Constantine Phaulkon
Senior Member
- Joined
- Jan 13, 2011
There's an article on beer in Southeast Asia in Penthouse USA, May 2012 which you can download online at the usual places. I wanted to extract the pages and post the PDF but my app keeps crashing I guess due to the large graphics in the PDF so I'll summarize it in text here.
The writer, married, recently toured Hanoi, Chiang Mai, and Bangkok with his wife. He liked the cheap beer "Bai Hoi" in the Hanoi "Old Quarter". A cup of beer, ironically, costs about a US quarter ($0.25). It tastes like Budweiser, not sure if that's a complement, but I think not, as the writer says that at least it’s cheap. Personally I like Bud myself.
Next the writer went to Halong Bay to climb the cliffs, and bought an 80-proof rice vodka called Vodka Hanoi, which was OK when mixed with a sugary drink. The beer sold to tourists at this tourist trap was thin and metallic (no brand name).
Next the writer visited Chiang Mai (did he stop at Rider’s Corner??!! he does not say) and found the beers uniformly bad, except for BeerLao Dark. Here is the quote: “Massive, buck-fifty bottles of lagers such as Leo, Singha and Archer (? I’ve never heard of Archer—CP) were largely forgettable and interchangeable, save for the elevated alcohol content of Chang.” You beer connoisseurs: have you heard of Archer and does Chang have more alcohol than the others? Chang gave the author a hangover after he had a dozen bottles. Personally I like Leo beer, but I’m not a big beer drinker. I also like Guinness and therefore might like BeerLao Dark, since it gets faint praise from the author (he tries it in Bangkok, and it’s the one beer he likes). He also tries in Chiang Mai a nasty brew called SiamSato, a rice beer that tastes like apple cider with artificial chemicals.
In Bangkok, besides liking the dark beer above, his western friend warns that wine goes bad in Thailand, but the friend did have imported Belgian brews, and recommends a Phuket lager of unspecified name, and the author dreamed of “hoppy IPA” (India Pale Ale? Googling it).
All in all, I feel the author had elevated standards, which always leads to disappointment as any Buddhist monk will tell you. But I guess one lesson learned is that you should try BeerLao Dark, and if you like cheap beer head to Hanoi.
The writer, married, recently toured Hanoi, Chiang Mai, and Bangkok with his wife. He liked the cheap beer "Bai Hoi" in the Hanoi "Old Quarter". A cup of beer, ironically, costs about a US quarter ($0.25). It tastes like Budweiser, not sure if that's a complement, but I think not, as the writer says that at least it’s cheap. Personally I like Bud myself.
Next the writer went to Halong Bay to climb the cliffs, and bought an 80-proof rice vodka called Vodka Hanoi, which was OK when mixed with a sugary drink. The beer sold to tourists at this tourist trap was thin and metallic (no brand name).
Next the writer visited Chiang Mai (did he stop at Rider’s Corner??!! he does not say) and found the beers uniformly bad, except for BeerLao Dark. Here is the quote: “Massive, buck-fifty bottles of lagers such as Leo, Singha and Archer (? I’ve never heard of Archer—CP) were largely forgettable and interchangeable, save for the elevated alcohol content of Chang.” You beer connoisseurs: have you heard of Archer and does Chang have more alcohol than the others? Chang gave the author a hangover after he had a dozen bottles. Personally I like Leo beer, but I’m not a big beer drinker. I also like Guinness and therefore might like BeerLao Dark, since it gets faint praise from the author (he tries it in Bangkok, and it’s the one beer he likes). He also tries in Chiang Mai a nasty brew called SiamSato, a rice beer that tastes like apple cider with artificial chemicals.
In Bangkok, besides liking the dark beer above, his western friend warns that wine goes bad in Thailand, but the friend did have imported Belgian brews, and recommends a Phuket lager of unspecified name, and the author dreamed of “hoppy IPA” (India Pale Ale? Googling it).
All in all, I feel the author had elevated standards, which always leads to disappointment as any Buddhist monk will tell you. But I guess one lesson learned is that you should try BeerLao Dark, and if you like cheap beer head to Hanoi.
