Come with me as I quench my thirst in a German micro-brewery right in the heart of Bangkok.

Generally, in the past, I would rate the quality of most beer in Thailand as awful. This has been because the two largest brewers, Boon Rawd and Thai Beverage (ThaiBev) have an iron-clasp grip over the marketplace and would stifle any competition when given the chance. To me, their beer is just standard crap-tasting generic larger and because most bars only sell these brands, I find I don’t go out for a beer as often as I should.

Another factor is that the general Thai population is not very discerning about the quality of the beer they drink. There isn’t really a beer culture here as you would find back in the West. Most Thais when out socializing would opt for a bottle of blended whiskey, lots of soda water to mix in with it and a bucket of ice to keep it cool.

This use of ice has also crossed over into the beer drinking side of things and it’s often not unusual for your beer to arrive with some ice floating in it. Then, as you slowly drink it, the ice melts and you’re left with a very watered down drink towards the bottom of your glass. Yuck!

Some of my friends say they actually like this method, but I don’t.

…But things have now started to change on the beer front.

Not all is doom and gloom though because a new generation of Thai drinkers has begun to discover the pleasures of a well-brewed beer and a small Thai beer culture has sprung up. This has resulted in a few industrious Thai connoisseurs setting up their own small craft breweries. It’s still early days yet as they develop their craft, but the challenge for them is to compete in a marketplace in which the two large breweries control the monopoly. These breweries will do anything they can to stifle the competition and this was most evident last year after a meeting was scheduled by a group calling themselves the Thai Craft Beer Liberation. Their planned meeting was in response to the much publicized arrest of a young brewer who had been brewing and selling his own beer from home.

The group, which is made up of other craft brewers, planned to get together and raise awareness to the general public about their growing Thai craft beer community, but sadly, their planned meeting was thwarted when the police told them that they couldn’t have it because they feared that the building they were going to have it in might collapse from too many attendees. I kid you not.

At the same time, in other news, it was discovered that the Bangkok Police Chief was on the payroll of one of the two big breweries, Thai Beverage, and to add further speculation of under-handed practices, he was unable to adequately explain to the media why he was receiving this monthly income. Could there be connection between this and the Thai Craft Beer Liberation cancelled meeting? Hmmm, I wonder.

To circumvent the authorities and regulations, Thai craft-brewers have now started brewing in the adjacent neighboring countries and then importing their beer back into Thailand. This seems to be working well, but it does push up the price of the product by the time it reaches the consumer. I am yet to try one of these beers, but I look forward to taking the opportunity soon, so stay tuned.

While all this has been happening, there has also been a growing interest in importing foreign-owned craft beers from much further afield and some very nice beers have finally made their way over here. They aren’t cheap by any standards because of the high import taxes, which are in place to protect the interests of the large Thai breweries, but this has still resulted, nonetheless, in some very nice specialist craft-beer bars opening up around Bangkok.

With this as the backdrop to the present situation, there has actually been one small area of beer production which has steadily grown unhindered throughout the 16 years I’ve been here and so I decided to go and try it out.

Pubs with their own microbreweries

There are only a handful of these establishments in probably the whole of Thailand, and four of these are in Bangkok. Probably the best known of them is the Tawandang German Brewery and I just happened to be passing by their central Bangkok branch, so I thought I’d drop in for a quick beer.

This particular branch is the location of their first pub, which first opened its doors back in 1999. The business has since grown to, as far as I know, two other locations in the northern suburbs of Bangkok and one across the border in Phnom Penh in Cambodia and the other in Singapore. Each branch seems to follow the same unique concept and I was about to experience it for myself.

As I entered the pub, I was greeted by two lines of about ten beer servers on each side. They were all dressed in the same matching uniform and red cap.

I was then led into a large dining hall with plenty of tables and seating. At one end was a large stage and at the other was the bar.

Because the beer is brewed on site, there were two large brass brew kettles located behind the bar itself and these had pipes which ran to a room off to the side of the dining hall. This room contained the maturation tanks and it could be viewed from the dining hall through a number of large glass windows.

Tawandang proudly displays around the venue graphic representations of their ‘7 Magic Steps’ brewing process, so customers can be fully aware of the processes involved.

According to the Tawandang website, all the brewing equipment, the ingredients and even the Master Brewer himself, are brought in from Germany and the ingredients used are 100 percent natural.

Because it was early Saturday evening when I visited, most of the seating seemed to have already been reserved in advance. This is because it can become quite full later on. Nevertheless, because I had come alone, a seat was found for me.

The menu consisted of a choice of three beers on tap. These were Weizen, Dunkel, and Lager and there was a choice of different glass sizes. These could be either 0.3 liter, 0.5 liter, 1.0 liter or a 2.0-3.0 liters tower.

Being an Englishman, I do like my bitters and so I opted for the Dunkel beer. This is their dark beer and I decided to drink it from a 0.5 liter glass.

When the beer arrived, it looked nice. It was a dark brown colour with a nice slightly beige head and it had a roasted malt scent.

The taste was good and can best be described as slightly nutty and sweet.

This particular beer has the least amount of alcohol out of their three beers at 4.5%.

The price was reasonable for Thai standards at 150 Baht ($4.80).

I’d had quite a busy day before arriving, and also because I liked the taste, I drunk the first half of the glass quicker than I would do otherwise.

Then I started to mellow out as the alcohol took effect and I relaxed into it more for the second half of the glass as I took my time savoring each sip.

While this was happening, the dining hall began to fill up with customers. This included a few other westerners who were dotted around with mainly their Thai partners and everyone was eating while drinking. The food was predominantly Thai food. The beer towers seemed to be popular with the larger groups of people.

Then the entertainment began…

The opening act was very short with five men playing Thai traditional instruments. They were then followed by a singer who started to sing Thai songs.

The place is very much a combination of a Western beer house mixed with Thai culture and from what I’ve read elsewhere, the Thais are attracted to the venue primarily because of the live shows, but they soon discover that the beer is also very good, too. In fact, it’s much better than they would find elsewhere in similar venues.

I finished up my glass, which I enjoyed a lot and made my way back out, but not before first posing in a special area where you can have your photo taken in front of the Tawandang logo. Thais love to have their photos taken, so an area like this is essential in any Thai venue that has a name for itself.

My final thoughts…

Tawandang is very much a Thai style venue and I’m sure visitors to Thailand would enjoy it for that alone, as well the beer. The staff was very professional and they were happy to accommodate my needs, especially when asked to take the photos of me for this article.

My beer was very nice and it hit the spot nicely, but the surroundings are also important for me when I’m having a beer and I’m not so sure if I enjoy drinking where there are bands playing, especially when it gets noisy. I’m sure I’m probably a bit of an exception to this, so you can call me fussy.

For me, the ideal surroundings would be somewhere where I can enjoy a good conversation with a friend or if I’m alone, then somewhere where I can watch the world go by and contemplate life at the same time.

With that being said, I’ll definitely be returning to Tawandang to try out one of their other beers, so stay tuned for that.

Until next time…