Beer Review – Huda Beer, Live from Hue, Vietnam.
Continuing on my trip to Vietnam, my wife, 2 daughters and I found ourselves in the central Vietnamese town of Hue (pronounced “Hway”). Hue is famed throughout the land for its dipping sauces and its bit-sized-appetizers. Very tasty indeed. Hue is also well known for its history – there is an amazing Citadel in the middle of town. The Citadel is very much like the Forbidden City in Beijing, China – it is the old imperial palace and walled city where the emperor used to live approximately 200 years ago. Hue is also famous for its beers, among them Huda Beer.
Like most Asian beers, Huda is probably on the weaker side of taste explosions. However, given it is stinking hot for 99% of the time day and night in Vietnam, and the Vietnamese like their beers REALLY cold, Huda is not a bad drop at all. The standard 450 ml bottle is just the right size to consume quickly and easily. The standard price of just under $1 means that another is usually ordered within 30 seconds of finishing the first one. Everywhere we went in Hue, Huda Beers were not far behind, or in front, or in our faces in some form of advertising or another. And so it was only natural to have a few of these local Lagers (at least, I think it is a Lager).
A very clean and crisp taste, it just went down so well with the local edible delicacies in Hue. As I was travelling with my young daughters, I didn’t have too much of the local spicey food (I tried that in Hanoi, and had several tumultuous out of stomach and out of bowel experiences as a result, an experience I was thus not keen to repeat ), but I suspect the Huda woul;d have gone with the chilli’s very nicely indeed.
The Huda Beer website – http://www.huda.com.vn/default.asp?type=portal&changelang=en&tab=language - has lots of text and graphics, but doesn’t say much. Interestingly though, the Huda Brewery does apparently donate a large sum of money fairly regularly to various charities and provides scholarships to students in poorer areas. To me as a seemingly ”rich western tourist”, there is a lot of poverty in Vietnam. Given every man and his dog drinks Huda in this area of the country, the profits from this brewery would probably be large enough to support some Good Deeds. This has to be a good thing, I reckon.
Thanks,
Matthew.
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Tags: Lager, Vietnamese Beer
