Real Ales And British Beers In Phuket.....not Many But Some

[BestBitterPhuket]

being in love with British beers, makes life in Phuket quite difficult, but there are a few places where there are some available. The purpose with this thread is to map out the bars, shops and other outlets selling real ales and other british beers. Please help fill in the blanks. I have only lived in Phuket for 5 months.

Supermarkets:

- Tesco Lotus (Bypass): Fuller's London Pride, Porter and ESB.

- Small minimart in the arrival area of Phuket airport, selling small bottles of London Pride

Bars:

- Irish Times (Patong)- Probably best selection in Phuket. Old Speckeled Hen, Golden Hen, Ruddles County, Abbott Ale, Belhaven 80/-, Greene King IPA on bottle and tap, the usual Guiness and Kilkenny, O'haras Stout.

- The White Hart (Rawai) - Brain's Black on tap

- The Green Man - Brain's SA Smooth (can), Fuller's London Pride (bottle) and the usual Guiness

- O'Malley's (Phuket Town) - Brains SA Smooth and Brain's Black (both on can for 160bht)

- Angus O'Tool's (Karon) - Grene King IPA on tap pluss the usual Guiness

Restaurants:

- Small restaurant between the Chalong roundabout and the Chalong Jetty selling bbq ribs, is also selling Brain's Black and SA Smooth in cans.

Thats all I know. Anyone else have any useful information? Thanks!

[Eesat]

Tops in Central Festival used to stock O'Hara's Stout and Pale Ale also,think they ran out of the Pale Ale but when I left Phuket last year the Irish Stout was still going strong.
Have to say it's some of the best Stout money can buy,pretty sure they were stocking it all at the Irish Times also,I use to go there regularly for my fix of Ruddles et al!

[market trader]

If you stay in this country long enough and start drinking Thai beer like most of us do. When you go back home you will be posting where to get good Thai beer in Britain.

[BestBitterPhuket]

MarketTrader, that will not happen. Not all are lager drinkers. I would rather have a coke than a singha or tiger, but that's my taste. Have lived in S-E Asia for over 15 years, so I know how it is to live with limited access

[BestBitterPhuket]

For those travelling to Singapore for holiday, business or a visa run, there is quite a good selection of British ales there. Breweries like Shepherds Naeme, Badgers, Fuller's, Marston's, Belhaven, Greene King, Brew Dog, Jennings, Brains, Thornbridge and many more, and there is also a good selection if Japanese craft beers available, but like everything in Singapore, it's not cheap.

[chaiyapoon]

I'm sorry all you can get is Greene king beers in a bottle.

If the Germans can do micro breweries in Thailand why can't the Brits?

Real Ales would have reasonable take up I'm sure.

A brewpub would be the first step. Anyone..........

[smokie36]

I'm sorry all you can get is Greene king beers in a bottle.

If the Germans can do micro breweries in Thailand why can't the Brits?

Real Ales would have reasonable take up I'm sure.

A brewpub would be the first step. Anyone..........

Its quite difficult to do that in thailand for various reasons. Cellar temperature....quantity sold....simply having a supply of people willing to pay a premium.

Big risk imho.

[chaiyapoon]

I'm not sure how much demand there would be but there are a lot more drinkers of British ancestory in Thailand than German and they did it years ago. A small brew pub cannot be that expensive to set up particularly if you started with a pub already in operation and add the brewing set up. Cellars or today just a room at the back of the bar are chilled in the Uk anyway and then pass through inline coolers so the equipment is out there,and there are loads of pubs closing in the UK due to the recession leaving a surplus of equipment available for export??

I'm not saying it would be easy as no one appears to have done it yet.

[smokie36]

I will check Chaiaphoon and let you know.

[BestBitterPhuket]

Have not had a real ale for two weeks. Perhaps heading to Irish Times for some Greene King

[chaiyapoon]

There is a micro brewery on Phuket called The Full Moon Brewery Work run by a Thai who has lived and worked in the UK . They seem to brew several beer styles so you might find one that might suit you They also have a facebook page in english.

Keep an eye on the Home brew Thailand forum,They have a lot of information check under bar and beer reviews.

[BestBitterPhuket]

Good news! The supermarket in Central Festival has finally taken in English beers. They now have Fullers London Pride, London Porter, ESB AND IPA. Tesco at bypass has the first three but not the IPA.

More good news! The Big C in Jungceylon Patong are now stocking 4 kinds og Greene King beers; Abbot Ale, Ruddles County, Old Golden Hen and Belhaven 80 /- beer. That's great!

Edited July 13, 2013 by BestBitterPhuket

[StreetCowboy]

Good news! The supermarket in Central Festival has finally taken in English beers. They now have Fullers London Pride, London Porter, ESB AND IPA. Tesco at bypass has the first three but not the IPA.

More good news! The Big C in Jungceylon Patong are now stocking 4 kinds og Greene King beers; Abbot Ale, Ruddles County, Old Golden Hen and Belhaven 80 /- beer. That's great!

I could fair go a pint of 80/-

[SeaVisionBurma]

Moving to the Phuket forum - will leave a link in Pub.

[madmitch]

For those travelling to Singapore for holiday, business or a visa run, there is quite a good selection of British ales there. Breweries like Shepherds Naeme, Badgers, Fuller's, Marston's, Belhaven, Greene King, Brew Dog, Jennings, Brains, Thornbridge and many more, and there is also a good selection if Japanese craft beers available, but like everything in Singapore, it's not cheap.

Better still visit Brewerkz on the other side of the river to Clarke Quay. They have a great selection of in-house brews including their Hopback Bitter, served via handpump.

Back to Thailand, Coopers Ale may be from Australia but it's pretty good and is available in a few places.

[KarenBravo]

I love traditional ale, too, but the climate, I find, is too hot to drink it.

Much prefer an ice-cold cider in the afternoon, but, very careful not to get drunk on it as a cider hang-over is second only to a red wine hangover when it comes to pain.

[MikeENZ]

The reasons why are:

"To be able to operate as a major brewery or brewpub, the initial license from the excise department is to be approved.

The licensor has to be a registered Thai company limited with Thai national holds the majority of shares in a company.

The fully paid up capitalization of 10 million THB is required for a major brewery and the volume of production between 100,000litr to 1,000,000litr a year is required for brewpub.

The factory license is also required according to the factory act. Therefore, it has to follows the regulation of ie location, environmental, safety etc.

Upon approval of the factory license, the company then has to make a contract with the excise department and deposit money to secure the contract depending on the type of brewery."

The "microbrewerys" probably brew under an existing breweries licence.

Also, hops don't grow at this latitude, you need a good source of clean water, and well temperature for the beer to brew...

There are however importers of good danish/swedish beer (Hopsession) and American beer, yes, the yanks do make good beer when you look (Beervana) .. and Belgian Beer (Belgian Beer Imports)...

Edited July 18, 2013 by MikeENZ

[eezergood]

Just got back from the UK last night and real ales are absolutely BOOMING!! so this is very handy thanks. Also there is another place called wishbeer - look on face book!

[KarenBravo]

Just got back from the UK last night and real ales are absolutely BOOMING!! so this is very handy thanks. Also there is another place called wishbeer - look on face book!

Really?

I read a couple of articles that the average age of real ale drinkers in Britain is over 50.

Young people just don't drink it in any quantity as they usually drink lager. The breweries are worried that eventually, bitter will die out.

[eezergood]

Well I live(d) in the North West and 10 years ago you would have 1 bitter & 1 mild no choice - except for lager. Now I had at least 3-5 real ale choices, normally much more and the normal lagers. One bar in Manchester airport had about 8 to choose from!

In my home town 1 bar had over 12 cask & craft ales - there is even a real beer festival in Chester this weekend.

[madmitch]

Just got back from the UK last night and real ales are absolutely BOOMING!! so this is very handy thanks. Also there is another place called wishbeer - look on face book!

Really?

I read a couple of articles that the average age of real ale drinkers in Britain is over 50.

Young people just don't drink it in any quantity as they usually drink lager. The breweries are worried that eventually, bitter will die out.

It's cyclical. Originally CAMRA was set up to combat the rise of keg bitter before the lager boom. Every few years real ales become trendy again. A couple of years ago cider became the trendy drink and now I believe that craft beers, not necessarily traditional real ales, are very popular. Small breweries are springing up everywhere to replace those bought out by the multi-nationals like Heineken, Miller-Coors and Interbrew. These big breweries probably want traditional bitter to die out as it's much more difficult to produce consistently than mass-produced lagers. Maybe they were the instigators of the articles you read. But it won't.

I'll be having a few pints in just over a week and I'll also be visiting the Great British Beer Festival. Can't wait.

[eezergood]

YEah i noticed Coors light in draft all over th place

Havent seen that since Uni days

[KarenBravo]

Today is a vast improvement over the 1970's when I was a teenager.

We only had beers like Watney's Red Barrel, Whitbread Tankard, Double-Diamond and other mass-produced bilge-water.

The big breweries bought up the little guys and shut them down.

[eezergood]

I still saw people drinking Tennants super & Skol super!

[KarenBravo]

I think the weirdest thing I ever saw was in San Fransisco at Fisherman's Wharf.

There was a great pub there I used to go in the afternoons that advertised 111 micro-brewery beers that were hand drawn. They were excellent and disabused me of my previously held opinion that Americans don't know how to make beer.

Went back to the same place in the evening. The place was packed, yet, eight out of ten punters were drinking Budweiser Light.

Edited July 20, 2013 by KarenBravo

[pagallim]

Part of the historic problem of UK pubs, is that the local brewerys sold off their own tennanted pubs, which were typically bought up by non-brewing pub companies (Pubmaster is an example, as is Weatherspoons). These companies then negotiated heavy discounts for bulk purchases from the major brewers, also forcing their tennants to only buy from them, and hence nearly every pub you went into had the same beers.

The Monopolies and Mergers Commission of the '90's ruled the 'sole source' for buying stock to be illegal, and every pub tennant (note tennant, not managed) had the right to have at least one independent beer. These giant pub companies have now by and large disappeared, being replaced by smaller, specialised concerns and for whom customer choice is essential, and of course good food is a prerequisite of any modern UK pub's success.

[eezergood]

NOw that is p!ss in a bottle!

[eezergood]

Dark beer also on draft in Wine Connection now

Edited July 20, 2013 by eezergood

[LivinginKata]

Dark beer also on draft in Wine Connection now

What price ?

[eezergood]

I seem to remember around 120 ish.......