[Trappist]

Hi BBB friends,
We are safely back home from a 38 days of Bangkok Holiday.
And what a time we had !! AMAZING !!
It was quite a long during stay, but that's because I'm retired from work starting from 1 August, and Katrien always has more than 1 month of vacation in summertime.
Our vacation was quite a beery stay, but mainly for thirst-quench purposes.
You need to know that we head Bangkok during wet season, but see, we always had a scorching sun!! Rain was nearly unexistent, apart from the short showers that apparently happened during night and sometimes at evening. I really wanted more rain showers during day time.
Our preferred Thai beer is Chang! It's not really a craft beer, but this beer salves our thirsty moments and is quite cheap. We always headed for the big 620ml bottles that we shared and ordered a next one when we still were thirsty. They came at around 80Bath for one 620 ml bottle. The cheapest we found was 65Bath (supermarket 7-Eleven offers them at around 60Bath). Be aware when hitting the tourist spots, one need to pay about 120 to 150 bath for them !! Avoiding is the message
Three major brands are available, i.e. Chang, Leo and Singha. Singha nearly always being that bit more expensive.
Note that about two years ago, one can start its own brewery now in Thailand. That wasn't possible before. There was that monopoly of Boon Rawd Brewery (Singha and Leo) and Thai Beverage (ThaiBev) (Chang).
A newcomer that will become successful is Bangkok based Carabao beer.
Actually, Carabao is a brand of energy drink, not beer. It is produced by the Carabao Group.
Two years ago, the Carabao group released 5 beer variants through 2 Beer Brands "Carabao" and "Tawandang", brewed cat Bangkok based Tawandang German Brewery.
I tasted the Tawandang beers and also the Carabao beers, and all of them are very delicious. They are mainly German styles, incl. a Weizen too.
The thing is that they easily compete with the Chang, Leo and Singha, as they use the same price tags. They are not more expensive!! That's very important. I've noticed the Tawandang and Carabao beers at many locations, mainly the local ones! Not the touristy outlets.

But what about the other artisanal beers?
Well, we've had some artisanal beers from tap and some from bottle too. BeerLao is one that you find at many places. It's more expensive than the Thai lagers, but really tasty. 150Bath for a 33cl bottle of BeerLao imported from Laos. Not bad and still affordable.
Many Thai located artisanal breweries are popping up lately, but still, they are not cheap at all. It's also alot of IPA's. Ordering one from tap will need to pay around 250bath for one pint. Speciality beer pubs are around and they aren't really cheap. Imported beer, incl. Belgian beer is very expensive, and frequently lacking freshness. We are talking from around 250Bath towards 400+Bath for one 33cl bottle.
For that price, one can eat a whole menu at a local restaurant, incl. a couple of big Changs.
Needless to say that artisanal quality beers in Thailand are for the rich people only.
This is something that made us decide not to visit the specialty beer pubs in Bangkok. They are way too overpriced and you are amongst tourists and not local people anymore. I would feel very guilty, also knowing the local Thai people aren't that rich and need to work very hard.
Our goal was going to local Thai places for food and Chang beers. The places were the local friendly Thai people are hanging out. That's mainly street food, and small restaurants not having A/C but rather fans blowing in your face.
That folks, is the REAL Thailand.
Cheers,
Filip (who already can't wait to go back)