Lifestyle

A glimpse of personal evolution: life and love in Thailand.

Malayan Breweries Limited (MBL), now known Asia Pacific Breweries, was founded in 1931. Tiger is the company's flagship beer and has been since its creation in 1932 in Malaysia. The beer has always been popular with Europeans, many of whom made up a large section of Malaya's beer drinking population in the early twentieth century.

This is the cash cow of the Boon Rawd Brewery and probably the only reason the company is still economically viable. It is cheap and does not taste like piss, soap or foam so is unlike any of the other beers in the company's portfolio.

Beer Chang is one of Thailand's most notorious and popular alcoholic beverages. The beer was only created in 1994 and held just 9% of the domestic beer market in 1995 but in five short years they managed to grab a 60% share, turning previous market leader Beer Singha into a mere shadow of it's former self.

Now I have never been one for supporting military Juntas who commit mass murder and rape but I have to say as far as making beer goes the Union of Myanmar has got it right. Despite recent claims that Beer Myanmar is being exported to Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Bangladesh you would be hard pushed to find any great quantity at your local shop anywhere apart from Myanmar due to global economic sanctions against the country for one of the longest lists of human rights abuses in the world.

My first encounter with Angkor Extra Stout was at a drunken business meeting I had recently in Cambodia.

It's our third time together in a little over a year. Her name is Noi and I've lost my heart to her. I'm 53 and she is 27. The age difference means nothing. We were made for each other's arms.

Quote from a friend's email: "I'd like to have a child, but my options here don't look too great, as my age turns most childbearing women away."

Cambrew remains a leading light of the Cambodian beer market thanks to its clever strategy of creating brews that are targeted to different socioeconomic segments.

Like many people I have often found myself wondering what a German style beer brewed in Thailand by a Philipino beer monopoly would taste like?

As soon as I heard that Beer Lao Dum had arrived in the bars of Bangkok I revised travels plans I had to allow me a day (and night) in the City of Angels so I could try the darker, stronger sister of Beer Lao.

Singha plunges into cheap-beer market.

Iceberg Lager Beer has recently made its debut.

It is only in this tiny and remote Communist country that you can drink Beerlao fresh from a beer tap.

Phnom Penh has its first homegrown beer.