Vietnamese beer

I am accustomed to a wide selection of beers when I go to the grocery store in the United States.  Usually there are several different brands and varieties, even at small convenience stores.  And in Garrettsville there is a drive-thru and beverage store that both stock many of my favorites plus a hundred more.

But while Vietnam boasts of being one of the highest consumers of beer in the world, the selection is often limited in the supermarket.  There are three main producers of beer in the country: Hanoi Beer, Saigon Beer, and Huda Beer.  And only the top two are available where we live in Hanoi.  In fact, here is currently what is available in the supermarket downstairs (each of these cans costs 50 cents, and beer is usually sold individually, not in 6-packs):

This is a pretty typical selection in supermarkets.  Now, the Heineken surprises me, because it is consistently the one import you can find on grocery shelves and restaurant menus.  As Vietnam continues to enter the global economy, tariffs on foreign products like beer will have to go down or be eliminated entirely.  Currently the tariff on any imported beer is 47%, although the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal (TPP) will eliminate those tariffs in 10 years.  But right now they seem to be in full force, because finding an import brew is difficult.  The other three beers above are made in Vietnam.

There are a few other domestic brands in Vietnam, but not many.  Here is a collection of the top ten beers in Vietnam, according to City Pass:

They rated Bia Ha Noi as number #1, which is the beer I've been drinking since I got here.

Bai hoi restaurants are also very prevalent along almost every street corner.  Bai Hoi translates to "fresh beer", which means it could be a home brew, or it could be a draft beer, or it could just have been delivered to the establishment recently.  These restaurants are places to hang out, have a cold one, have some food, and relax with friends.  There is a hai boi restaurant right next to our building that opens at 7 am and closes after we're in bed.  Here it is at 3:30 this afternoon (the local taxi drivers like to hang out and play chess there):

There are also some microbreweries in Hanoi (including a couple near us) and I plan to check some of them out before we leave.  I've read that they are influenced by German and Czech beers.  The website beervn.com is a great resource for these microbreweries.  Sadly, no Bass Ale or Guinness that I've come across.  But they do have one import beer in Vietnam that appears to be quite exotic here: