Thailand    

ark Enderby has recently been on his travels again, so thanks to him for this report on a country I'd never have thought of going to on a beer hunt...

Singha is still the favourite – but is only 5% compared to the 6% we get over here; I did come across one 6% bottle though I suspect this was a labelling mistake.  However, new kid on the block Chang is making great inroads into the market.

I failed to come up with anything other than 5-5.5% lagers in my trawl of 7-11 shops.  Examples of lagers were Leo (5.5%) from Khon Kaen Brewery ; Kloster (5.2%) brewed under licence by Pathumtani Brewery and Phuket (5%) also from Pathumtani.  Bangkok appears to be down to 2 brewpubs; many have come and gone and the airport outlets have disappeared with the opening of the new airport last year.

I tried the Londoner on Sukhumvit Road. This is a basement London-themed ex-pats hangout with the Thai waitresses dressed as Beefeaters or in football strip ! The unfiltered Pilsner 33 was very pleasant and the Londoner Pride bitter would probably satisfy your average UK bitter drinker. I arrived in the 2-for-1 happy hour and mistakenly order a pint of pilsner. As I got to the end of this another pint arrived which rather knackered my attempt at trying the bitter so I immediately ordered a half of bitter which, of course, resulted in a second half.

The other brewpub is the Tawan Daeng German Brewhouse which is not easily accessible by public transport. It also appears to only open at 1700 hence I wasn’t able to make it in the limited time available.  However, web reports suggest the product is good.