For five years from 2014 to 2018, MANUAL set off on a coffee crusade with the Jakarta Coffee Manual, a printed guide where we featured over 100 coffee shops around the city and the greater area. It was our way to document the fascination around specialty coffee while helping readers get acquainted with the drink and navigate the city’s coffee scene.
Today, a similar enthusiasm takes off for another kind of beverage: craft beer. It may not have skyrocketed at the pace and scale that coffee had, but similar to coffee, it’s also a drink that has become a social glue that brings people together—usually drunk at sundown after a long day at work, during tropical holidays or at lively house parties. To mark this brewing excitement, MANUAL is proud to present our first-ever Jakarta Craft Beer Manual (JCBM) in collaboration with BEERGEMBIRA.
Across the booklet, we invite you to get acquainted with some of Indonesia’s noted craft beers, made locally in microbreweries in Bali and Jakarta. We also narrowed down the establishments that offer the drink’s variety, from Kura Kura’s honey and bread-flavoured lager, IOI’s salak-infused wheat beer to Stark’s fruity mango ale. You’ll soon find that craft beer, from its philosophy down to the drinking experience, is never far from the tight-knit communities that have formed along the way—and it’s probably the best way to enjoy craft beer in a meaningful way.
If one isn’t familiar with craft beer—or beer in general—the booklet also comes equipped with a brief history of the age-old malt drink and how it came to form in Indonesia. So wherever you start with this booklet, we hope that between the pages you’ll discover a deeper understanding of the brew and get to explore the city while at it.
Jakarta Craft Beer Manual is available with every craft beer purchase at these eight participating establishments: Beer Hall, Black Pond Tavern, COBE, Inglorious Basterds, Lokaholik, Lucy Beer Mart (Adityawarman), Meatsmith and Red Pixiu.
To get you motivated (as per tradition), join our stamp-hunting programme and collect EIGHT stamps from the participating establishments where you’ll stand a chance to win the Jakarta Craft Beer Manual Card that entitles you to ONE free craft beer per day for the period of one month (1 to 31 December 2023). And for the lucky two winners, a 3D2N trip to Bali for the Kura Kura Island Tour package.
Have fun and drink responsibly!
