Design News: Craft beers at Brewnanza, orchids and diplomacy in new book, stackable WMF cookware
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Patrons at the 2023 edition of Brewnanza. The 2024 festival will feature more than 100 craft beers from local and international breweries.
PHOTO: BREWLANDER
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Brewnanza 2024 returns
Brewnanza Fest, Singapore’s largest craft beer festival, will take place at Sands Expo & Convention Centre from Aug 22 to 25.
Organised by Singapore brewery Brewlander and supported by the Singapore Tourism Board, the event at Marina Bay Sands will feature more than 100 craft beers from local and international breweries. These include home-grown creators such as Alive Brewing, Brewerkz and Sunbird Brewing.
Other notable participants include Sudden Death Brewing from Germany, Trillium Brewing from the United States and Uchu Brewing from Japan.
Tickets for the event start at $27. In addition to the selection of craft beers, the festival will also offer a range of activities, including masterclasses, interactive sessions and live musical performances. There will be cocktails and food options from local cocktail bar Nutmeg & Clove and Hong Kong burger chain Honbo.
Brewlander founder John Wei is particularly excited by the 2024 line-up of local beers, which showcases “how far Singapore craft breweries have come”. The event was first held in 2023 with 20 breweries.
Ticket-holders get one festival beer free. Community Ale, according to Mr Wei, is “a crushable hoppy pale ale that embodies the spirit of our vibrant craft beer community”. – Teo Kai Xiang
Info: www.brewlander.com
Singapore’s Orchid Diplomacy looks at the bloom’s soft power
Author Koh Buck Song (left) at his book launch, alongside Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan (centre) and Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office Indranee Rajah.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF KOH BUCK SONG
Take a stroll through Singapore Botanic Gardens’ National Orchid Garden, and one might be surprised by the range of global figures who have orchids named after them – from Nelson Mandela to Aung San Suu Kyi to Barack Obama.
Singaporean writer and poet Koh Buck Song’s new book, Singapore’s Orchid Diplomacy, unpacks how the island-state has cultivated its global influence through gardening.
To mark the 60th anniversary of Singapore’s independence in 2025, the book traces the history of the country’s more than 280 orchid hybrids named after foreign dignitaries and other distinguished guests.
The book presents a selection of 60 of these VIP orchids, curated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and National Parks Board, with accompanying photography and archival images.
During the book’s launch on July 29, Minister for Foreign Affairs Vivian Balakrishnan said the book “celebrates our global friendships that have blossomed over the years, and our uniquely Singapore identity”.
Koh, a branding expert and member of the teaching faculty at the National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, adds: “This book is particularly satisfying and important because it captures a key aspect of Singapore’s presentation of its soft power: the flowers, all that it takes to create them, and all that they mean.”
The book delves into examples such as the Dendrobium Joe and Jill Biden, named after the then vice-president of the United States and his wife during their 2013 visit.
Another highlight is the story of the Dendrobium Kishida Fumio, which was taken home by the Japanese Prime Minister it is named after and bloomed in the Hiroshima Botanical Garden at the height of winter in 2023.
Published by Marshall Cavendish, Singapore’s Orchid Diplomacy ($39.24) is available at Books Kinokuniya. – Teo Kai Xiang
WMF’s multi-functional Click & Serve cookware
The seven-piece set includes a detachable handle that can be used with any of the pans.
PHOTO: WMF
German household goods brand WMF has launched a cookware set designed for people grappling with minimal kitchen spaces.
The core pieces of the new seven-piece Click & Serve set ($739) are a 28cm non-stick frying pan, a 24cm saute pan, and 16cm and 20cm saucepans.
All four items are made of scratch-resistant stainless steel, and can be used for cooking, baking and roasting. Due to their lack of built-in handles, they transition seamlessly from kitchen to dining table for serving.
There is a separate, singular detachable handle in the set, which can be used with any of the four pans on any part of their cooking rims. WMF claims it is secure enough for one-handed operation and that it can support up to 10kg of weight.
The final two pieces are a pair of 20cm and 24cm lids with butterfly handles. These work only for the 20cm saucepan and 24cm saute pan respectively, but they are designed to be stackable. In fact, the entire set can be packed away in one compact stack.
WMF is also selling a three-piece version of the set, which comes with a 24cm non-stick frying pan, a 28cm stainless-steel frying pan and a detachable handle ($339).
Keep an eye out for offers online, such as on Lazada, Shopee and Tangs’ online store. As at press time, the seven-piece set is priced from $464 to $499, while the three-piece set is available from $244 to $299 on these platforms, excluding delivery charges. There are also single pieces for sale – refer to the respective platforms for prices and availability. – Yamini Chinnuswamy
Info: str.sg/Nqqd str.sg/fnnb str.sg/AaH7
