where exactly? Singapore? Thailand perhaps?
Vietnam? Indonesia?
China or India even?
These days when provenance is becoming more and more of an issue, it might seem that Tiger is failing badly to define itself. Not a bit of it. It’s from everywhere in the Far East, baby, and at the same time, nowhere. And that is sort of the point.
The company’s affable marketing director for the United Kingdom Bennett Neo explains.
“Being recognised as a genuine Asian beer made in the Far East and transported thousands of miles by ship to be imported in to Europe is very important to us,” he says. “But we see ourselves as a genuine Asian beer rather than a beer from one Asian country.
“And that’s because that’s exactly what we are. It’s not as important to us that we are from one country as the fact that if you go to a range of countries in that part of the world we are the beer of choice for drinkers there.
“The point is that if a European or American holidays in Thailand or Vietnam or goes to Singapore on business he will see Tiger on sale there and find that it is drunk by the population of those c.....
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By Dominic Roskrow
Section : Beer Focus
Page number : 62
