Vietnamese Food Part III: Beer Edition

Give me a woman who loves beer and I will conquer the world. - Kaiser Wilhelm

Back when I arrived in Vietnam, I had a beer at a restaurant on my first night. I think it was a Tiger beer ... it was light, tasty, and exactly what I needed at the time.

It wasn’t until I reached Hai Phong that I tried fresh “Bia Hoi” (pronounced bee-ah hoy) which is Vietnam’s famous draft beer. A light lager that is usually served over ice, bia hoi is brewed daily and matured briefly before being served. It’s super cheap and easy to drink – I remember being thoroughly impressed by the RIMF staff’s drinking capabilities, before I realized the beer is about 3%!

Drinking fresh bia hoi in Hai Phong with one of the RIMF staff, Chieu

There are a few interesting cultural traditions with beer drinking. People “cheers” every time they take a sip (which, to be honest, gets a little tiring). I didn’t understand the reasoning behind it until one of my colleagues, a professor from Can Tho University, explained it to me one night when he was visiting Phu Quoc.

“When you are drinking,” he said, “there is something for all of the senses – your eyes see the beer, your tongue tastes the beer, your hands feel the cool beer, and you can smell the beer. But your ears are left out – so that is why we clink our glasses and cheers so often!” CHEERS FOR THE EARS. Haha!

There are also shouts of “HUNDRED PERCENT”, which means you should drink all of your beer (in Vietnamese, “Tram phan tram”). Sometimes, after clinking glasses, they will point to their glass and say "How much?", at which point you respond with 30%, 50%, etc, pointing to an invisible line on your own glass. An taught me the phrase “Chay hay minh”, which means “Drink to get drunk!”

There are many common lagers in Vietnam, including Bia Hanoi, Saigon Green, Saigon Red, Saigon Special, Bivina, Tiger, and 333. What I find most interesting about the beers (because, forgive me, they all taste very similar) are the beer girls that go with them. Depending on the restaurant / drinking venue, there will be at least one designated server wearing a tiny dress that’s themed based on the beer they serve. Blue for Tiger, Red for Bia Saigon, etc. These women constantly refill beer glasses and top up melting ice (as I mentioned before, beer is served over ice to keep it cool).

One time, I was served a beer with a monster sized ice piece. I wasn’t even able to take a sip because the ice was so massive. An called over a beer lady, who promptly picked the ice cube out of my glass with her ice tongs, dropped it back in her ice bucket, rustled around, and found a new piece of ice to drop in my glass. I was SUPER weirded out – who would get my original ice piece, covered in my slobber? Whose glass had my new piece been in previously?! My germ-phobia kicked in, and my intestines cringed. But I just went with it. Since then, I’ve seen this ice-swapping occur many times … I guess germ spreading is just not a big deal in Vietnam.

TRAM PHAN TRAM!