Local Draft Beer Hunting in Vietnam

A Travel Blog

“Một Hai Ba, Zo!”

One of our Vietnamese friends taught us this Vietnamese phrase when you toast. Beer is one of the most important beverages for Vietnamese people. Another Vietnamese friend told us that she was a bit fed up with her husband hanging around bars and drinking too much(an international story perhaps).

Beer is cheap in Vietnam and they have signature beer spots called “Bia Hoi” where they serve buckets of fresh draft beer for under US 1 dollar. In Bia Hoi bars, they normally serve local beer, Beer Saigon in the south, Hanoi beer in the north are amongst our favourites.

We stayed next to the beer street

We booked a guesthouse near “Cong Vien 23 Thang 9” Park in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), Vietnam, which is close to “Beer Walking Street”. We expected there must be some Bia Hoi in that beer street.

We were very satisfied with our guesthouse in Saigon. We stayed in a room on the 4th floor in the building which had an elevator. The room was clean and enough space with two semi-double beds. It has a fridge, a TV, a table, two chairs, a fan and an air conditioner. Free Wi-fi is available in the room. The beer street was just around the corner from our guesthouse, but surprisingly the room was not too noisy during the night and only cost $11 USD.

Bia Hoi hunting Dai 1: the Beer Street

After checking in at 7pm, the first thing we did was go out for beer. We walked around to find a Bia Hoi and cheap buckets of beer. However, it was not easy at all.

We had some information about a Bia Hoi pub which was supposed to be located 70 meters away from our guesthouse. We found the shop, but it looked closed.

There were a lot of bars and night clubs and restaurants on the beer street, but nowhere seemed to have fresh local draft beer. They have Tiger beer, American Budweiser and super loud music, but no draft Beer Saigon and their beer was not as cheap as Bia Hoi.

We walked out from the beer street and found a little restaurant where they sold bottled Saigon at a reasonable price: 15,000 Dong for Beer Saigon Green, 18,000 Dong for Beer Saigon Red. We had one each to console ourselves. (23,000 Dong = $1 USD)

Maybe, Bia Hoi is not popular anymore. People shifted to another drinking business; fancy bars and night clubs with painful music. We decided we would try to hunt down Bia Hoi the next day and have dinner now.

We saw lots of restaurants on the beer street and outside, but I couldn’t find somewhere tempting yet. We walked around about the beer street again. There were more people than before and the music was getting more painful. And then, my boyfriend remembered that he saw a couple of little food shops along the alley where our guesthouse was. Our guesthouse was located on one of the alleys between the park “Cong Vien 23 Thang 9” and the beer street.

We turned on to the narrow path, walked a few meters, and I could see two or three restaurants which had big menus. The prices were quite reasonable, and some people were having dinner with bottled Saigon beer. So, we decided to have dinner there.

They have Chinese-Vietnamese food. We had deep-fried spring rolls with Thai basil, deep-fried fish with steamed rice and stir-fried Vegetable.

The food was hot and delicious and the people in the shop were friendly. Also, we luckily had relaxing jazz music from the “Funny Laundry Shop” opposite side of the restaurant. The dinner cost 145,000 Dong in total including four Saigon Green beers.

Bia Hoi hunting Day 2: Beer Bom

Next day, we tried to go to another place which was a 30 minutes’ walk from our guesthouse. They didn’t have draft beer, but there was a “Bia Hoi Ha Noi Bom” which is beer contained in a bomb-shaped metal bottle.

It was cold and tasty. The beer strength was not clear, but we felt it was a little stronger than normal canned or bottled beer. The beer was served with roasted peanuts which were salty enough to make us even more thirsty.

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The restaurant has a huge space, but there were not many customers because it was still early for dinner. However, some people were eating food and drinking beer. Strangely, almost no one was drinking this “Beer Bom” — there were only a couple of guys who came in after us and ordered a Beer Bom.

When we were looking around in the shop, wondering whether we should eat dinner here, a lady brought a menu for us. We looked at the price and were surprised because the beer was not as cheap as we had expected.

The Beer Bom had 2L of beer and cost 170,000 Dong. So, it’s not so reasonable when compared with normal bottles of Saigon Beer for 12,000 to 18,0000 Dong. Saigon Beer must have 450ml (maybe it is a big bottle). A Beer Bom cost ten times more but only has 2L.

The beer tasted good, but we were disappointed again. We wanted to enjoy cheap and fresh draft local beer — not neatly bottled beer — and a typical Vietnamese drinking atmosphere.

Bia Hoi (Beer hall) is supposed to be a part of the Vietnamese culture and typical scenery on the drinking street. It definitely existed in Saigon when my boyfriend first came twenty-three years ago, and we had big jars of draft Bia Ha Noi in north parts of Vietnam when we last visited. Where have they gone? Is draft beer extinct in Vietnam or only in Saigon?

Bia Hoi hunting Day 3: The Reason why Local Draft Beer is Disappearing in Saigon

On our 3rd day in Saigon, we found out more information about a Bia Hoi bar which is in the same district as the bar which we visited the previous day. Someone uploaded a photo of a glass of draft beer recently and they seemed to have a Beer Bom as well.

It took us 30 minutes on foot to get there and it was easy to find with a big sign on the shop wall.

The bar is open to the road and also has and open air upstairs area. From the entrance you can see the draft beer server and some guys who were delivering the beer barrels.

After being seated, we looked at the menu on the table — only in Vietnamese — and found out why people don’t want to drink Bia Hoi Bia Hanoi (draft beer of Beer Hanoi). It was 15,000 Dong per glass of draft Beer Hanoi. It used to be 5,000 Dong or even cheaper. 15,000 Dong — this is the price for which you can have a bottle of Beer Saigon.

Anyway, we ordered two glasses of draft beer. The guy was friendly enough and served us quickly.

The glass is not very big. We estimated it has approximately 350ml. The beer was cold like most of the time when you are served beer in Vietnam — people know that beer should be served cold.

The taste was OK, but we thought the Beer Bom which we had a day before was better, so we ordered one which cost 150,000 Dong, a little cheaper than the other bar (170,000 Dong).

The metal bottle which contains 2L of Beer Hanoi was delivered and the bottle was very cold. A young lady helped us to open it. Although the roasted peanuts were automatically served with beer a day before, we didn’t get anything here, Then, my boyfriend asked her whether they had roasted peanuts. She said “No” without any facial expression.

We were disappointed and we didn’t understand what they had because the menu was only in Vietnamese and google translate with the camera didn’t work well.

However, the lady brought us a plate of raw peanuts. We said to her; “Com’on (Thank you in Vietnamese), then she smiled a bit — she knows how to smile.

The Beer Bom tasted better than the glass of draft beer and it was also livelier. As we were drinking, the temperature of the beer got slightly warmer and the taste of the beer became even better.

After drinking the Beer Bom, we had another glass of draft Beer Hanoi. The second glass of draft tasted better than the first ones. The taste of draft beer is not always the same, which is normal, but some people may prefer the stableness of bottled beer.

It is a shame that most people don’t drink the draft beer anymore. The price has gone up and less people drink draft beer, the more expensive its price could become. We had a feeling that Bia Hoi in Saigon is almost dead.

This may be only Saigon, but it won’t be in the future. We found that there were less places where you can have Bia Hoi (draft beer) than before, when we went to the north part of Vietnam last time. So, if you want to enjoy the culture of Bia Hoi, we would recommend visiting Vietnam as soon as possible.

This story was originally posted on https://backpack-traveler.com/, on the 12th Dec, in 2019.