Craft Beer & Microbreweries in Saigon, Vietnam
When most people think about Vietnamese beer, they correctly assume that everyone is drinking the typical spread for the region: A couple of local Asian lagers with a few global imports like Heineken and Tiger. However, the interest in craft beer is slowly blossoming in this socialist country, which has given rise to a new culture of craft beer enthusiasts. Brewers in the region are excited to merge Western beer styles and techniques with Vietnamese flavors and flare. Locals and foreigners alike are quickly racing to open breweries in the cities of Saigon and Hanoi and start cashing in on the growing beer craze.
While traveling in SE Asia, we spent one whole month in Vietnam. Being from the U.S. state of Colorado, we never pass up on a chance to try craft beer or microbreweries when we travel abroad. So when we visited Ho Chi Minh City, we were surprised to realize that there were more breweries than we would even have time to see during our visit. Luckily, there were plenty of breweries try in the area around District 1, which is undoubtedly where most foreign visitors to Saigon will be spending their time.
There are about 12 different breweries in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Almost all of them are owned by foreigners. However, as time goes on and their employees learn from them, we will surely see more locally owned and operated breweries in Vietnam. Micro breweries have pretty high prices that keep many locals from indulging. The prices are average by American brewery standards, but you will have a hard time convincing many Vietnamese people that any beer is worth $5-$7 when they have been drinking the local lagers for less than $0.50 their entire lives. Most of the breweries have made some attempt to appropriate the Vietnamese culture into the craft beer culture and incorporate local fruits and flavors into their beers.
We visited 8 different breweries during our stay and I am going to attempt to review them for you based on the quality of the beers we had, the atmosphere of the breweries, and their adoption of the country’s culture within those things.
Rehab Station (Tap House)
Rehab Station is not a brewery itself, but a taproom with all of the local breweries on tap. If you are more interested in just trying the beers from the different breweries in town and not actually visiting each one, this would be a great place to go. They had beers on tap from just about every brewery I’m going to mention in this article, so it would be a great way to get to sample a few in one location. The atmosphere is very nice and the staff is friendly and professional. They had a great happy hour where the beers were BOGO. We had two small Hefeweizen’s from Winking Seal Brewery and it only cost us 90,000 VND total ($4.50 usd) I would definitely recommend visiting this tap room, especially if you are short on time, but still want to try some Saigon craft beer.
Winking Seal Beer Co.
The Winking Seal is located in close proximity to the Bui Vien Walking Street. It’s a cheeky little brewery with distribution around the country. All of the beers on the menu sounded good, but they didn’t have many of them available, and the ones they did have unfortunately were not great. Their seasonal menu only had 2 of the 8 beers on it available and their standard menu was also missing 4 of the beers. So we spent a good deal of time just trying to figure out what beers we could actually have. We ended up having the Hefe, the IPA, and a Summer Ale. Both beers were pretty basic. They lacked carbonation and I also suspect that maybe their keg cooler was broken because, while the glasses were cold, the beers in them were room temperature. The prices were on the higher end for the breweries in town too and there wasn’t any kind of special going on when we were there.
Czech Beer (on the Walking Street)
Perhaps the first brewery you will notice when you get to town is located directly on the infamous Bui Vien Walking Street. This small brewery makes several traditional Czech styles and sells them at an affordable price. The tap room is very small, but nice for a quick pint while out walking around. They don’t really attempt to include anything authentically Vietnamese or have any seasonal brews. It’s really just a no thrills Czech beer taproom with about 6 Czech styles on tap. We had the gold and the brown and they were both just fine, but I didn’t find anything particularly unique or Vietnamese about this brewery.
Hen House Craft Beer Bar (Rooster Beer)
The Hen House is a cool brewery located on the busy travel agency road just across from the nice park. The owner is from California, USA, but the staff was all local and very friendly. They had a great special where certain large beers are only 50,000 VND ($2.50). The Hen House also had the best prices on food of any of the breweries we visited in addition to the fact that they served actual Vietnamese food instead of Western pub food. We had an IPA, a Pilsner, and a Brown, along with some great Pho for lunch. We enjoyed talking with the staff about the different beers and our travels and we got to walk out of there with some free swag for letting them take some pictures of us with our beers for their Instagram.
East West Brewing Co.
East West Brewery was the first brewery we tried in Ho Chi Minh City and they definitely set the bar pretty high for the others. The head brewer is from Orgeon, USA, but he works alongside and mentors a local up-and-comer to create some of the best brews in the country. The brewery has a huge taproom with the brewery on site and visible to the visitors. The beer is real Western craft beer prices, but the quality tells you why. We had an IPA and a Hefe and they were both impeccable. The food is good but expensive. The prices are very high considering local restaurants are using the same ingredients to prepare meals for a fraction of the price. However, that shouldn’t scare you away from trying the beer. My only issue with East Wast Brewery was that the place was full of more cigarette smoke than a Chinese casino, which made it really hard to truly smell and taste the beer. They have an outdoor patio, but for some reason the smoking section is at the bar…The beers were amazing quality and I wish I could have tried them all.
C-Brewmaster Craft Beer
C-Brewmaster is my personal favorite brewery in Saigon. They are owned and operated by Vietnamese locals, which was refreshing to find out after learning that the owners of all of the other breweries were from the West. The staff was extremely friendly and helpful when we were asking about the beers. This was the only brewery that actually offered to let us sample the beers before ordering one, which is normal back in the U.S., but not something any of these other micro breweries in HCMC did for us. They also put out beer nuts on the bar which is a tasty plus! My favorite part about C-Brewmaster was the number of uniquely Vietnamese beers they had on tap. Ingredients like passion fruit, cacao, and local coffee were only the start. They had a Pho inspired beer (the most popular dish in Vietnam) that incorporated some of the spices and flavors in a creative way to make one of the most unique beers I have ever had. They have some great specials such as BOGO from 4pm-6pm as well as BOGO on their bottles sometimes when they need to get rid of them. All of the beers we had were great.
Heart of Darkness Brewery
Heart of Darkness Brewery has an extensive tap menu of top quality beers. They have quite a few heavy hitters too, such as a double IPA and a few other strong beers that come in well above 10% abv. They didn’t have too many experimental styles or anything that stood out to me as being unique to Vietnam, though. However, their standard taps were super good and each one we tried was a 5 out of 5 stars. You can tell the brewers have a lot of experience and really know what they are doing. The owners are foreign as were several of the employees, all of which could be found drinking their own beers behind the bar and talking with each other and their friends more than helping the customers. Myself and one other patron got the cold shoulder from the owner when trying to discuss beer with him while he and his buddies came in and started drinking beers from the fridge. I think that the atmosphere is a big part of what makes a brewery cool, and we kind of just felt like we had crashed a staff party we weren’t invited to. It could have just been that night, though. Their beers speak for themselves.
Pastuer Street Brewing
Pastuer Street Brewing produces what is arguably the best beer in Vietnam. The brewery boasts several notable awards including a 2016 gold medal World Beer Cup for chocolate beer. The brewery has some American owners that really know their stuff. One of the head brewers came from a previous position at one of my own state’s best breweries, Upslope Brewing CO., so we weren’t surprised to find that Colorado standard for craft beer in all of their beers on tap. Pastuer Street incorporates many local flavors and ingredients from around Vietnam, such as coffee, cacao, and dragon fruit. We had a nitro mocha porter, a dragon fruit gose, and a saison. They were all top notch. The brewery had a nice happy hour that got you a beer and a snack for 110,000 VND ($5.50) There are two different taprooms on site that you can drink at on the popular street that the brewery is named after. The supreme quality of their beers, the great atmosphere of the upstairs taproom and local staff, and the incorporation of native Vietnamese ingredients is why I think Pastuer Street Brewing is the best brewery in Saigon.