What do you do with a 9 hour layover in Ho Chi Minh City? Well, if you love beer as much as I do then you seek out local craft breweries to check out.
Thankfully, Pasteur Street Brewing was established less than a year ago in Saigon by a few US expats bringing the US Craft Gospel to Vietnam.
A short taxi ride from the airport brought me to Pasteur Street where #144 revealed a small round sign promising beer a cut above what you normally find brewed in Southeast Asia.
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| Pasteur Street |
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| The signboard on Pasteur Street |
Looking up I could see the bar but to get inside you need to head down a small alleyway.
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| go in the alleyway under the blue sign |
In the alleyway, you'll see a black sign "Pasteur Street Brewing Company" hanging above you on the left and a staircase next to it. Head up the staircase until you see the door below. Wow, cool, they're members of the American Brewers Association. To me this was a sign these guys were taking their brewing seriously.
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| The door to Paradise? |
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| the black sign |
Having reached out to the brewery before my trip regarding whether my quick visit during my layover was feasible they kindly sent someone out to meet me: Ryan the Taproom Manager. He became my guide to learning about the brewery's history and about their beers.
During our ride into town he gave me some background on how the brewery. It all started with John Reid. He has been in Vietnam since 2008 running a variety of businesses. In 2014, he wanted to do his own thing and thought craft beer had a promising future so he went looking for someone to run the brewery.
At Upslope Brewing in Colorado, he found Alex Violette who came over and got to work creating recipes with indigenous ingredients. When I heard that I started to get even more excited to taste their beers - I love all things local.
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| Ryan the Taproom Manager |
As their popularity increased Alex reached out to his childhood friend from Knoxville, Ryan. He had been running bars & kitchens in the US for years so he was the perfect guy to take charge of the taproom and create menus using his culinary experience to fuse flavors of the American South & Vietnam. Judging from what I ate, I think he's doing a damn good job.
Things went like gangbusters and now a short few months after opening their original location they've now got a variety of restaurants around Saigon as clients as well as plans to open a second location nearby and a larger brewery(going from 3.5 to 20 barrels) in the outskirts of town.
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| the bar |
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| the gospel of beer |
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| beautiful tasting set |
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| Menu |
Session Amber Ale 3.3%
It has a nice orange gold color with a solid head of head. A nice biscuity graham & honey aroma. Light bodied verging on thin which was no surprise considering the low ABV. The taste is of quite a bitter maltiness with biscuit and tangy honey. Tasty.
Dragonfruit Gose 5.5%
A lovely grapefruit pink with a big lactic fruity yoghurt aroma. Tart, lactic, fruit yoghurt with some chive sour cream notes. It made me want to have a baked potato. Delicious.
Passion fruit Wheat Ale 6%
Clear gold with a thick foamy white head and a fantastic passion fruit, prickly pear & light wheat aroma. A lively effervescent carbonation and a dry finish. Great dry finish, passion fruit & wheat crackers. Deliciously fruity. It's a wonderful use of a fruit that's easily overpowered. I loved it.
Saigon Saison 7.2%
A nice warm honey gold, with a great peppery wheaty spicy saison funk. Citrusy lemon, wheat & peppery spice with some sweet boozy heat. Tasty and my kind of saison. Lemongrass & black pepper went into it with a fairly dry finish.
Jasmine IPA 6.5%
Jasmine IPA is their flagship beer, most popular and possibly best balanced according to Ryan. A brilliantly clear copper gold. The nose is terrific - floral jasmine, citrus and light biscuity malts. It's got a nice & soft round carbonation on a medium body. Great flavor of citrusy hops, some jasmine with a semi-dry finish. Great stuff
Sapodilla Strong Ale 6.3%
A reddish brown made with brown sugar and the sapodilla fruit. Great malty aroma, malty sweet, sugared plums - reminiscent of a barleywine. Medium bodied with a zesty carbonation. Nice malty flavor, raisin, some hoppy citrus, a bit of heat, caramel and just yum.
Unfortunately, the Durian Beer I'd heard about on Facebook was out as the last keg had kicked the night before.
Everything I had from Pasteur was solid and well worth trying, all clean tasting beers, many innovative works in progress and a few dialed in excellent examples of craft beer(Jasmine IPA and Passionfruit Wheat). These guys make a great variety of stuff that could easily sell anywhere. It's no wonder they're doing so well in Vietnam.
By this point I was getting hungry so I decided to order some food. I started with their prawn wraps as I felt it'd be a nice Vietnamese influenced dish. It went great with the recommended pairing of the Passionfruit Wheat.
The Nashville Hot Chicken Nuggets were spicy little bombs, too much for me but the rich creamy dill sauce calmed things down. The recommended pairing, the Jasmine IPA, highlighted the heat & was very nice but I preferred it with the Sapodilla Strong Ale whose maltiness blunted its fiery heat.
Pasteur Street Brewing in a nutshell:
"The best place for good flavorful beer in Vietnam, Period. Located in a central area of HCMC their central location is home to a long narrow bar serving up US style craft beer made using local ingredients like durian, passionfruit, sapodilla, etc. A must visit in Saigon, they’re opening up a production brewery outside of town and a second larger taproom nearby. The food was good and they do growlers. I can't wait to go back."
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| merch |
Nguyen Du Brauhof
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| The Entrance |
I headed inside in search of beer where I discovered they had 3 taps of Adlerbrau: a weizen, a helles and a dark lager.
Unfortunately, the weizen was out so I ordered the other two for a reasonable 31,000 dong per 200ml glass. That's roughly 170 JPY or 1.40$ USD. Service was efficient and as most people preferred sitting outside I had the whole bar to myself.
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| The Atmospheric Outdoor Terrace |
The helles was an opaque gold with a thick foamy white head. It had a clean grainy sweet aroma with a med-light body. The taste matched the nose: grainy sweet light malts and maybe hints of banana bread? It was quite a clean & refreshing beer. Solid.
This dark lager pours a deep reddish brown which was lighter than I was expecting with a thin light beige head. The aroma is sweet malty caramel with some fudge accents. It was light bodied and had a slickly smooth mouthfeel. The taste was caramel but it was a bit weird - nothing seemed overly off but I got an odd vibe from it. Bitter caramel malts, sweet, rough and with a syrupy aftertaste. Not for me.
A summary of Nyugen du Brauhof:
"This place has a great terrace and lovely tropical vibe. Very atmospheric. I sat at the 1st floor bar and got served within 5 minutes. The beers were so so but it’s a nice looking place near Pasteur Street Brewing. Worth a stop if nearby."
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| The quiet inside bar |
After that, I decided it was time to leave so I headed down to the main road to catch a cab. As I was getting into the taxi, I discovered I was in front of Gammer Beer - a Vietnamese brewpub chain. I was tempted to go and check it out but I restrained myself and headed to the airport. That was a shame as was a great looking place! It was what looked like a massive colonial mansion with a huge two-level terrace shaded by trees. I'll definitely drop by the next time I visit Pasteur Street Brewing.
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