The Best Belgian Beers Available In Thailand!

[KhonChaidee]

Thanks for your praising words mate, appreciate it. I am indeed partially dependent on the Thai companion and will take precautionary measures. He is one of my best mates, but anything can happen of course.

Hope to be serving you one of our fine beers in the future!

I applaud you bro!! Going from bar to bar drinking that crap they sell just makes me sick so hence I dont drink much when I goto Thailand unless I am at a nice place like Taweng Daeng or other good place with quality beers. But the ideal would be to get this to your average punter and I think more people should be drinking Leffe rather than those horrible Thai beers. Foreigners would be happy to pay that little bit extra I certainly would even up to 150 baht a bottle is fair to me for the quality you get (and extra alcohol content). Makes me nervous when you are saying you are doing business with a Thai. Who is forking out the majority of the dollars?, if thats you, I would worry because there is no recourse in Thailand if you have a problem, just remember that. Bribery and corruption ruins opportunities for all people and investment dollars flowing in but the government doesnt seem to care, thats because they and their cronies are the ones who benefit the most from this type of society.

[belg]

OP, are you even Belgian ? i see maastricht in your profile ...that is ... HOLLAND

anyway, if you would have said you would grow and produce local beer, the belgian way, that is way more innovating and will save a bunch on transport & IMPORT taxes ... alcohol, luxery good ...

so forget your cheap price if you are going just to import

my 2 satang

[risky11]

does Leffe already sell in thai supermarkets i.e. Central?

Leffe, Hoegaarden, Duvel, Stella and a few other I think are sold at Big C Extra.

If I recall correctly Leffe at 110 Baht, Stella at 89 Baht.

Geuze Kriek would be a cracker for the Thai market.

Stella Artois is my favorite beer. It's $18.99 for a 12 pack at Publix here in Florida. That's about 46 Baht each. Not bad, eh?

[KhonChaidee]

OP, are you even Belgian ? i see maastricht in your profile ...that is ... HOLLAND

anyway, if you would have said you would grow and produce local beer, the belgian way, that is way more innovating and will save a bunch on transport & IMPORT taxes ... alcohol, luxery good ...

so forget your cheap price if you are going just to import

my 2 satang

No, I am not Belgian, nor did I claim to be. I was born and raised in Maastricht, the Netherlands, 1 km from the Belgian border.

You're idea sounds promising, but is not possible for me as I am currently finishing my studies in Maastricht..

[laislica]

Beer can be very expensive. In a small village in southern Spain in 2009, a restaurant offered us a bottle of beer that was said to have been specially brewed to accompany a meal.

It was served as if it were wine.

It was an Estrella Damm beer, can't remember the exact name.

Ah, but Google can

Tasting notes - Estrella Damm | Inedit

It was superb.

However, we were rather shocked when the bill came - €14 or at the time about 600 THB and the bottle was about 75 Cl. At least 3 or 4 time the price of an acceptable wine in a restaurant, it was good though.

Another Google search shows that it is available in Waitrose at £5.29 per 750ml bottle.

Hope you find a consistent niche market - nothing ventured - nothing gained.

Good luck

Edited April 14, 2013 by laislica

[smokie36]

For those of us who can't afford the Westmalle, Duvel, Orval or Chimay, there's always Beer Lao Dark

A BeerLao light would do even better imho...

[kriswillems]

The one in mega bangna was this one: https://www.facebook.com/beerosophy

Good that I didn't go there: 5 bottles of St. bernardus: 2013B

Edited April 14, 2013 by kriswillems

[Travel2003]

Hopefully OPs business idea works out well, since there will be more choices for me as a customer and consumer.

[Shaunduhpostman]

I was so excited to see this, I quit my usual lurking just to chime in. I really hope you guys will be able to figure out an angle so as to improve prices/selection in Thailand. I'm out here in Kalasin routing for you. Go! Go!

I think it's a good idea to see if you can't up the game without alerting the big fish, which is as others have mentioned the stumbling block to succeeding here with this. I don't agree that people on a budget and Thais don't care for nice beer. It's a different game than drinking mass produced Thai beers or Heineken,sure. Those who are happy with cheaper/more beer won't be interested, but many are and have been for the 12 years I've lived in Bangkok.

I really enjoy Belgian beers and other nice beer and don't mind paying extra and I am on a tight budget. Villa Market, Foodland, a Spanish sausage and cheese shop on Sukhmvit Soi 19, and the Londoner with their happy hour do an OK job of filling in. The Dubliner had Leffe dark and blonde on tap last I checked, not to mention what somebody else said about a bar in Thonglor. But with all this seems to me there is vast scope for improvement.

Also, there Cactus Bar Ago-go on Soi Cowboy. It is probably the diveiest dive on Soi Cowboy, an unlikely spot for the Belgian beer enthusiast but the American manager John is a bit of a gourmand and lived in Europe for awhile. Ages ago they rolled out a damn extensive menu of good Belgian and German beers and offering Weihenstephaner wheat beer on tap, Karmelite Tripel for 250 a glass in the Karmelite official glass I believe, which is not bad considering it's 120 baht at least for a Heiny in most Soi Cowboy bars. They had many many types of Belgians on the Cactus menu. So, John at Cactus might be a good source of insight because he's been getting well supplied beyond anything I have ever seen in Thailand and for a good 6-8 years now. I haven't been in there in almost two years, so I'm not sure he has been able to keep up the stellar selection he had.

Finally, out here in Kalasin, I have seen nothing in the way of anything other than the usual Chang/Leo/Singha/Heineken/Cheers, etc. The TESCO is crawling with farang savaging the meagre cheese section and buying up all the baguettes. They might lay off a bit if given a selection of Belgians to channel their limited funds towards. I keep remarking to my wife that I'm sure they could sell a ton of the kinds of beer we used to love from Villa et al judgeing from the butter gobbling hordes from Farangland we see in TESCO. So, that might also be a line of sales, is getting beer out to the provinces. If you can ship out here or find a way to prove to the silly supermarkets that there is no point in having a whole 5 by 1 by 2 meter shelf dedicated to Leo, Chang, and Cheers you may find a good base of customers.

[pilm]

Isn't there only one legal importer (importing company) allowed for products like this?

[aussiebebe]

Good luck to the OP, I filled out the survey and I hope he gets the information he needs. I drink rarely, so my opinion might not be worth that much, but I think the market in Thailand is already saturated with specialist beers, you can go to Villa or Foodland and buy almost anything you want. The idea of selling glasses has also been done to death, I remember a year ago I found a really nice pack of two Erdinger bottles with a beautiful glass....in Big C! Good luck trying to compete with them.

[Thorgal]

As a fellow Belgian i can only support youre initiative but i think youre a little bit too late with youre bussines concept because there are already other companys such as belgian beverage asia co ltd importing Belgiums finest beers a simple google search would already have saved you a lot of money and trouble .

In CNX you can have all Belgian Beers available, except Westvleteren of course...

Just google it. Prices are almost double, but acceptable if you miss the Belgian flavour.

Edited April 14, 2013 by Thorgal

[smokie36]

Good luck to the OP, I filled out the survey and I hope he gets the information he needs. I drink rarely, so my opinion might not be worth that much, but I think the market in Thailand is already saturated with specialist beers, you can go to Villa or Foodland and buy almost anything you want. The idea of selling glasses has also been done to death, I remember a year ago I found a really nice pack of two Erdinger bottles with a beautiful glass....in Big C! Good luck trying to compete with them.

A pint of Erdinger in London is approaching £4.50 in the suburbs.

Some perspective needed in Thailand regarding this subject I think.

[MrRed]

The nice thing o know is that a can market my ideas on thaia visa

[smokie36]

The nice thing o know is that a can market my ideas on thaia visa

Red shirt!!

[kurnell]

I just bought 2 cases of Hoegarrden for $36.

[PaullyW]

Hi

First, all the best to you in your venture.

For me, I'd love to be able to buy and enjoy what I consider a good beer in Thailand. When I lived in the US for bit in NYC, I loved heading over with my growler to Whole Foods Market to fill up on fresh, speciality beers on tap during nearly any time of year.

However, I must say, I have a few observations about beer in Bangkok, and Thailand in general.

1. Many beers I like I would find difficult to enjoy in Bangkok simply because of the climate. It's too hot here. The heavier beers are especially hard to enjoy. Even when consumed in air conditioned locales, once the heat hits you outside, it just takes something out of the experience. For this reason, Singha and similar seem to work better here.

2. The experience of drinking a high quality beer in Thailand is degraded by the low quality nearly everything else that surrounds us anywhere we look. Thailand is a poor country. Most are poor of money and most of wealthy are poor of taste and character. Not intending to ruin this thread, but it must be said. If I am enjoying a 150 - 250 Baht beer, I would rather prefer to enjoy it in a city/country where I can supplement my quality experience throughout the outing. But, here in Thailand, we enjoy our expensive beers, and it's right back outside to the broken pavements, chaos everywhere, garbage and sewage smelling streets, rats, roaches, traffic, etc. Hard to enjoy a beer when you have such an existence waiting for you right outside.

3. Company - drinking in most of Europe is generally a blast. Likewise in many places in the US, Canada. Drinking in Japan is also fun. Shanghai is alright. Never been to Russia, but my mates tell me it's like no other. Point is, drinking for me is a social experience. No offense again to the Thais here, but they are generally terribly boring to drink with. Not withstanding the fact that the level of English proficiency in Thailand, despite the long running tourism sector, is rather low (http://www.ef.co.th/epi/), the 1) typically very reserved nature of Thais, and 2) the inability to let loose to strangers and especially the 3) very common snobbishness of well-educated/travelled Thais makes it nearly impossible to be social with them when out unless of course you have a group already. On the other hand, we all know we get a larger share than we deserve of questionable Westerners here in Thailand which often makes us weary of opening up as we might in places with higher ratios of better, more normal people.

4. Poor country - I think that trying to sell luxury in Thailand is still quite a tricky proposition. Nearly everything in Thailand is poor. So, people like myself and many of the Western expats at my firm and the Eastern ones as well (from Japan mostly), essentially just give up. It makes more sense, if one can do it, to just adjust down and live like Thais do (even the wealthy ones) which is to live mostly poor. Street food and cheap beer or rice wine. It's what Thailand does well. It's not a sophisticated country, and that is much of the draw and what many of us appreciate it about Thailand (although it drives us crazy much of the time). Luxury just seems so out of place here. The lady in her USD 300,000 20 year-old Mercedes Benz stuck in endless traffic and smog.

** Luxury in Thailand, by and large, serves a very different purpose for Thais than luxury serves for Westerners. Luxury for Thais is meant to be seen, not necessarily enjoyed. It is exactly the opposite for most of us Westerners who have been with luxury for several generations now.

So, all that said, when I want to have a good time and enjoy a better quality experience (in addition to just a beer in a crappy city - Bangkok), I am fortunate enough to be able to travel often for work and personal, so I will just head 1 hour south to Singapore of a couple hours to Japan/Hong Kong, etc. On the occasions that I want to have a really good beer in Thailand, I generally just tell myself that if I have a a couple big bottles of Singha, at that point, I will have forgotten what I wanted so bad... Problem solved.

[geriatrickid]

I was able to access an amazing variety of imported quality Dutch and Belgian beer at the Carnivore restaurant in Ao Nang, Krabi approx. 2 weeks ago.

Aside from a great steak, I was blown away by the wide selection of beers that were available. I suggest you check out the menu on line and you may discover that someone already has access to the import market.

I offer this not to be negative, but as a suggestion for you to perhaps consider talking to the Dutch chap that runs the restaurant.

The variety of quality beers was somewhat lost on a simple fellow like me, but for you connaisseurs, you may wish to check it out.

[KhonChaidee]

I was able to access an amazing variety of imported quality Dutch and Belgian beer at the Carnivore restaurant in Ao Nang, Krabi approx. 2 weeks ago.

Aside from a great steak, I was blown away by the wide selection of beers that were available. I suggest you check out the menu on line and you may discover that someone already has access to the import market.

I offer this not to be negative, but as a suggestion for you to perhaps consider talking to the Dutch chap that runs the restaurant.

The variety of quality beers was somewhat lost on a simple fellow like me, but for you connaisseurs, you may wish to check it out.

Thanks, sounds like an instructive source indeed!

[pilm]

Screw the beers and get cans of Guinness into the supermarkets.

Isn't there only one legal importer (importing company) allowed for products like this?

Though you won't be able to as the sole legal importer has decided to stop, and as I believe no one else is able to as they are the sole licensed importer for the product.

[tombkk]

Screw the beers and get cans of Guinness into the supermarkets.

Isn't there only one legal importer (importing company) allowed for products like this?

Though you won't be able to as the sole legal importer has decided to stop, and as I believe no one else is able to as they are the sole licensed importer for the product.

The importer of which brand has decided to stop, according to your information?

[pilm]

^ Thai Asia Pacific Brewery (TAPB), Guinness being imported other than draft and distributed in retail outlets.

If the OP can get cans of Guinness to supermarkets they will be sold out fast. Though he won't be able, as another company already has the sole import license.

Edited April 15, 2013 by pilm

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

I haven't seen any cans of Guinness in any retails outlets in Thailand for some years...

If some company has the import license for retail distribution, why in the world aren't they using it?

[DaveHKT]

The Wine Connection cafe at the Rain Hill Mall on main Suk Rd at Soi 47 has a variety of Belgium beers on their menu...

I've been there before and sampled them, but I can't remember the brands I had off the top of my head.

But here's what I see elsewhere.

http://www.10best.com/destinations/thailand/bangkok/sukhumvit/nightlife/wine-connection-rainhill/

beer.jpg

beer 2.jpg

The Graceland Hotel in Patong has a Belgium Beer bar cafe.

Expensive methinks but ok now and again for a good beer.'

Good luck to the OP

I head down to the Belgium Beer Cafe at Gracelands quite often. At less than 300 Baht for 750ml of draught Leffe Blonde it's not too expensive.

Like you, I wish the OP the best of luck with his endeavours

[Wombat6]

If you have filled in the questionnaire, a small comment to keep this topic alive would be very much appreciated!

A true beer lover wouldn't put Ice in their Beer !!

[KhonChaidee]

Over 100 questionnaires are in!

This was a great success. I have a clear idea about what beer brands are in demand and was fortunate enough to get some awesome advice and get in touch with some great people!

Thank you all for your cooperation. Hope to be serving you a nice, cold, high quality Belgian beer soon (no ice inside Wombat ).

Cheers

[pilm]

I haven't seen any cans of Guinness in any retails outlets in Thailand for some years...

If some company has the import license for retail distribution, why in the world aren't they using it?

You'll have to ask them.

Find out about Taco Bell too. Yum Rest. Int. (Tricon Global Restaurant Corp. at the time) bought the rights to run TB in Thailand, and were apparently planning to launch them before the '97 crash. They shelved it and have yet to plan a (re)launch.

[jbrain]

I haven't seen any cans of Guinness in any retails outlets in Thailand for some years...

If some company has the import license for retail distribution, why in the world aren't they using it?

You'll have to ask them.

Find out about Taco Bell too. Yum Rest. Int. (Tricon Global Restaurant Corp. at the time) bought the rights to run TB in Thailand, and were apparently planning to launch them before the '97 crash. They shelved it and have yet to plan a (re)launch.

Taco Bell is owned by Yum restaurants international , they don't need to buy the rights for any country since they own it worldwide together with KFC, Pizzahut and some other names.

[kblaze]

The nice thing o know is that a can market my ideas on thaia visa

It seems to me that this thread really upsets you. Cheer up Charlie.

[PaullyW]

Hitachino Nest! That's great stuff. Hope you can get some Red Rice Ale...