Indeed, Efes is the most sold beer in Turkey. It actually ranks as one of Europe’s top 10 selling beer brands. We found it in a number of varieties: bottles, cans, Efes Ice, Efes draft etc.

The taste? It’s like any other international style lager – pretty predictable, with a balanced make-up and just enough hops to make it interesting. A problem in Eastern Turkey was that the beers have often been kept in ice cold conditions for long periods of time, alternating with times of very warm temperatures. Hence, some bottles were a bit on the flat side.

Still, a very enjoyable acquaintance, perfect for washing down the travel dust after a bout with the Anatolian roads.

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The above beer is perhaps the most well-known Indian beer: Kingfisher Premium. It can be bought in dedicated beer stores around the world. I wish I could say that this is only the starting point for the greatness that is Indian beer, but no. Sorry. This is just about as good as it gets. This Kingfisher is a well made lager with a slight consistency problem from bottle to bottle – it is all right, and I have no problem drinking it. Sometimes, it tastes a bit off: no doubt this problem stems from impurities in the water used in the brewing process.

This is a Kingfisher Blue. This is where Indian beer begins to take a wrong turn: since people generally just buy one or two beers per night, they prefer STRONG beer. The Kingfisher Blue is a compromise between strong beer and good flavor: at six percent alcohol it is still drinkable, but with a malty edge that makes it more of a sipping brew than something you drink to quench your thirst.

Next on the Richter scale is the Kingfisher Red. Like its blue brother, it is malty and strong. Flavor wise it tastes a bit like an ale, but at the same time it is fizzy as a lager. At seven or eight percent alcohol, one will make me tipsy and two will make me regret it the morning after. I don’t like it.

Here’s another strong contender for the award ‘Fewest Beers to Make a Grown Man Drunk’: Godfather. Taste-wise it is another malty, semi-dark story. On a cold and dark night in Ladakh, I foolishly had four bottles of this brand. I woke up the day after with a monumental headache. I normally don’t get headaches. What the heck do they put in these beers, alcohol? Yes they do, Godfather checks in at 8-10%.

The only thing noteworthy with the Hayward’s 500 is its name. In flavor and alcohol, it ranks somewhere in the vicinity of Kingfisher Red and Godfather. The 500 is the lowest of the ‘number beers’ that I’ve found: there are a lot of mediocre but super strong beers that has a number in its name. Let’s skip most of them, they are equally horrible. An honorable mention goes to this beer:

The 10000. At a fuzzy 9-13% alcohol, it doesn’t make much sense. Nor do you, after drinking a few. Unfortunately, this is the only brew in some parts of the country, and to my further chagrin it was actually not too bad tasting. Like an alcohol free beer spiked with six shots of vodka.

OK, Let’s talk about some drinkables for a change. This one is called Sandpiper, and it was the only light beer we could score in the Karol Bagh district of New Delhi. It is watery and excessively hoppy, but we drank it with cherish. I mean, five percent, that’s like real beer!

Finally, here’s my winner: Royal Challenge. It is typical that the best beer I found in India is made by a whiskey maker, and sold under a whiskey brand. I can’t say that it is a great beer: its strength lies in the fact that I drank it after a long day, sitting at a rooftop restaurant overlooking the sunset at Taj Mahal. I only found it that one time. Where were you when we needed you, Royal Challenge?

I do feel a little bit bad for writing such a negative review on Indian beer, but seriously: the strong stuff badly fits the hot and sticky climate of this part of the world. I think Mexican or Central American beer would do great around these parts, but at this time in history, India is stuck with the Thunder 10000′s and the Super Strong Godfathers.

It’s enough to make a grown man sigh.

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With that in mind, I’ve decided that with our departure from SE Asia (for the last time this trip, we hope – seriously, how many times can one couple fly in and out of this place?) I will be on the wagon.

Martin, however, has agreed to sacrifice the odd beer – our beer report posts pull in a bunch of readers. So, yes, he’ll have a few beers along the way “for research purposes only.”

M-hm.

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The picture above shows a Dagon beer station. Dagon is the new, upstart brand in Myanmar. They produce a light, slightly fruity lager that’s best enjoyed on tap. We found it to be a bit on the watery side, but refreshing and pleasant, if a bit uninspiring.

Mandalay Beer is the nation’s #2, a position it holds because it’s cheaper than the other beers. It is faintly metallic in taste, with a rough-ish edge. I don’t have too much good to say about it, but it is certainly drinkable when there’s nothing else around.

Our winner is Myanmar Beer, the premium brand and the biggest seller. It is basically an anonymous, balanced lager that wins because it is the most pleasant to drink. If I have anything negative to say about it, it is that it’s a bit sweet. It is available in bottles, cans and on tap, and is best enjoyed cold.

There are also a few strong-beer variants: a Mandalay red that has close to 7% alcohol, and a Myanmar “double strength” that packs a whopping 10% ethanol. They both taste like beer with a shot of vodka: unpleasant.

So, not the best beer in the world, but perfectly enjoyable!

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I know what you’re thinking – FINALLY an important post here on seatofourpants.com! Let’s get down and dirty and talk beer.

The beer pictured above is probably the best selling domestic brew: Everest, a classic European-style lager. While it is quite balanced, it doesn’t stick out in any sort of interesting way. If I had a complaint about it, it would be the fact that it is a bit fizzy. Generally speaking, it is very anonymous, and if you’re looking for a beer to relax with after a long day of trekking, Everest is a good choice.

Nepal Ice is the other brand, and it isn’t as widely available. Indeed, nothing much sets it apart from Everest except maybe that it is less carbonated. If given the choice between them, I’d go for Nepal Ice on most occasions, but I can rarely find it. Wifey, on the other hand, picks Everest as her numero uno. It is an irreconcilable difference, but one that I expect our marriage will survive.

Here’s my favorite Nepalese beer: Gorkha. What makes Ghorka beer better than the other domestic lagers is its hoppy edge. It isn’t strong enough to make it very noticeable, but it does make it more interesting to drink. It also has a cool, old fashioned label that I happen to like.

All in all, the domestic beer of Nepal is totally okay but nothing that you’d need to look into acquiring at home. I give it three mountaintops out of five. For those that wish to pay a buck extra, Tuborg, Carlsberg, San Miguel and sometimes Lowenbrau are almost always on the menu. Just make sure to avoid the Guinness.

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Um, no.

A receipt review at home showed us that our four big grocery bags were filled with $40 worth of beer and $10 worth of other groceries. Ouch.

So, here’s my little piece of advise to those of you traveling in Nepal who want to buy ale – don’t buy Guinness, ever.

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Ok, we get it. We’re naughty.

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Bintang, which means ‘star’ in Indonesian, used to be license-brewed Heineken under another name. It was one of South-East Asia’s best beers: the perfect companion for a hot climate. For some reason the brewery decided to start putting sweetener in the beer, so nowadays it tastes like a Heineken with a teaspoon of sugar in it.

Unless you’re serious about your beer you probably won’t be bothered by this, but things were better before. Trust me, I’m ancient and I have tasted both versions.

 Now, rumors have surfaced that Bali has its own beer. I will try to chase it down. Stay tuned . . .

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This is what the locals refer to as ‘jungle juice’. I think (and hope) that it is a sort of palm wine. At least that’s how it was explained to me. The taste is somewhere in the range between godawful and hurl-inducing: yeasty, sour and slightly rancid. We had a few sips of it, enough to form an educated opinion:

Apart from being totally disgusting it is also very low on alcohol, tastes like hell and makes your breath stink.

Our verdict: Yuck.

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The two main brands of beer in Vietnam are called Saigon and Hanoi. Unsurprisingly, Hanoi is the popular brand in the north, while Saigon is the flagship of the south. There are a bunch of smaller breweries that have their own brands, but they are generally a bit rougher than the established beers.

Saigon, or 333 as it is called if it is served in a can (the nickname became the name – it contains 333 milliliters of beer), is a pleasant but unimposing lager. Being very light, it works well with the local food. It is also a nice refresher on a hot day – and Vietnam has plenty of those. I was totally OK with this beer, especially since bars sell it for about 50 US cents.

So, how about Hanoi, the other Vietnamese beer? I think it definitely holds its own, but I have to give the edge to Saigon. Hanoi is another light and drinkable lager, different from Saigon in the way that it has a hoppier edge. It is also pretty dry, and with some sort of bitter remnant that I think may be due to quality issues, or perhaps just storage issues.

This one is called LaRue – it’s the new and upcoming beer around these parts. The label purports it to be brewed with the original recipe from way back when – see, there was a LaRue beer back when the French ruled the country, but it was discontinued for all the obvious reasons. The present brewers just resumed production, they say. What about the beer itself? It is nice and very, very light. Almost not a beer at all. While this works well with the climate, I felt that there were better choices almost everywhere (except at the Mui Ne happy hour!).

In the end, we found this guy to be the winner: Saigon special. It’s the Saigon brewery’s premium beer, and it is the only one I found that I felt I would buy if I was outside Vietnam. A light yet tasty beer, well balanced and well executed. Yum! Start exporting it, please!

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