Craft Brews – Microbrewed Beer at its Finest

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According to the dictionary, mi·cro·brew·er·y means “A small brewery, generally producing fewer than 10,000 barrels of beer and ale a year and frequently selling its products on the premises.” In Malaysia, it’s hard to find microbrewed beer being sold, but thankfully, Craft Brews came around to our rescue. Saucer and I had the chance to sample some of Craft Brews’ finest beers during a dinner event recently. Once we’re seated, what caught my attention was this cute table coaster:

Table Coaster #1

So funny ok! And there was another one:

Table coaster #2

Such hard core beer lovers, they are. Set in the midst of the hip shopping district at Kota Damansara and just next to Tesco, is the rather new Craft Brews, specializing in microbrewed beers and the food that compliments them. The atmosphere of Craft Brews was warm and chic, with the creative play of black and white theme.

Craft Brews restaurant and pub

One could also choose to dine al fresco to enjoy the cool breeze at night or to smoke.

Al fresco dining

Happy hour all day on Sunday!

When I saw that Happy Hour was all day on Sunday, I told Saucer we simply must come back again on a Sunday for that delicious microbrewed draft beer.

Our first dish arrived as a surprise since we didn’t order it. It turned out to be a bowl of tomato-based soup with celery, carrot and potatoes, boiled with pork stock for more body. Pork stock! It’s not common to find soups that are boiled with pork stock and this certainly had its uniqueness. It was fragrant and thick, best of all, it comes free with every main dish ordered!

Craft Brews complimentary soup

Our appetizer soon arrived, all golden, crispy and aromatic! The Bacon ‘n Batter was a plate of sinfully delicious and fatty bacon clad in the crispy coat of golden batter. Granted, this was not the healthiest appetizer option but it was addictive! When we had beer later on in the dinner, this was even more irresistible.

Bacon ‘n Batter (RM15)

The next appetizer was something really special to me. It was Deep Fried Eggplant Chips, which I had never tasted before. I mean, it’s eggplant! And to be frank, I don’t fancy eggplant all that much due to its squashy nature. Still, I gingerly tasted one and thank goodness the deep frying had taken away the sogginess of eggplant.  Not to forget the batter was infused with salted egg, making the taste all the more savoury and fragrant. In fact, if it were not that oily, I would have eaten this non-stop too.

Deep Fried Eggplant Chips (RM12)

The third appetizer was Caramelized Roast Pork II (spicy), which was slices of pork sauteed with caramelized onions, chillies and curry leaves. I thought this would be very spicy but it was just right. Couple this with some beer and they’d be best friends.

Caramelized Roast Pork II (RM16)

Soon, our main dish arrived, which was Craft Brews’ Pasta. We had spaghetti in cream base sauce with crispy bacon strips, shitake mushrooms, peppers and onions. The spaghetti was cooked al-dente, and most importantly, the cream base sauce was not overly rich, which is not uncommon with restaurants these days. I found myself having second helpings of the pasta even after the heavy appetizers. This was easily my favourite dish of the night.

Craft Brews’ Pasta (RM24)

Next up was the very hyped and popular ribs! I’ve heard so much about their ribs that I had high anticipation before they arrived. These ribs were made from pork, and came in few varieties. The ones that we had were of Malt & Maple and Honey Mustard variant. I personally preferred the Malt and Maple flavour as opposed to the more popular Honey Mustard. By the way, we’re talking about PORK ribs here babeh! How often can you find pork ribs anywhere?

Honey Mustard ribs and Malt & Maple ribs (RM35)

Honey Mustard rib

The glazed finish of the Malt and Maple ribs gave it the slight sweetness that complemented the savoury interior. The meat was boiled for a couple of hours first before being grilled, resulting in  tender but rather bland meat inside. Hence, the glaze was really important in pairing with the rib! Saucer thought that the rib should  not be boiled beforehand to retain more of the pork’s essence.

Malt & Maple rib

Oh and I must say those potato wedges were to-die-for! So deliciously yummy! They were amazingly crispy on the outside but oh-so-soft and fluffy inside. Went very well with Honey Mustard sauce too!

Enjoying the shiny Malt & Maple rib

The Cinnamon Apple Pie came with a generous scoop of vanilla ice-cream from New Zealand Naturals! The combination of hot and cold always worked well for me, so I had to complaints about this. And I love apples! So I might be a little bit biased here.

Cinnamon apple pie (RM14)

Moving on to beers! To be honest, Craft Brews is really a beer place for they place utmost importance in ensuring their beer quality and take pride in the micro-brewed beers. We were introduced first to their selection of draft beers.

Weizen is actually a type of Wheat Beer, which has a cloudy and golden appearance. Upon tasting, it gave me a fruity and a tinge of spicy scent that lingered long in my throat. The Czech Pilsner had an apparent malty taste with pale straw appearance. It was bubbly and had a floral smell. The English Ale was distinctively ruby red in colour, with a stronger and more full-bodied taste. It tasted smoky, spicy and a little on the bitter side. My only regret was that I couldn’t taste the much talked about Monster Green Lager which went out of stock that night.

Draft beers (From Left): Weizen, Czech Pilsner and English Ale

Apart from Draft Beers, Craft Brews served also bottled beers produced by some mid-size breweries in the US.

The range of  microbrewed bottled beers

There was a range of 6 variants from Flying Dog Brewery.

Such creative names from the Flying Dog Brewery (RM24/bottle)

And there were 3 variants from the Rogue Ales Brewery.

Beers from Rogue Ales

With advice from Ben, we tried four variants of the bottled beer, ranging from the light and pale colour to the full-bodied and darker range.

Beers we tasted that night

The Tire Bite Golden Ale was the lightest beer of all, with also the lightest pale colour. This was actually my favourite since it was less bitter (or hop-py) and very easy to drink. I thought it went very well with my caramelized pork during the appetizer session, washing down the fatty and spicy meat with every gulp. This beer is also a popular order during hot and sunny days, to cool the body down.

We also had the Road Dog Porter, Old Scratch Amber Lager and Rogue Amber Ale. Saucer’s favourite was the Amber Lager since it was more full-bodied but not as hop-py (bitter). It combined the best of both worlds.

From left: Road Dog Porter, Old Scratch Amber Lager, Rogue Amber Ale and Tire Bite Golden Ale

How beer is formed

Ben and witch

Besides the ala carte menu, Craft Brews also offers Set Lunches on weekdays starting from RM11.90+. It’s really too bad I work quite far from here, or this would be one of my regular lunch place!

Craft Brews Set Lunch

I applaud Craft Brews for taking the effort and time to import these micro-brewed beers all the way from the US and Singapore. They have certainly opened up my mind on how commercial beers are different from these micro-brewed beers. Beers will never taste the same to me anymore.

Craft Brews
G3 Podium, Ground Floor,
Menara Batu Kawan,
1 Jalan PJU7/6, Mutiara Damansara,
47810 Petaling Jaya,
Malaysia.
Contact no.: 03-7722-3000
Business Hours: 12:00 pm – 1:00 am