Why I do drink – Part 2

As of 2007 and 2008 I have begun to party a fair bit less than my London years but continue to enjoy a tipple or two on a regular basis.

I don’t drink everyday and limit my consumption to weekends and Mondays.

I avoid my previous drink of choice (large bottles of vodka) and prefer to sup on beer and wine nowadays.

So why do I drink?

For me it is not a social thing.

I have never much cared for big gatherings or endless work parties and while I regularly endure both with a drink in hand they are not the main cause for my drinking.

For me the optimum combination is good booze, fine food and an excellent backdrop.

Garden barbeques with a bottle of beer, gin and tonics with Satays at a beach bar and champagne with fresh seafood on a friend’s yacht are among the best examples.

I drink because it is enjoyable and intend to continue doing so in the best of surroundings and most favourable of situations.

Other people are free to do as they like and who am I to judge?

Asian Whisky A Go Go

It is hard to say what is worse; the general lack of decent beer in Asia or the native population’s taste for crap whisky.

Due to a holiday season extended by endless work related parties that revolved around massive consumption of Johnnie Walker I did not have much capacity for beer or anything else in most of January.

Chinese New Year combined with an astonishing number of wedding and birthday parties led to an alcohol sodden start to February and even more Johnnie Walker.

Recovery is now underway and I hope to continue my regular sampling of the good, the bad and the ugly beers that Asia has to offer.

Tiger Beer roars and pours in Laos

My first Laotian beer update is not about the national brew but the new foreign arrival from Singapore.

Last month Asia Pacific Breweries (APB) announced that their domestic operations in the Lao Peoples Democratic Republic would be brewing Tiger Beer before the end of the year.

While Tiger has been available as a high-end, premium import in the country for over a decade APB decided that the market was now mature enough to support a brewery that competes with the excellent, but somewhat monopolistic, Beerlao.

APB prefers to brew domestically rather than rely on imports and now has operations in Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and China as well as many other countries around the globe.

Good Morning Vientiane

My long awaited reconnaissance mission to Laos took place recently and has provided me with enough Communist beer related stories to fill this blog for at least a month.

More to come shortly…

Beer Lao Draft on the Mekong

“Bia Sot” and “Nam Kawn” (“Fresh Beer” and “Ice”) are the two things you have to be able to say if you are to enjoy a trip in the People’s Democratic Republic of Laos.

It is only in this tiny and remote Communist country that you can drink Beerlao fresh from a beer tap.

When I arrived in Vientiane the first thing I did after checking into my hotel was go out and order a pitcher of this golden nectar at a nearby bar overlooking the Mekong.

The taste of Beerlao Draft renders any notion of canned or bottled beer completely obsolete.

The beer tastes amazingly pure and fresh thanks to the close proximity of the Beerlao brewery.

The picture says it all really…

Temporarily out of action

A combination of an evil computer virus and the early onset of the monsoon has laid me and several blog post temporarily out of action.

Luckily my computer guy is on it and has only taken 1 week to feedback to me that "Your computer have problem!"...........

There will be more beer blogging to come soon I drunkenly promise!

Mini Sapporo Beer in Hong Kong

This mini can of Sapporo is something I picked up from a 7-11 near to the hotel I was staying at in Hong Kong.

In the photo the Carlsberg is a normal 330ml and the Sapporo was tiny in comparison, although the pricing was quite similar.

Sapporo tastes good whether in bottle or can and the 7-11's in Hong Kong really have their fridges turned up to full power so the beer was icy cold and ready to drink.

I finished it in one gulp.

Very nice indeed.

Tsingtao - Proud sponsor of the 2008 Beijing Olympics

The Tsingtao in Hong Kong was really, really fresh.

An absolute pleasure to drink.

It is available in every bar, restaurant and minimart as the defacto beer of choice.

I drank it out of cans, bottles and draft (I think did anyway) and it was by far the best I have ever had when compared to the Tsingtao I have consumed in other countries.

As far as the Olympics go the athletes of the world should be more than catered for alcoholically either in their celebrations or commiserations.

Roll on Beijing!

Prime Max - The bastard cousin of Hite

I have never been to South Korea and if the beer is anything to go by I never intend to.

Prime Max is another brew from the Hite Brewery in Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul who amazingly enough manage to have a majority share of the domestic beer market.

I can only imagine how appaling the competitor's beer must be!

Prime Max is meant to be a more premium beer than Hite and charges a slightly higher price while claiming to have a more complex flavour.

I couldn't notice much difference.

Neither beer is very nice, even when properly chilled.

When both beers start to warm up they taste pretty bad.

The slogan is the real clincher proclaiming loudly that the brew is a "delicious idea".

A nice idea more like....

Gold Benthanh – Indulge the success, enjoy the quality

I am a bit annoyed at having to write this beer review.

It is not the beer’s fault but I had previously done a write up only to find later that a virus had wiped away all of my alcoholic musings.

Gold Benthanh is a Vietnamese beer that is not appallingly dreadful nor much to write home about.

It is a beer that has a “by the numbers” feel to it as if the brewers concentrated more on the spreadsheet and sales projections than the actual brew.

The website is a hoot and is packed full of English transliterations that make for a fun read.

Apparently Gold Benthanh is “Best use after freezing” and the stated ingredients are “Water, 100% wheat, houbon, alcohol 4.7%”.

I do often wonder whether Asian beers ever enter into the brewing process and can’t help thinking that most breweries prefer just to add a bucket of anti-freeze into the mix instead….