new tees

So I went down to Bay Ridge today and approved our new T-shirts for print. They’ll be debuting at the Friday Night Fights event this week. Two designs, a standard black with the Singha lion head for the restaurants, and a playful “retro bean” design coming in baby blue and yellow, which we’ll use mainly for selling at fun events.

Production of “The Last International Playboy,” an indie movie we’re supplying beer to, begins production today at the Apartment. Let’s see if they mind us any attention or if we just squandered a whole bunch of beer. They’ll be back at the Apartment next week…I think…

Singha Beer goes to Boston - Mayfair Fest 2007

Thailand’s King Bhumibol is currently the number one nominee for Time Magazine’s “The Time 100″ this year. He’s trailed by JK Rowling and Korean pop star Rain, see for yourself here. There is a flaw in the stats though. Where it says “Number of Time Covers: 0,” King Bhumibol was actually on the cover in 1968.

The only reason why I know this is because the “Thai Kingdom” restaurant in DC displays a framed picture of this cover among other Thai royalty posters, relics and paraphernalia covering the interior. If you’re in the area take a peak into this museum of natural royalty. From Rama I to Rama IX, they cover it all.

Anyway, this year is also the king’s 80th birthday. We’re celebrating this auspicious occasion several months early at the Mayfair Fest in Cambridge (the King’s birthplace). Singha Beer and Sam Adams are the two beer sponsors this year, but something tells me Sam Adams will still overshadow us. In any case, it’s going to be a good little celebration as we’re setting up the beer garden with the nice people at Om Restaurant. Stop by and say hello, our beer garden will be on JFK St and Brattle St. We should have our new line of T-shirts ready by then too, so come get one! Sunday, May 6th in the heart of Cambridge. How ’bout them Red Sox?

ThaiTakes3 Fundraiser Party at Stay

ThaiTakes3 is an independent film festival comprising of, you guessed it, Thai films.

There’s a nice list of “new wave” auteurs on the roster including the first Thai to win a Cannes award Apichatpong Weerasethakul, the saturated colors of Wisit Sasanatieng, and the stylish, rebel edge of Pen-Ek Ratanaruang to name a few. But like many things independent, they’re still in need of the green so this fundraising party was held last night.

Taking place at this LES party nook called Stay, the evening kicked off with a free Singha Beer happy hour from 6pm to 7pm. Singha neons were put up at the bar and the hoppy, lioness lager was free flowing until 7pm on the dot. After that no one bought another because there simply just weren’t any left to buy.

Raffles were held, paintings were donated and t-shirts were on sale. Thai movie buffs both farang and Thai were there to eat the free grub and support the festival.

A short film submitted by a Thai-American out of Queens was shown as a sample for the many shorts being screened before each main feature during the festival. But enough about the party, go out and make Thai Takes 3 a success!

Opening night is on April 13th at the Museum of Moving Images in Astoria, Queens with a party reception staring Singha Beer and La Sante wines. After the reception Wisit Sasanatieng’s The Unseeable shows at 8pm.

How else you gonna celebrate Thai New Year! Happy 2550!

Check here or the Thai Takes 3 myspace page for a complete schedule.

Project Runway at EMC2 - Partay!

For all you fashionistas, Singha was present at Emmett McCarthy’s opening line party at his store in SoHo, EMC2. The former Project Runway star was of course there in prime form greeting guests, selling clothes and drinking Singha (afterwards at least).

The party’s final Singha Beer count in cases came to a whopping three, mostly due to our buddies at Cachaca Fazenda Mae De Ouro who were on hand flexing their cachaca muscles with their ever-tasty caipirinha drinks being made in the back.

In attendance were about 80 to 100 socialites in their mid 20s to a few in their 40s mingling over free drinks and telling us stories about their various adventures to Thailand.

The best was the one guy who told us about how he got “separated” from his group at Pat Pong and lead into one of the infamous “pussy shows”. Once up the shady stairway and into the show area, this guy’s brain flickered back on and decided to leave before he got ripped off. Prying himself away from the nagging host he finally made it down the stairs and out the door only to be smacked in the head by the host, who was according to the storyteller about half his size.

“I turned around and watched the little guy run back up the stairs behind two huge bouncers,” he says, “and for a minute I thought about going after him, but I let it go since I was in his country- and also because of the two bouncers guarding the doorway too.”

All said with a chuckle of amusement, the man declared his fondness to his first trip in Bangkok. Moral of this story: Don’t get lost, drink Singha in a group.

Another story came from an older, self-professed Asiaphile intermittently lurking around the party in circles and stopping at our booth to refuel.

In between inquiries of how cheap it would be to buy a house and if women would like him there, he asks us about Thailand.

“You know about the ‘levels’ in Thailand, right” he asks.

“Levels of what,” I ask back.

“How could you not know,” he asks almost in shock. “My buddy tells me so much about it.” I was only able to respond with a blank stare.

“It’s like a sex den and each flight of stairs you go up specializes in a different styles. You can get an orgy with two girls one level, two girls and two guys on the next, and every level is something different,” he explains with an eerie glee.

At this point our friend Dave Cachaca walks by handing out caipirinhas on a tray. I grab one of the drinks and make him pose for a photo. Afterwards I go to the back for some limes that were conveniently lacking in my drink.

above: Cachaca Dave saves the day

Moral of this story: Don’t become a sexpat in Thailand, otherwise you won’t have any interesting topics of conversation when back in your home country drinking Singha Beer.

The Celebration of the Suds

The Atlantic City Beer Festival was held this past weekend and Singha Beer represented one of the nearly 200 other beer and beer-related brands in attendance.

The first session Saturday from noon to 4.30pm was tame. Beer tasters wandered about swishing 2 0z. gulps from one booth to the next in a calm, orderly fashion. The second session on the other hand, from 6pm to 10.30pm, the place turned into a zoo. A meat head in his late 30’s threatened to have us “wear our beer” in response to not filling his tasting glass over the 2 oz. mark, girls asked us to put Singha stickers on their T’s and A’s, dudes tried to finagle free Singha merch and most disenchanting were the people walking by exclaiming, “oh, this beer is pretty good, it’s from China.”

They were either trying to impress their dates with false pretenses of “beer knowledge,” or Tsing Tao, who had a booth several isles behind us, sounds a bit too similar to Singha.

“How do you pronounce it, shing-ha?” asked one. Is there an sh in the word Singha somewhere?? Anyway, although it is pronounced sing in Thai, we like to keep the pronunciation phonetically as is, Singha, so as not to confuse the already confused audience.

We went through 6 cases the first session. The second session we went through 10. Conserving our stock for Sunday’s session (we only had 21 cases for the entire fest), we cut the crowd off at 9.30pm, not bad as last call was 10pm, but tell that to hundreds of beer swiggers “tasting” beer for the past five hours.

There were other booths there promoting other goods and services besides beer. There was the Taiwanese massage station across the way, Mr and Mrs Beef Jerky giving out gamy samples, 103.1 FM Shark Radio - the Classic rock station - and best of all was the pretzel/ mustard booth where everything was made with hemp as the main ingredient. The mustard was good. Spicy, rich and nose cleansing, they sold out before I was able to get a sample bottle for myself.

The beer fest wasn’t all bad though. People came by and shared the mustard with us, talked about recent and past trips to Phuket and Corat, and people who genuinely enjoyed the crispy hops of Singha Beer. We salute thee!

This Singha Beer fan poses for us with his Lambo outside the Borgata. This is how our clientele rolls.

Singha Singles in Boston

This was supposed to be a Chinese New Year celebration along with the Hong Kong at Harvard Square’s 53rd Anniversary party. Alas some lady spewed out an invite to her email list for a “Single’s Party”. You know, those parties where you have to label yourself with colored name tags - Green means go, red means stop…and no means yes.

The party was at the Hong Kong. The Hong Kong opened 53 years ago and was the first Chinese restaurant in Harvard Square. There’s even a plaque across the way dedicated to Paul’s father, San Lee. The Hong Kong is a Harvard Square landmark and about 200 people showed up to this Singles thing.

We had signage up all around the room, tabel tents, pos lying around, and a huge banner out front. Singha was promoted at 2 per bottle from 8pm - 11pm. the account ran out of beer at 9.30pm. We went through 10 cases…

Some people drank Heieneken and the Bud, some drank the scorpion bowls,
but singha was about 80% of the crowd. We gave out keychains and
matchbooks. The waitresses and bar staff wore singha logod tees and polos.

There was a huge line outside the hongkong when i left at 10.30pm.
they were getting ready to open the dance floor on the 4th floor where their infamous scorpion bowls run amok with the late night and no where to go crowd. On
line, people were saying how excited they were to see Singha there… Paul
liked this and decided to keep it on as a mainstay. Go Singha!

Bar staff and waitresses wore Singha T’s with pride and a pair of scissors

beerless initiatives

The Royal Initiative Discovery Reception
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Cafetasia on 38 E. 8th St @ University St.

There was a chilling -10 degree windshield factor last night and getting to the event with ears, fingers and toes in tact was a feat in itself.

Arriving during the cocktail hour, the first thing noticeable was the bar. And the abscense of Singha around the room. Sangria’s, fruit cocktails, wines and even bourbon glasses fill the room with warmth. i of course order a cold Singha beer and put table tents up on the bar so people don’t forget there’s chilled beer available. Onwards with the event.

Launched by TAT, The Royal Initiative Discovery is a project aiming for rural development, poverty alleviation, and obviously Thai travel and tourism. At least from what i googled.

The mics weren’t working properly and all the speakers were drowned out first by static and then murmuring side conversations spreading across the room. Food was spectacular with shrimp cocktails, fresh oysters and thai staples like pad thai and satays not too far behind.

People talked, people ate and people drank. It couldn’t get more Thai than that.