Beer-lovers and runners unite. Mikkeller Bar reopens at a new and unlikely place, a hawker stall at Chinatown Complex Food Centre.
*This review first appeared in Wine & Dine’s 2021 ‘Spice & Aromatics’ issue
After a somewhat messy first foray into Singapore, the Danish Mikkeller Bar reopens at an entirely different location. Like the craft beer brand’s ethos of breaking the mold, the bar has made itself at home at an unlikely place, occupying a hawker stall at Chinatown Complex Food Centre.
Taking the lead from partners SST Trading Co., the people responsible for Smith Street Taps just around the corner, the “World’s Smallest Mikkeller Bar” offers 10 beers on tap and a rotation of bottled or canned beers from anywhere else. The opening taplist includes brews made for easy drinking in the tropical outdoors such as the official Mikkeller Beer Celebration Copenhagen 2020 festival thirst-quencher — a citrusy Berliner-style Weisse beer with notes of orange, pink grapefruit and calamansi. If that’s run out, the gluten-free IPA called Space Race could be a good replacement with its equally fruity notes.
The rule-breaking doesn’t stop at experimental limited-edition brews, the Singapore outpost continues the unconventional way founder Mikkel Borg Bjergsø has rallied together a community of craft beer lovers. They’ve launched the Mikkeller Running Club, an initiative started in 2014 in Copenhagen that has been adopted in 37 countries. The bar organises a run the first Saturday every month that ends with a post-run pint, of course.
Mikkeller Bar Singapore is located at 335 Smith Street, 02-058 (Green Zone) Chinatown Complex, Singapore 050335. Opening hours are from 5.30pm to 10pm on Tuesday to Friday, and 2.30pm to 10pm on Saturday.