One of the most common things that people leave Vietnam talking about is bia hoi. It’s not surprising, given its omnipresence around the city. Morning, noon, or night, it seems you can find somebody comfortably situated on a plastic chair…enjoying a bia hoi is the most popular male pastime in Hanoi. When it’s combined with betting on European football, there’s little competition. Bia hoi (“Fresh Beer”) is a preservative free brew pumped out by several primary makers. Due to the lack of preseratives, bia hoi can’t be easily kept for the next day. Once the keg is tapped, it’s got to go! Places often time their closing based on the relative volume left in the barrel. If there’s not enough business to justify cracking open a new one, they may send their small crowd home early. Other times, they may test the local constable’s patience by staying open late to finish off a bit more.

The most popular drinking times are at lunch and just after work. Hanoians drink a surprisingly large amount of beer at lunch time. It’s a fine compliment to the post-lunch siesta that they are known to take. For those not working in foreign or private companies, a three-hour lunch break is not uncommon. Lunch, a few beers, a nap, and it’s back to work. Once that pesky work is out of the way, it’s back to the bia hoi for a couple (three, four?) hours of camaraderie. A person can spend hours eating and drinking in a neighborhood spot and not spend but three or four USD. There are hundreds to choose from where a glass will run you between two and four thousand VND, but the trick is to find the hidden gems. We’ve posted some of our favorite finds, but track one down yourself and send it our way. We’ll be glad to post it.

From the popularity of bia hoi has sprung an increasing number of bia tuoi shops. Bia Tuoi is basically a step up in quality from standard bia hoi. They typically have a slightly deeper taste and color…seeming less watery on the whole. Bia Tuoi also entails less…ahem…digestive distress the morning following a drinking bout. For all of bia hoi's charm, repeated use can lead to some discomfort. Bia Tuoi is typically about twice the price of bia hoi, but still ridiculously cheap. Until recently, bia tuoi shops resembled their bia hoi brethren in all ways expect the brew they poured, but a new breed of watering holes has shown up. Increasingly, beer joints serving bia tuoi are opening in multi-floored, refurbished houses or on large outdoor patios. The trend shows a distinct raise in the expectations of the local beer-drinking public and bodes well for the future of this fine tradition in Hanoi.

The most dramatic example of this development is the proliferation of high quality brewpubs that make all their own beer in-house. The wide variety of beer styles is a welcome departure from the relative uniformity of sidewalk beer. Dark, rich ales, pilsners, and Belgian-style reds can all be found pouring from the taps of what are often large, carefully crafted beer halls. They are a treat, not just in the context of Hanoi, but even in the larger Asian beer scene that is typically not a highlight of life on these shores.

While much of Hanoi is changing, and perhaps moving away from the anachronistic charm that brought many here, its beer culture is something that seems firmly rooted and growing in new and promising directions. So get out there and enjoy a brew and be able to tell people that you were in Hanoi “back in the day” when a flourishing beer scene was just coming into its own.

Written by alpha

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