On Tap pours from a hawker stall at 335 Smith Street, up in the Chinatown Complex Market and Food Centre, and runs around 11 Singapore-brewed beers by the 500ml. The pitch is local craft beer at hawker prices, drunk among the food stalls rather than in a polished bar.
The stall suits a drinker who wants to taste Singapore breweries cheaply and eat hawker food in the same trip. It works less well for anyone after seating, air-conditioning or a long quiet evening, since this is communal food-centre space and the experience tracks the rhythms of the market around it.
The setup is the appeal. On Tap sits amid the myriad food hawkers of Chinatown Complex, up the escalator near the corner, with a view over the floor below. A drinker can carry a pour to a shared table, order char kway teow or roast meats from a neighbouring stall, and build a meal around the beer.
The taps lean local, which is the point of difference from the import-heavy bars in the centre. The board carries Singapore-brewed beers between roughly S$6.50 and S$9 for a 500ml pour, so a drinker can work across several local labels for the price of one cocktail elsewhere. The list shifts with what the stall can get, so two visits rarely look the same and a regular learns to ask first.
What to order is whatever Singapore brewery is pouring that the drinker has not tried, since the value is in tasting the local scene cheaply. The reliable move is to ask the stallholder what is freshest and start there, then pair it with a plate from one of the food stalls a few steps away.
Prices are the headline. At hawker rates, On Tap undercuts almost every sit-down craft bar in Singapore, which is why beer guides keep listing it among the city centre value picks. TheSmartLocal grouped it with the craft beer hawker stalls where a half-pint can start around S$5, and the math is the reason regulars climb the escalator.
The location doubles as the entertainment. Chinatown Complex is the largest hawker centre in Singapore, so a beer at On Tap comes with the run of the floor for food, and the stall works best as one stop in a longer graze rather than a destination bar. Smith Street Taps, the better-known craft stall, sits in the same complex for a side-by-side comparison.
Best time to go is early evening once the stall opens, when the beer is fresh and the food centre is moving but not at its fullest. Later in the night the shared tables fill, so arriving as the stall starts pouring is the way to claim a seat with a clear path to the food. Weeknights stay calmer than weekends, which suits a slower graze across the stalls with a beer in hand.
The crowd is a local-leaning mix of office workers, beer hunters and hawker-centre regulars. FoodAdvisor and Yelp reviewers, writing through 2026, point to the local tap list and the prices as the reasons they come, and the note that repeats is to treat it as a food-centre stall, not a bar, and plan the food around it.
On Tap fits a clear kind of visit: a cheap local-beer crawl, a hawker dinner with a proper pour, and any drinker mapping the Singapore brewing scene on a budget. It is a weaker pick for a seated date night. It sits among our picks for craft beer bars and hidden gems in the city. Plan the wider route with the Singapore bar guide.
Sources: FoodAdvisor (OnTap Fresh Brew Craft Beer); TheSmartLocal craft beer hawker guide; Yelp Singapore (updated 2026); Tripadvisor; Google Maps reviews.
