San Miguel Beer - Beer Flagship of the Philippines

San Miguel Beer is the best-tasting beer in the Philippines, carefully brewed to satisfy the distinct preferences of the resilient and unpretentious Filipino drinker. Its unique heritage is representative of a friendship between the Filipino drinker and his beer that has lasted over a hundred years!

San Miguel Pale Pilsen, the brewery's best-selling beer and the 14th largest-selling beer in the world! My personal fave along with Super Dry. :)




San Miguel, the unofficial National Beer of the Philippines, as now been on Thailand's beer shelves for several months in farang populated areas such as Phuket, Samui, Bangkok and Pattaya and is proving to be a popular brew.

San Miguel is brewed in a number of countries including the Phillipines, Nepal, China, Vietnam, Indonesia and Australia and is also exported to over 40 countries. In the Philippines and Hong Kong the beer is the number one market leader but in Thailand they are marketing it more as a premium beer with a select but better financed consumer.

San Miguel Corporation (SMC) first began its jaunt into Thailand by purchasing Thai Amarit Brewery Ltd. for US$102 million. Included in the deal was a 21.75-hectare brewery in the Pathum Thani province, 30 kilometers north of Bangkok. The state of the art brewery has a capacity of about 1 million hectolitres with room for significant expansion.

The first two beers launched by SMC, Red Horse and Blue Ice, were aimed more for the Thai market but San Miguel Pale Pilsen is squarely aimed at the foreign residents market. It is a well-balanced beer that has a lot of flavour. There is a taste that is not available in most other beers on the market, a bitter yet not too mature body that is perfumed by a malt aroma.

Currently in promotion mode this beer is available in taste tests in TOPS supermarkets and various bars in farang populated areas. So far the beer has proved popular and it has few rivals in terms of quality in the price range it resides. That said the Thai beer market is extremely competitive and beers like Heineken and Tiger have a strong grip on the higher end of the market.

Personally I welcome the addition of a flavoursome beer to the market and am making sure to purchase the beer regularly so as to prove to Thai supermarkets and convenience stores that there is demand for decent beer.

San Miguel Beer commercial Beer that started in the Philippines and has now become the leading beer in Hong Kong and South China.


Electrifying Sabado nights commercial theme of San Miguel Beer's TVC year 1995 with young footages of Ina Raymundo and Paolo Abrera.





one hand and a fork in the other; you use the fork to push food onto the spoon. And if you’re paranoid about food safety like I am, you wash everything down with San Miguel, which is a pretty good beer considering that I pretty much hate beer. (Even Jet Li and Stephen Chow like it, so who can argue?) As for nonnative food, well I have to laugh, because there are heaps of American chains in Manila, and I studiously avoided them all just like I do at home. Shakey











San Miguel Beer Division (SMBD) a division of San Miguel Corporation, the largest food and beverage company in Southeast Asia. SMBD manufactures and distributes San Miguel Pale Pilsen, the undisputed leader in the Philippine market and the leading beer in Hong Kong.

San Miguel also produces a wide range of popular beverage products that are runaway market leaders in their respective product categories.


SMBD Overseas

J. Boag & Son, San Miguel's Australian brewer, is a leader in the fast-growing premium beer segment with James Boag Premium lager, while Anker Bir is the second-largest selling beer brand in Indonesia. Blue Star, one of its brands, is declared Baoding's Official Beer in 2001 as it is the best-selling beer in the city. Another brand, Dragon, outsells its closest rival in Shunde district's affordable section three to one.

In the Philippines, SMBD garnered a staggering 90% market share in the beer market, its closest rival is Asia Brewery, with local brand Beer na Beer and licensed brands Colt 45 and Lone Star. In Hong Kong, it garnered 24% share as it is more affordable than European rivals, and perhaps the number of Filipinos who enjoy San Miguel Pale Pilsen contributed to its success.

San Miguel is also produced in Nepal through a licensing agreement. San Miguel Beer Division also brews Miller Genuine Draft and Löwenbräu beers under license.

SMBD has facilities in China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and Australia.



Trivia

* San Miguel Pale Pilsen is featured in the anime feature Ghost in the Shell. The movie has scenes wherein Bateau (one of the leading characters) drinks a can of San Miguel Beer, which was recreated onscreen faithfully to its real life appearance.

* During the Japanese era, and Andres Soriano was in America with the exiled Commowealth Government, San Miguel became the Balintawak Beer Brewery, Funded and supported by the Japanese until the liberation. Andres Soriano ordered the beer to be consumed by the Americans and the Filipinos to the last drop rather than be labeled under the name San Miguel.

* People in Hong Kong often assume San Miguel Pale Pilsen is brewed locally (although it does have a brewery factory there).

* San Miguel in Spain has the same origins as San Miguel in the Philippines. However, since 1953 the brewery in Spain has been under separate ownership and no longer has any connections with San Miguel Corp. Philippines. The beer in Spain is brewed by San Miguel Fábricas de Cerveza y Malta S.A., part of the San Miguel-Mahou group.

* San Miguel has a cult following in the United States, especially among Filipino "Balikbayans."

* In the movie Shaolin Soccer, Fung is drinking a can of San Miguel Beer when he meets Steel Leg for the first time.

* Latest commercial endorsers of San Miguel Beer include Kris Aquino, Manny Pacquiao, Erik Morales, and Jet Li.

* In the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Korea 'white label' San Miguel is available. However in other areas, only the 'gold label' is available. The difference? Gold label is a gold colored paper label. White label is painted on white lettering. SMC has started shipping the gold paper labeled bottles, at least in Manila and might be phasing out the painted bottles. You might want to hold onto some of those old painted bottles as they may soon become collectable.

* San Miguel Beer Division held a 3-day drinking contest in Makati, Philippines. The winner of this 1994 drinking bout is no other than 20 year old Carlo Decena Bilbao, who still holds the record of 83 bottles of pale pilsen. Take note, this was all consumed without the use of his hands. He would simply pick up the bottle with his mouth and start pounding one after the other. The second placer for this event was no other than the German Gulper himself, Roland Hiitzer, who downed 15 pilsens.