Sip a Singha, take a Tsingtao out of the fridge and prepare to celebrate Lunar New Year in all its glory. Learn how a range of countries will bring in the year of the rabbit.
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Chinese New Year in China paired with Tsingtao Premium Lager
Also known as Spring Festival, Chinese New Year marks the beginning of a new year on the country’s traditional lunisolar calendar. It’s a time for family gatherings and delicious food shared with the people you love. It’s also when Chinese elders give red envelopes – known as hóngbāo in Mandarin – to children or unmarried people, a tradition that evolved from the practice of giving coins to ward off evil spirits. Other elements that are sprinkled across Chinese New Year celebrations include performing lion or dragon dances and plenty of fireworks and firecrackers to really welcome the new year with a literal bang!
Our drink of choice for Chinese New Year would have to be Tsingtao Premium Lager – a cleansing, hoppy European-style lager, which goes down a treat with traditional Chinese New Year dishes like good fortune fruit, tangyuan (sweet rice balls) and dumplings. Delish!
Seollal in South Korea paired with Sudo Capital Lager
For South Koreans, New Year, known as Seollal, is a three-day national holiday commemorating the first day of the Korean calendar. During this time, families traditionally gather at the house of their oldest male relative to pay their respects to both ancestors and elders. People eat traditional food, such as tteokguk, or rice cake soup, which carries special significance during Seollal. Children are especially excited to eat this dish because consuming a bowl marks a person’s Lunar Calendar Birthday. Around this time, South Koreans also observe another festival called Jeongwol Daeboreum, which celebrates the first full moon of the new lunar year with big bonfires to bring luck for the year ahead.
A beer worth celebrating with is Sudo Capital Lager. South Korea is late to the party when it comes to brewing beer, but they’re making up for lost time and there are plenty of breweries popping up of late. This lager has clean aromas and low bitterness for a crisp and refreshing vibe overall. The can artwork is pretty cute, too!
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Imlek in Indonesia paired with Bintang
During Imlek, Chinese-Indonesians celebrate with loved ones and pray the coming year will bring abundant good fortune. The celebration is 15 days long, and ends with the final festivity of Cap Go Meh. Traditions include cleaning your home before celebrations (which represents getting rid of the bad luck from the previous year), repainting windows and doors, and adorning buildings with paper inscribed with the Chinese character ‘Fu’ – meaning ‘good luck’. Red clothes and shoes are often worn, and haircuts also mark the occasion to help get rid of any residual bad luck from the prior year.
We couldn’t go past a classic Indonesian beer to match with Imlek: Bintang is a pale, lightly-flavoured pilsner that’s best served ice-cold on a hot afternoon. It’s crisp, clean and refreshing.
Media Noche in the Philippines paired with San Miguel Pale Pilsen
A traditional new-year celebration in the Philippines is called Media Noche, where families come together for a midnight feast to celebrate a year of prosperity ahead. The table is usually full of round-shaped fruits – a tradition that originates from China – as the shape represents good fortune. You might even spot people wearing polka dots, as there’s a unique superstition in the Philippines that the round shape leads to prosperity, money and good fortune. Filipino kids jump for joy as the clock strikes midnight, believing it makes them grow taller. On the food front, sticky rice dishes (like biko, bibingka and nian gao) are also enjoyed during this time, as it's believed to help bind families together. Pancit (long noodles) is also eaten to help bring a healthy, long life and good luck for the year ahead.
The beer pick here is San Miguel Pale Pilsen – the Philippines' and Southeast Asia's oldest beer brand, and one of the biggest-selling beer brands in the world. This pilsen is a smooth golden lager with a rich, yet balanced, full-bodied flavour.
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Lunar New Year in Singapore paired with Tiger Beer
The island-nation of Singapore – a majority-Chinese nation from its founding days – celebrates all two weeks of the Chinese Lunar New Year with many festivities in different parts of the country. It’s an explosion of colour, fireworks and festivals – a joyous celebration that demonstrates Singapore’s Chinese heritage. Most of the festivities happen in Chinatown, from street bazaars filled with festival souvenirs like barbecued meats and Chinese opera masks to lion dances and fireworks. Elsewhere, the Chingay Parade lights up the Marina waterfront for two days, and contemporary Chinese arts performances happen as part of the Huayi Festival.
Tiger Beer is the obvious choice here. Originally launched in 1932, it’s a pale lager that’s smooth, well-hopped and has a refreshing aftertaste. Every bottle of Tiger goes through a strict brewing process, which takes more than 500 hours and uses only the finest quality ingredients from Australia and Europe. That’s why it tastes so good!
Songkran in Thailand paired with Singha
Thais celebrate the western new year on January 1 and Songkran, the Thai New Year, in April, as well as the Chinese Lunar New Year, which is traditionally a 15-day celebration. Songkran is what we’ll focus on here, mostly because it sounds so damn fun! With celebrations lasting up to a week, Songkran marks the end of the dry season with religious ceremonies and water fights, a trademark of the festival that happens alongside it. As a symbol of renewal in Buddhism, water is splashed on statues of Buddha for good luck and people gather in the streets to join in. Most Thai people also like to give gifts of food to monks in the temples and worship their ancestors during the Songkran Festival.
If you want to wet the whistle after that water fight then Singha is the perfect fit: born in Bangkok and now brewed for the world, Singha Lager uses the finest quality barley, malt and hops from around the world. It’s pale yellow in colour, distinctively rich in flavour and has just the right amount of strong hop and spicy characters.
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Tết in Vietnam paired with Nam Nam Alley Lager
Lunar New Year is called Tết in Vietnam – short for Tết Nguyên Đán. It’s the most sacred festival that marks the arrival of spring. During the occasion, Vietnamese people enjoy a long holiday that gives them time to come back home and reunite with their families. People usually decorate their homes with plants and flowers (peach blossoms in the north, and yellow apricot blossoms in the central and southern parts of the country), which represent the hope for a new beginning and good fortune. Another tradition includes cleaning up ancestors’ graves and adorning the altars of ancestors with flowers, fruits and food offerings.
To help celebrate, we suggest cracking a can of Nam Nam Alley Lager – a delicious Vietnamese brew from Quang Ngai province and a refreshing thirst-quencher on a hot day. Aromas of pastry malt, a medium-bodied palate and just the perfect amount of bitterness make for a crisp, clean and refreshing finish.
If all this talk of Lunar New Year has you thinking about how you can celebrate, look no further! We’re throwing a major Lunar New Year celebration in Sydney, hosted by Penfolds ambassador Jamie Sach alongside a whisky ambassador from Johnnie Walker. Enjoy a delectable Cantonese feast, with perfect pairings of Penfolds and Johnnie Walker favourites. Wine and whisky fans, take note: this is the ultimate way to bring in the year of the rabbit!
The Dan’s Lunar New Year Dinner Celebration in Sydney is on Friday, 20 January, 2023. For all the juicy details and to buy tickets, head here.
