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Not just yellow fizz: Sydney Craft Beer Week
Party island Koh Phangan to build its first airport
Baijiu factory tour: How Chinese brew their national liquor

Not just yellow fizz: Sydney Craft Beer Week

Posted: 18 Oct 2012 01:11 AM PDT

by Anne Majumdar

Sydney Craft Beer Week is coming soon and there's no better location for it. Balmy days in the city are all about blowing the froth off a couple of schooners in the nearest beer garden.

Rather than settling for the average mass-produced lager, a small group of craft brewers are shaking things up with the use of traditional techniques.

"Beer itself is a lot more interesting than people give it credit for," said event director Joel Connolly.

He's set to prove it at Sydney Craft Beer Week with a program of more than 60 events across 32 venues from October 20 to 28.

Punters used to commercial beer will be surprised by unusual concoctions, such as barley wine aged on oak for three years, or wit beer spiced with coriander and orange peel.

Party island Koh Phangan to build its first airport

Posted: 17 Oct 2012 09:46 PM PDT

by Hiufu Wong

Koh Phangan, Thailand's gorgeous island famed for the full moon parties that take place on Haad Rin Beach, will soon get its own airport.

Why didn't they think of that earlier? There is little worse than enduring the rocky two-hour ferry ride away from Koh Phangan with a mega party hangover.

Kan Air, a Bangkok-based regional carrier, is spending 700 million baht (US$22 million) to build an airport on the birth place of Thailand's full moon parties next year, according to Bangkok Post.

Koh Phangan attracts up to 30,000 people during the peak season of December to March.

The carrier will introduce flights to Koh Phangan's neighboring islands, Koh Samui in the south and Koh Tao in the north, as well as three 80-minute flights daily to and from Bangkok's Don Muang airport.

Baijiu factory tour: How Chinese brew their national liquor

Posted: 17 Oct 2012 09:05 AM PDT

by Stephen George, Stephy Chung

Baijiu is the Marlboro Red of liquors. A no-nonsense, straight-talking hardened drink for hardened drinkers, and one that may come as something of a shock for foreign visitors.

The transparent firewater is also China's national drink, an omnipresent liquor served liberally at banquets and ranked on the shelves of convenience stores right next to mineral water. And at RMB 3 (US$0.47) for a bottle, it's about the same price.

A guided tour through Beijing's Niulanshan (牛栏山) baijiu brewery, a vast, colorless prison-like complex on the city's northeastern fringes, presents foreign visitors with a new, unique way to understand the nation.

china baijiu factory -- inline 1 Feng Cheng (second from the left) organizes private tour to Niulanshan baijiu factory.