Vietnam's beer industry booms
HANOI - It is the simplest corner bar on earth: tiny plastic stools on the sidewalk; tables just a foot or two above the ground, laden with glasses of beer.Aside from women pouring cheap, watery draft, these establishments are patronized almost entirely by chain-smoking Vietnamese men whose favorite refrain is tram phan tram - "100 percent" - as in, "drain your glass of every drop." Bia hoi, as the beer stalls are known, are a staple of Vietnamese life and the cornerstone of the nation's beer-drinking universe. But more and more, the urban beer market is going upscale to meet the evolving tastes and growing incomes of Vietnamese drinkers.
The bottled-beer market - one rung up from bia hoi - has been enjoying double-digit growth for several years. Upscale brew pubs are also starting to crop up, with more than a dozen opening in Hanoi in the last year to market high-end, homemade suds.With prices up to $2 a mug, they are aiming at a beer-drinking elite in a nation where per capita income remains just $480 a year. "This is a very interesting industry - a rapidly growing industry," said former San Jose, Calif., resident Van Dinh Man, who opened a cavernous brew pub in a former Hanoi discotheque last year. "And it's a long-term business. It's going to take some time to educate the palates of Vietnamese beer drinkers." These days, only the true connoisseurs are heading to Vietnam's brew pubs. But many drinkers already have cultivated a taste for premium bottled beer.
Asia Pacific Breweries, which produces Heineken and Tiger beers, is planning a $45 million expansion that will allow it to increase production by 50 percent. South East Asia Brewery, which produces Carlsberg and the local brand Halida, has enjoyed growth rates of more than 20 percent a year for the last four years. Budweiser is also scoping out the market.
At many of the western-style bars that have opened in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, in recent years, young women in skimpy Tiger and Carlsberg dresses offer everyone a refill the second they drain their mug. It is not uncommon for a customer to be confronted by two such women at once as soon as he or she enters a pub, each assailing him or her with conflicting pitches: "Tiger!" "Carlsberg!" "Tiger!" "Carlsberg!" It is easy to find a cold bottle of Heineken for about 70 cents in Vietnam. A cold one at a Hanoi brew pub can cost almost twice that much. But business is booming.
Vietnam's brew pubs are similar to their American counterparts - homemade brew is made according to a secret recipe in giant copper tanks, lending an aura of connoisseurship. Beers are served by the half-pint or pint - ales, pilsners, stouts. In some places, even two-liter frosty mugs are available for especially thirsty customers. Legends, the first such establishment in Hanoi, is modeled after a German beer garden and serves up a variety of German sausages with its brew.
When he opened Red Beer, or Bia Do, in Hanoi a year ago, Truong Viet Binh expected to sell about 200 liters a day. Now he's selling 300 to 400 daily and planning to open a new Bia Do in Ho Chi Minh City, where at least four brew pubs already have opened. Despite all the change in Vietnam's beer industry, by far the most popular drinking establishment remains the traditional bia hoi, where the 15-cents-per-glass tab helps the watery draft go down easily. The beer stalls take their name from the drink bia hoi, "fresh beer."
These ubiquitous establishments are almost always on the sidewalk, where customers sometimes have to raise their voices over the din of motorbike traffic and passing buses sometimes belch clouds of diesel over the plastic tables. The customers are plain folks with no need for the sleek furniture and fancy entertainment they might find in a brew pub. Nobody minds if the tables are dirty and the sidewalk is littered with paper napkins. This is the place everyone comes to unwind - from truck drivers returning from a grueling haul to college professors who use the bia hoi as a sort of street-side salon. "We come here twice a day," said Le Vinh, 67, sitting at a bia hoi in the shadow of the central Hanoi train station.
A retired doctor, Vinh's drinking pals include a retired soccer star, a film maker, an engineer and a newspaper photographer. They gather for an hour or two at lunch, and reconvene at the end of the day. "We share our ups and downs," said Nguyen Trinh Thai, a painter "That's what being in a bia hoi is all about." At Bia Hoi Viet Ha, a humble stall just down the street from the U.S. ambassador's stately residence, five friends gather after a hard day's work at a Hanoi print shop. They've been coming four times a week for six years now.
They suck down eight glasses at a sitting, but claim they are sober. If they come home drunk, they explained, their wives will be furious. "If we have less than eight glasses, we're fine," said Pham Tien Anh, 55, picking at a plate of fried tofu with his chopsticks. "More than eight glasses, and we're drunk." "Chuc suc khoe!" they cheered, raising their mugs for yet another toast. "Here's to your health!"
As a developing nation, Vietnam's per capita beer consumption remains relatively low at roughly 12 liters a year, especially compared with such giants of the suds-swilling world as Germany, which consumes more than 120 liters per person per year. But many Vietnamese who do drink beer tend to drink it in large quantities. It is not uncommon to see a group of four or five men with 24 empty bottles on their table at lunchtime. Public health officials and women's rights groups view such habits with alarm.
"Sometimes they drink to the point where they come home and beat their wives and their children," said Pham Hoai Giang of the Vietnam Women's Union. "The women come to us to seek help and legal assistance." "A little drinking is OK," Giang said. "But too much can lead to crime."
Police in Ho Chi Minh City recently started using Breathalyzers for the first time in an effort to crack down on drunk driving. In one neighborhood full of watering holes, 50 percent of the people they pulled over failed the test and were hit with a $6 fine - two-thirds of the average weekly Vietnamese salary. But like purveyors of alcohol everywhere, beer distributors here say they only encourage responsible drinking. And with the nation's thirst growing, their business prospects are bright.
Vietnam has a unique beer culture, said Nguyen Hong Linh director of planning for Hanoi Beer, which has recently doubled its production capacity. Hanoi Beer plans to introduce a premium beer soon, but most of its product is bia hoi sold by the keg. "When people go to a bia hoi, there's a special atmosphere," Linh said. "Everybody is very happy. It's all, `Bottoms up' They forget their wives and their homes. It's only beer. Beer is everything."
By Ben Stocking - San Jose Mercury News - December 9, 2004
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