Vietnamese beers?

[Oliver]

Hi all,

I'm off to Vietnam on Saturday for a couple of weeks. Has anyone got beer recommendations? The obvious ones are 333, Hanoi and Saigon, apparently along with the ring-ins such as Heineken, Tiger and San Miguel. But these are all same-same-but different.

Has anyone come across interesting Vietnamese beers?

In Nha Trang we're staying pretty much next door to the Louisiane Brewhouse, which has its own pool and beach and brews a pilsner, dark lager, witbier and red ale (apparently using Australian malt and NZ hops). No stout, unfortunately. But I'm interested to try their brews.

Anyone with experience of these? I'm hoping they're OK because we're in Nha Trang for eight nights

Cheers,

Oliver

[bullfrog]

I'd be careful, mate; drinking beer could lower your powers of perception and you may be likely to fall headlong into a punji pit. Wait, they still do that stuff, right??

Have fun and learn from Jeremy Clarkson - riding a scooter in Vietnam can be dangerous! (And no, sorry, no idea on good Vietnamese beers as I've never been.)

[Oliver]

Thanks for the tips!

Favourite beer so far is Saigon Special (not 333). It's available at some restaurants in bottles and is a bit lighter on the bitterness than 333. Tastes much more like a light German pils than 333.

BUL Asahi is widely available but just not right. It's quite sweet and we haven't enjoyed it at all the couple of times we've had it. So 333 or BUL Heineken it is.

Cheers,

Oliver

EDIT: Corrected the name to Saigon Special from just "Saigon".

[Oliver]

I picked up four cans of Heineken, four cans of Tiger, three cans of Saigon 333, four small bottles of Sprite (to drink with vodka) and 1.5 litres of water last night for the princely sum of 230,000 dong. That's about $11. And at tourist prices.

I think I might come home alcoholic. Oh, wait, that's how I left

Oliver

[RUM57L]

You'd be coming back as a well travelled one at least ha-ha.

Having never been there, or out of the country at that.. is there any Vietnamese customs when coming to buying / drinking / ordering booze there Oliver?

[Oliver]

... is there any Vietnamese customs when coming to buying / drinking / ordering booze there Oliver?

Not that I've come across, although we're only travelling to fairly touristy places - Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) down south and Nha Trang, which is about 300km further north and a bit of a tourist centre.

So amost everyone speaks English, or at least understands what you're trying to order if it's one of the well-known brands like Heineken, Tiger or 333. If someone has absolutely no English you can just order "ba ba ba", which is 333! You can get beer pretty much everywhere, including at roadside stalls where you can pick it up for the equivalent of about 70c.

I've actually started ordering beer with ice sometimes because it warms up so quickly. Even drinking really quickly doesn't stop it getting warm

I even had a Coopers Pale Ale last night (complete with a Kangaroo on the label!) for 90,000 dong, which is about $4.20. No ice. And it was actually one of the more pleasant beers I've had here because it doesn't taste too bad quite warm, unlike some of the local lagers.

I will post some pics when I can.

Cheers,

Oliver

[Oliver]

OK, I think I have a good handle on mainstream Vietnamese beers.

Here's the drill: There's not much between the best so far (Saigon Special) and the worst (a beer I am drinking as I type called Huda). All the local beers such as 333 and the BUL such as Heineken, Carlsberg and Tiger taste pretty much the same ... which is to say they're bland lagers. If they are cold and the weather is hot (which is is here ATM) then they are OKish.

It's interesting that they don't seem to have a taste for stout here. When I was in Bali two years ago there were quite a few stouts on offer, chief among them BUL Guinness in bottles. The Caribbean nations like their stout, too, I observed.

There's a "brew pub" here in Nha Trang called Louisiane Brewhouse. I had their pilsner the other night which was quite pleasant (not really a pilsner though, I'd argue; more of a pale ale kind of taste) and I had a taste of the witbier that 'er indoors ordered. That, too, was enjoyable. I'm looking forward to trying their dark lager ...

Gotta go, the missus has just returned from the fridge with a BUL Heineken

Oliver

EDIT: The Heineken is going down quite nicely. It's got that nice graininess that one associates with Heineken.

Here's part of a review about Huda that I found on ratebeer.com:

Comes on with a strong taste of bleach and finishes off with a touch of acrid sourness that hangs around in your throat long enough to stop you from having another one too quickly.

[squirt in the turns]

Bleach, huh? Maybe they just need to rinse their equipment properly.

Why is the Louisiane Brewhouse a "brew pub" in inverted commas? Is it just allegedly a brew pub? The place looks pretty nice, based on their website. The only thing that would worry me is in the description of their filtration process, they state "The yeast is removed in the beer filter, and the alcohol adjusted to 5.0% to enhance the beer flavour."

How the hell do they adjust the alcohol?

[Oliver]

Thanks for calling me on "brew pub"

No, it's definitely a brewery. You can do tours there. I think (and I may or may not have had a few beers when I wrote "brew pub") that I put it in inverted commas because it's not really a pub. More a bar with pool, lots of tourists, on the beach. You get the picture. Good venue with good beer, but the food is not great given the quality of other, cheaper places here in Nha Trang.

We are heading there later today so I will make further investigations and report back.

It's a tough job ...

Cheers,

Oliver

P.S. I have just been informed by SWMBO that I did, in fact, have the dark lager the other night when we were there. I have absolutely no recollection of this so will try it for the first time again this evening.

[squirt in the turns]

I have absolutely no recollection of this...

It must've been good!

[Oliver]

OK, so once I tasted the dark lager that I didn't remember at the Louisiane Brewhouse in Nha Trang I remembered it. It's actually a pretty bloody nice beer. It's a VERY dark lager. Almost Guinness-like in its roastiness and thick, creamy head and smooth body. A very enjoyable beer that's as black as the ace of spades. I also had the Red Ale there last night. It was all right, but not a patch on the dark lager.

Here are the other (beer-related) pictures from the trip so far:

Heineken on ice at Window's (sic) Cafe in Ho Chi Minh City. Strange but true.



Me drinking the aforementioned Heineken on ice at Window's Cafe in Saigon.



Saigon Special Beer at the Delicious Cafe (Vietnamese name to come) in Ho Chi Minh City with a Vietnamese colleague and his wife who we had lunch with. Saigon Special is not as widely available as 333 (ba ba ba) and is not as bitter. A nice beer.



Huda and Zorok beers in Nha Trang. They both tasted as dodgy as they sound.



Bier La Rue at the Sailing Club in Nha Trang. Was cheap. Tasted cheap. Dicey beer.



Coopers Pale Ale: "Real Aussie Ale", "Brewed in Australia", complete with kangaroo on the label, also at the Sailing Club in Nha Trang. It cost 90,000 dong ($A4.30). I later had one at a French restaurant in Nha Trang for 70,000 ($A3.40). Cheaper than at home, but tastes just as good!



The Red Ale and Witbier with a dash of passionfruit (not for me!) at Louisiane Brewhouse in Nha Trang.



Dark Lager and Pilsner at Louisiane Brewhouse.



Cheers,

Oliver

[jello]

I don't know if I could bring myself to drink beer with ice cubes in it. It just doesn't seem right to me

[Tipsy]

I'm disappointed,

I thought a guy who runs a homebrew site would have a beer gut!

[emnpaul]

Not to worry Tipsy, those are actually beer goggles on the end of his nose.

[warra48]

Drinking beer doesn't give you a beer gut.
Eating carb and sugar loaded rubbish is what gives you the beer gut.

Hope you are enjoying the holiday.
I'd love to try one of those dark lagers, it sounds like it's the go.

I'm drinking one of my Munich Dunkels at present, and it's very nice.
Unfortunately, mrs warra and I will never get to Asia, as she can't go anywhere where there's a possibility of exposure to malaria, as it would be a potential death sentence for her (the result of past illness and the lack of a spleen).

[Oliver]

Unfortunately, mrs warra and I will never get to Asia, as she can't go anywhere where there's a possibility of exposure to malaria, as it would be a potential death sentence for her (the result of past illness and the lack of a spleen).

That's a great and unfortunate shame. Most of it is wonderful and the people are generally delightful. In Vietnam, given what they've been through with the French, the American War (as they call it) and even the atrocities they've had commited on them by their own people, how they manage to still be so happy and positive is a bit beyond me.

But the world's a big place and Mrs Warra's health is, no doubt, paramount

Cheers,

Oliver

[Oliver]

Here are some more pics.

Saigon Export. This is 4.9 per cent. You can't really see it here, but the bottles are the refillable type, which has the wear marks from a long life around the bottom of the neck and base.



Saigon Lager. At 4.3 per cent this is the perfect drink for the tropics. Also comes in refillable bottles.



And the familiar Saigon 333 (ba ba ba), which is 5.3 per cent, taken from our hotel balcony in Nha Trang just after a thunderstorm. Sorry, couldn't resist

[SimonG]

Hi Oliver,

We went to Vietnam for our honeymoon 8 years ago and we had a fantastic time. From what we have been told from a few friends that have been there since, it has changed a lot, but still great. Nha Trang was one of our favourite places. If you get a chance to go to Hoi An I highly recommend it, it was a beautiful little place, white sandy beaches and just a really nice atmosphere (also very cheap tailors, i bought an ok suit for just $50).

I can't help you much with advice on beers because I pretty much drank Tiger, for $1 for a long neck you couldn't go wrong. My beer tastes have changed a lot since then, so it would be interesting to try some of the beers you have talked about. Don't waste your money on any of the local wines, they are absolute shockers, they taste like nail polish remover. We made the mistake of buying a bottle of local white wine for about $3, but it would have been a much better idea to pay $40 for bottle Jacobs Creek (which sells for under $10 here), because the local wine was undrinkable.

I woud be very careful drinking your beer with ice in it because they sometimes use local water for making ice...a great recipe for getting very sick.

Enjoy your trip.
Simon

[Oliver]

Hi Simon (and others),

I'm currently at the airport lounge in Ho Chi Minh waiting for our 9pm flight back to Melbourne, having been at the airport since 11am. Don't ask

But I have a free Tiger in hand and 'er indoors has just gone to get me another one

The little lady has been to Hoi An before and loved it. We decided to have a leisurely trip this time around (just HCMC and Nha Trang), so Hoi An beckons next time. And yes, she reckons it's changed heaps and says things are heaps more expensive than they were last time. Spending Western wages it's still cheap as chips, though.

My beer tastes have changed a lot since then, so it would be interesting to try some of the beers you have talked about.

Apart from a couple of nice brews at the Louisanne Brewhouse in Nha Trang, the offerings are variations on the bland lager theme. Nothing to write home about.

Don't waste your money on any of the local wines, they are absolute shockers, they taste like nail polish remover.

They sound as bad as the local wines in Bali!

I woud be very careful drinking your beer with ice in it because they sometimes use local water for making ice...a great recipe for getting very sick.

Good recipe for staying slim though

Cheers,

Oliver

[bullfrog]

Sounds like I could do with a couple of those ice cubes!