The BeerScribe Video Beer Minute(s): Hanoi, Vietnam…

Posted on

Our final stop finds us dodging motor bikes and trying evade the incessant honking, all while taking in the charms and better beers in Hanoi. A world apart from the rest of Vietnam, and not always in a positive way, Hanoi does offer beer enthusiasts some of the best offerings to be found in the country. With nearly a dozen brewpubs and beer bars, as well as the ubiquitous and highly questionable Bia Hoi corner joints, you always have a place to drink if you don’t feel like squatting on a tiny plastic step-stool on the street.

Our first spot was one of my favorites as the atmosphere and environment were very different from anywhere else we went. We continue with our disembodied drinking videos at the unpronounceable Coi Xay Gio brewpub.

Next up is the Lac Vien brewhouse, where my brother attempts to ruin my video by belching. The locals appreciate his “charms.” We also manage a Ho Chi Minh beer drinking reference.

And then we head to the far west side of Hanoi to visit Van Tue, another massive and empty beer hall. Myk is noticeably edgy because when we walked in, at 4:30 pm mind you, the place was dead empty of customers and all the lights were off. We almost turned on our heels but a dozing hostess flagged us to a table way in the back of the restaurant, where she promptly turned on the lights and woke up a sleeping co-worker passed out at a nearby table on some chairs. A bit creepy was the experience…

Another trip to the Hoa Vien chain finds us in a quaint little courtyard, somewhat reminiscent of European beer gardens. They were roasting some delicious headless animal of unknown provenance behind us so you might see some ash raining around us. Myk leaves us after this video.

My final stop in Vietnam before heading off to Germany for a week, Legends Beer is located square in the middle of Hanoi’s Old Quarter, as you will see from the crazy moto driving video we drop in here.

Be Social:

The BeerScribe Video Beer Minute(s): Saigon, Vietnam…

Posted on

During my recent round-the-world trip, I made a series of short videos of the various beer establishments my brother Myk and I visited. I took the videos on my digital camera mainly because I wanted to document our travels but also to capture a little bit of the local spirit. Having gone through them, I’m not sure how much they really convey but as there is a serious dearth of information about beer in some developing countries, and I don’t really know when I’ll get to write about Cambodia and Vietnam, I thought I’d post a few, town by town.

Our first stop in Saigon, having been blown away by the city’s character and how different it was from our shell-shocked week plus in Cambodia, was the Hoa Vien Brewery. A chain operation, Hoa Vien takes its beer very seriously. You can even catch the locals clinking their glasses, as they all do before every sip.

The next day we visited the cavernous Lion Brewery, thankfully indoors. A big Disney-esque beer hall with the oddest beer quote on the wall that I’ve ever seen…

Our final stop is Big Man Beer, another chain operation and a bit out of the tourist areas. You’ll catch Myk laughing in this one because several members of the staff just directly next to out our table waiting for us to order more of something and they were completely confused by my video.

We offer no videos for the Adlerbrau brewery because the beer was absolutely wretched and seeing me spit it back into the glass just isn’t appetizing. I did, however, score an absolutely sick video of a half-dozen local Vietnamese with a guitar singing a killer if garbled rendition of More Than Words from Extreme. Rock!

Now on to Hoi An…

Be Social: