The different Thai beers Pattaya bars serve

Posted by Party Pete on October 25th, 2007 filed in Entertainment, nightlife

Before you go partying in the Thai capital of fun it is wise to be prepared what to expect from the Thai beers as some of them contain considerable more alcohol compared with the brand you usually drink in your favourite pub back home. Pattaya is crammed with numerous bars and pubs giving you the opportunity to taste some of the Asian and Thai beers. Although Thailand is a whisky drinking country, the popularity of beer is significantly increasing. If you decide to stroll along the bars and pop into some of them to have a cool beer, here are some useful tips.

The Thais brew some really tasty beers all with a distinctive taste. Singa is Thailand’s oldest beer brand, and always was the most popular beer. Recently Beer Chang took over the number 1 position due to its clever campaign of being the beer brand for all Thais. These two brands are the best what Thailand has to offer. Drinking Chang beer is something you have to get used to. It is the cheapest beer available in the Pattaya bars and pubs. A small bottle costs about 55 Baht. Couples find it even cheaper to split a big bottle which costs about 90/100 Baht.

Because of the economic price it is no surprise that this beer is most popular with the crowds of back packers visiting Pattaya. Beware!, Chang beer is quite strong and too often tourists, who think they are mature beer connoisseurs get knocked out because of quickly drinking too many Chang Beers You just can not poor this kind of beer down the way you used to do with your favorite beer brand back home! Chang beer contains 6.4% alcohol, stronger than most other available beers. It is recommendable to drink it the Thai way, with some ice, so it is watered-down and becomes a less stronger ‘potion’ and most likely you not fall from your stool before it’s time to pay the bill.

The highly popular Beer Chang

 

Singa beer or Beer Sing as the Thais call it is not as strong like Chang beer, containing 5% of alcohol. (The brewery recently decreased the amount from 6 to 5 percent) When you first drink it you will notice it has some kind of chemical taste. Due to the German brewing process the brewery follows, it is very popular among the German tourists and it tastes a little bit like the German ‘Dortmunder Alt Bier’. If you think it’s time for a break and some food might sober you up, try some spicy Thai food and wash it down with a Singa beer. This beer goes very well with spicy Thai food. Singa is more expensive and a small bottle in a bar costs about 75 Baht and a big bottle about 120 Baht.

Leo Beer is a lighter Thai beer, according to Thai standards, it sill contains 0.6% more alcohol than the tasteless extremely popular Dutch Heineken. It is quite popular among Thai students and not available in most of the bars targeting on foreign customers but it is available in most of the restaurants. It only comes in big bottles for about 100 baht.

More beers have sprung up in recent years like Thai Beer, a strong cheap beer (6.5%) brewed by the Singa brewery. Cheers Beer is the latest and it really tastes like perfume. More and more bars starting to serve San Miguel Beer which is a beer brewed under license of the Philippine San Miguel brewery, this is pretty good tasting beer but if you order a San Miguel Light, the label tells you there’s a percentage of 5% alcohol in it. Not exactly what most western tourists expect from a light beer.

Import beers like Heineken, Carlsberg and Tiger Beer are widely available in bars, pubs and restaurants. Especially the Singaporean Tiger Beer has a real fresh and smooth taste. This beer contains the same amount of alcohol like most European and American brands but it is really worth trying as this has enough quality to compete with the big brands. It is now available in almost every bar and pub in Pattaya. Try it! There’s one ‘import’ brand that seems a little bit dodgy. Kloster Beer claims to be a German beer, brewed in Thailand under licence, though I never met one German who was familiar with this brand. It was even popular for a while but somehow it faded away. Also, almost every Dutch person will probably notice that the famous Heineken beer taste very different from the Heineken beer served in bars in their favourite pub back home.

As a tourist visiting Pattaya at night can be a nice experience to taste the different Thai beers and many visitors really start to like the Thai beer once they get used to it. After all tasting what other cultures have to offer enriches your culinary point of view. Cheers!!