Beers of South East Asia
- Ed Sheehan
- May 1, 2018
- 4 min read
Hey and welcome to the (moderately) requested second beer blog! The past couple of months of our trip in South East Asia have been a lot more friendly for beer-lovers, especially compared to our beer experience in East Africa. I've found the cheapest beer in the world and have even discovered a few ales along the way!
I'll go through all the beers I've tried and give you: a bit of info about the beverage, the price for a standard 500ml bottle and, of course, my all important rating (that even exceeds 7/10 this time)!
To do this chronologically I'll start in Thailand.
THAILAND
I went a tad overboard in Thailand buying and trying every beer I could get my hands on, which led me to discover beers which ranged from some amazing locally brewed Ales to a beer that tasted a lot like White Ace (every English corner shop's favourite).
SINGHA
Brewery: Singha Corporation
Strength: 5%
Price: 80 baht ~ £1.82
Malty, yeasty and light taste with a poor aftertaste. This is an OK beer that we'd drink frequently in Thailand. The golden lion on the label is Singha, a mythological lion found in ancient Indian and Thai stories.
Rating: 5/10
(Amy's rating: 6/10) - Amy is, clearly, too generous.
LEO
Brewery: Singha Corporation
Strength: 5%
Price: 80 baht ~ £1.82
Savoury, effervescent, velvety with a caramel and piney aroma. A cheap beer from Singha's brewery that I would always favour if on offer.
Rating: 5.5/10
CHANG
Brewery: Thai Beverages
Strength: 5%
Price: 70 baht ~ £1.59
Zippy, soapy, floral and fruity taste with a horrible smell. Sold everywhere. Slightly cheaper than both Singha and Leo but not worth it.
Rating: 3/10
RED TRUCK
Brewery: Chiang Mai Brewery
Strength: 5%
Price: 234 baht ~ £5.32 (I know!)
The best beer I had in South East Asia and the first Ale I had in almost three months! Sweet biscuity fruity taste with a floral aroma. Great red colour when poured. Brewed by a local brewery in Chiang Mai, Northen Thailand. Very pricey (even for England) but worth it, if you stumble upon it!
Rating: 8.5/10
SIAMSATO
Brewery: Unknown origin
Strength: 8%?
Price: 30 baht ~ 68p
A really bad taste. Really flat and clear like a home made wine. Smells like a farmyard. We bought this "beer" from Seven-Eleven on account of it being so cheap. Reminded me of White Ace and an awful bottle of home-brewed coconut wine that we mistakenly purchased, and subsequently "accidentally" spilt, on a beach in Kenya.
Rating: 2/10
(Amy's rating: 0/10)
LAOS
Next up: Laos. The range and variety of brands available to me in Thailand did not continue in Laos. Beerlao was the only beer I properly tried.
BEERLAO
Brewery: Lao Brewery Company
Strength: 5%
Price: 8,000 kip ~ 70p
Malty, heavily carbonated with little aroma. One of the only commercial beers brewed in Laos.
Rating: 5/10
VIETNAM
Heading east to the rice fields of Vietnam. Vietnam has an AMAZING selection of beer at amazing prices. The beers here have a distinct ricey taste, which I've never experienced before. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Each city or town had their own favourite variety and this made it easy to sample new beers as we worked our way down the country. I'll start from the North and work my way south.
BIA HA NOI
Brewery: HABECO (Hanoi Alcohol Beer and Beverage Company)
Strength: 4.2%
Price: 20,000 dong ~ 64p
Pretty good ricey beer with a sweet taste and a malty aroma. Found in the hectic capital of Vietnam, Hanoi.
Rating: 5/10
HAI PHONG
Brewery: Hai Phong Brewery
Strength: 4.2%
Price: 20,000 dong ~ 64p
Decent hoppy beer with a fruity aroma. Found in the north of Vietnam around Hai Phong, the gateway city to Ha Long Bay.
Rating: 5.5/10
SAIGON
Brewery: SABECO
Strength: 4.3%
Price: 20,000 dong ~ 64p
Richer taste with a grainy and sweet aroma. Good beer found in the south of Vietnam, named after the capital of the south Ho Chi Minh City or Saigon.
Rating: 5/10
SAI GON SPECIAL
Brewery: SABECO
Strength: 4.9%
Price: 20,000 dong ~ 64p
Pretty bland and watery. Grainy and sweet taste with a malty aroma. Not that 'special', go for others.
Rating: 4/10
HUDA
Brewery: Hue Brewery
Strength: 4.7%
Price: 15,000 dong ~ 48p
Ricey, flat and watery. And as for the smell... "Call me crazy but I'm getting banana!" (Amy). Huda is the only commercially available beer in Hue, home of the Imperial city and the historic location of some of the most intense fighting in the Vietnamese war.
Rating: 4.5/10
LARUE
Brewery: Fosters & Larue Brewers Atlantic International
Strength: 4.2%
Price: 20,000 dong ~ 64p
Ricey and malty taste with little aroma. Larue is the cheap commercial beer of Hoi An, the beauitful ancient trading town in South Vietnam.
Rating: 4/10
BIA HOI (FRESH BEER)
Brewery: N/A
Strength: N/A
Price: 10,000 dong ~ 32p!
And now for the cheapest beer in the world... This is a very ricey beer that feels like its been sitting in a metal keg for a while with little to no aroma. When I first heard about the daily locally brewed fresh beer in Vietnam I wasn't optimistic, but it's really not bad and for 32p a bottle you can't lose.
Rating: 3.5/10
IPA
Brewery: Rooster Beers
Strength: 6.7%
Price: 80,000 dong ~ £2.56
Ho Chi Minh has micro breweries around the city that sell good quality ales. I couldn't pass the opportunity off, even if the price was a lot more than we were used to by this point. Second ale of South East Asia. A very floral beer with a subtle fruitiness in the aroma. Very Nice!
Rating: 7.5/10
CAMBODIA
Heading west to troubled Cambodia, the land of the temples of Angkor. Cambodia had a few choices of beer. The beers reverted back to being grainy, losing the rice flavour that had dominated the Vietnamese beer scene.
ANCHOR
Brewery: Guinness Anchor Berhad!
Strength: 4%
Price: 1.50$ ~ £1.09
Heavier carbonation, pretty metallic and not much else to it. Pretty rubbish but cheap if you get it draught. Quite a difficult one to pronounce as often the two beers offered were "Anchor" and Angkor. Tip: It's pronounced "an-cher" as I was told by a nice Cambodian waitress.
Rating: 3/10
ANGKOR
Brewery: Cambrew
Strength: 5%
Price: 1.50$ ~ £1.09
Nice beer named after the stunning temples of Angkor. You'll see the three pagodas all over Cambodia.
Rating: 4.5/10
CAMBODIA
Brewery: Khmer Brewery
Strength: 5%
Price: 1.50$ ~ £1.09
Fairly similar to Angkor but is often available on draft for 0.50$ in a nice cold glass - perfect after a 50km bike ride around the temples of Angkor.
Rating: 5/10
INDONESIA
A short flight from Bangkok brought us to Indonesia. Unfortunately we only had time to visit Bali.
BINTANG
Brewery: Pt. Multi Bintang
Strength: 4.7%
Price: 30,000 rupiah ~ £1.57
Savoury taste with a fairly nice sweet aroma.
Rating: 5/10
If you made it through this many beers then thanks for reading!
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