Tuak

Fal Allen is one of the old-time brewers from Seattle, having turned in stints at RedHook and Pike. He is currently the brewmaster of Archipelago Brewing (a division of Asia Pacific Breweries) in Singapore. And he has a blog.

All of this would be interesting enough on its own, but add to it this: in his wanderings, he discovered a locally-produced Indonesian coconut beer called tuak.

As the lane turned onto a wider road a small gathering of people called me over to a house, where on the front porch area they were sitting around drinking out of these unusual looking bottles. As I got a little closer I could see that the bottles obviously contained a fermented beverage of some kind that I was not familiar with. I was offered a seat and the chance to buy a bottle. My first thought was - well, look it's still fermenting in the bottle - those guys are drinking it and they are not dead (yet) or comatose (yet), so sure why not, what could happen?

(As he managed to complete the post, I think he must have survived.) The entire tale is fascinating, so go read the rest.