To beer or not to beer? - Is there a simple answer.....

Finding a good beer in Vietnam is like spending a night in a 5 star hotel suite being pampered by 2, no 3, catwalk models, who's sole aim is your physical and emotional pleasure - i.e. its a pipe dream! However, I believe in fantasy and the age old adage that you can 'make your own luck'. Now, as I am not as interested in cat-walk models as a good fruity, crisp, refreshing glass of the amber nectar, I guess I have automatically set myself a rather unique challenge - to make and sell good beer in Saigon.


So! you might ask, surely there has been lots of people brewing and selling beers in Saigon, surely someone is getting it right? Well, as Pete Brown suggests in his history of India Pale Ale book - Hops and Glory, the current trends for beer in Asia is really producing nothing but insipid lagers  - so little to them except sour sharpness and very few with depth or character. He refers a great deal to those beers such as Kingfisher found in India, well let me tell you, Kingfisher is a glorious brew compared to the stained tap water variants offered in Saigon.


The current market consists of 6 main brews: Heineken, Hanoi Beer, 333, Saigon Beer, Halida and the South East Asian giant, Tiger - Most of this stuff can be bought in cans, bottles and occasionally on draft, but always it fails to do anything except fill the imbiber full of gas. All of these beers taste so indifferent that I have occasionally got so depressed about this status quo that I turned to that other malt favourite; Whisky, to give my pallate some relief from the boredom.


The only alternatives in Saigon are a couple of Czech Micro breweries which once again produce the standard fizzy larger and seemingly the exact same Dark beer (almost black) all of which come with a very sharp edge and very bitter after taste. At least this stuff is fresh and you can see a couple of large copper mash pots to pretend you're in a house of artisan brewing. But no - really - it just doesn't do it.....and then it came to me., why not, it could be possible, perhaps - perhaps what about......Pale Ale! The stuff of legends, the drink of Kings, the wine of the warrior - the taste - oh the taste - in my head I can remember it well...alas......the memory is fading - I need to act quickly - I need to start brewing Pale Ale based on the hops, Barley and Yeast strains of the best brew in England or the US. With time and a little investment perhaps this could turn into my next career move - teaching just doesn't quite do it for me any more.


So what next, how to bring this about in a foreign land with red tape spewing from every crevice of society. tricky - but....the answer is to beer - that is the answer.......