I’ve got a frosty schooner of Carlsberg in one hand and a Vogue in the other. Soothing music is coming out of a speaker, and I’m feeling pretty damn zen right now.
“Can I get you anything else?” my therapist hovers over me.
I look at the bucket of beers and stack of magazines beside me.
“No, all good, thank you,” I say, taking another sip of beer and sinking further into the warm bath I’m soaking in. If it weren’t for its suds, I could’ve probably ditched the schooner and sipped straight from it.
I’m at the Anantara Spa at Bali resort Anantara Seminyak trying out their new beer spa.
A "beer spa" is exactly what it sounds like: a treatment that lets you reap the health benefits of beer. Loaded with antioxidants, protein and vitamin B, beer has been found to prevent diseases like cancer and diabetes, improve cholesterol and boost bone strength. A beer spa makes total sense.
Starting in Eastern Europe, beer spas quickly spread around the continent, hopped across the pond to the US, and have now landed a little closer to home – in Bali.
When on tour in Budapest a few months ago, I missed out on the thermal beer spa at Szechenyi thermal bath (the one with yellow buildings you’ve definitely seen on Instagram). There, a "bath master" pours beer ingredients such as hops, malt and yeast into a two-person tub and leaves you with a keg to drink as you relax in the warm beer bath. Needless to say, everyone from the tour who did try it had a damn good time.
Because I get massive FOMO and I’m always keen to try something new – no matter how gimmicky is it – I nearly tripped over my thongs rushing to book in when I saw it advertised at the Anantara Seminyak in Bali.
Once inside, wearing my Balinese bathrobe, I asked my therapist a thousand questions. “That’s coconut powder,” she told me.
“It’s hydrating – good for after a sunburn,” she said, pouring a Bintang into the bowl, making the powder turn clay-like. “The ingredients in beer help to penetrate everything else deeper into the skin.”
There were two options with the treatment here: just a beer spa or a beer spa with a beer bath and beer bucket. I was doing the whole shebang.
It began with a foot massage. A bottle of Bintang was poured on my feet and the beer was rubbed into them. Next, a 30-minute oil body massage.
She rubbed the coconut-beer clay onto my back, placed the sheet over it and then came back a few minutes later to begin really rubbing it in… hard. She explained that it would draw out impurities and help to detoxify and stimulate the circulatory system.
It was then repeated in different areas all over my body, always with the same firmness. In fact, it was so intense that the next day I felt as if I’d run a marathon – my calves were that sore. Always a sucker for seeing visible results, I was pretty stoked, and, okay, slightly grossed out, when she showed me where all the clay bits had turned grey.
“Dirt,” she explained.
The last part was a face massage complete with a beer toner said to restore skin elasticity and prevent wrinkles and under-eye bags. My therapist told me about a girl who’d had flaming acne all over her cheeks – the beer toner had calmed it down.
After that, I showered and headed into the beer bath… or rather, warm water with three Bintangs poured in. One Carlsberg, one Vogue and 45 minutes later, I dried off and wandered into busy Seminyak. I was buzzed (I’m a light-weight, okay?), but felt exactly how you’d want to feel after a spa treatment: super relaxed and refreshed.
The verdict
This version of a beer spa was nothing like the kind you’d find in Eastern Europe or the copycats of elsewhere. But that’s not to say you couldn’t make it that way. If you’re staying at the resort, you can pay for just the beer bath and have them set it up in your room.
And their version was great in its own way. After the treatment, checking myself out in the room’s mirror, I noticed my body’s skin appeared to be radiating. It was incredibly soft to touch. The flaking and dryness I’d had on my legs from a few day-old sunburn had disappeared. Sure, I had a Bali tan, but it felt like it could finally… glow.
My face was dewy, and, weird as it sounds, I looked healthier and happier*. Again, I’m a sucker for a visible results treatment, and, with this, I got it.
As for the beer bath? I’m not entirely convinced about that one.
* This may have been the result of the beer consumed, not applied.
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