As Vietnam welcomes more micro-breweries, the country’s craft beer scene is booming. In the past two years, Vietnam has welcomed more than a dozen such breweries as the demand for craft beer has risen in the country. Furthermore Vietnam’s craft brewers are bringing in more international awards than their other Asian Counterparts. This shows a major shift from traditional Bia Hoi, a local draft beer with 3% of alcohol content priced at under 1$. This article will discuss specifics about the burgeoning craft beer landscape in Vietnam and what it means for investors.
Interested in setting up an F&B business? Check Out Cekindo’s Company Incorporation Services
A Shift Towards New Tastes
According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Vietnam is one of Asia’s largest beer users, having used 3.8 billion liters per year since 2016. While traditional brands like Tiger, Saigon Beer, and Bia Hoi continue to dominate, craft brewers like Platinum, Pasteur Street Brewing Co, Winking Seal, Heart of Darkness, and Fuzzy Logic are giving viable alternatives in Ho Chi Minh City alone. For example, the brands have brought strong Indian Pale Ales (IPAs) and sour Gose, a tart and salty German beer type, to the market.
Craft beer has become increasingly popular in Vietnam as the country’s economy has grown and its people have developed a taste for global ideals and standards. Vietnamese customers’ tastes and preferences are changing and evolving, presenting a lucrative chance for investors to tap into the market. Investing in these local brewers assists craft breweries at a time when they are the most in need, while also generating passive income.
The New Style of Brewing
The international-award-winning Craft Beer company, Pasteur Street Brewing Co, one of Vietnam’s craft pioneers, started off in 2015 and currently distributes across Vietnam, and throughout Malaysia, Hong Kong, and the United States, Japan, and Europe. These past two years, Pasteur Street has been on top of the battle against bland lagers and formulaic pale ales. They won three gold medals for the Saison, Double IPA, and Passionfruit Wheat Ale, and a silver medal for their Marou cocoa pod-infused Cyclo Stout at the Asia Beer Medal contest in 2016.
The industry revolves around using locally sourced ingredients. The brewers use a variety of ingredients, including Marou chocolate from the area, Dalat coffee, passion fruit, and even the contentious durian — a spiky Asian fruit with a unique odor. They’ve come up with 70 different beers, including Jasmine IPA, Passion Fruit Wheat, Lemongrass and Phu Quoc Pepper Saison, and Cyclo Imperial Chocolate Stout, which won gold at the World Beer Cup last year.
RELATED: How to Sell Alcohol for On-stie Consumption in Vietnam
A Change For Good
While many of the earliest microbreweries were founded by foreigners, Vietnamese entrepreneurs have now entered the fray. For example, Loc Truong, a Vietnamese-American who worked at Anheuser-Busch InBev (the firm behind brands like Stella Artois and Corona) before setting off with his founding partners, runs the newly established East West Brewing Company.
Truong’s gently pitched beers, such as the East-West Pale Ale, are a good starting point for new craft beer drinkers. Things get a little more difficult with a stronger Far East IPA, Coffee Vanilla Porter, or 12% ABV Independence Stout. This is in addition to Asian-inspired beers including Le Wit, a wit-style beer created with Asian pear, and a delicate Saigon Rose with raspberries. Many people are unaware that beer comes in such a wide variety of tastes. People, on the other hand, can’t go back to regular beers after they’ve tried craft beer and its variety of flavors.
Getting Used to Craft Beer
It may seem highly unrealistic to charge five dollars for a beer in a country that is used to drinking traditional beer for just a few cents. The persuasive approach for East-West Brewing Company, which debuted in January, included an on-site brewery. It all boils down to effectively educating Vietnamese customers. If there isn’t a craft brewery to walk people through the process, it’s impossible to demonstrate to them what craft beer is.
It benefits that craft beer breweries and pubs are located around Ho Chi Minh City’s core districts of Districts 1 and 2, where there is heavy foot traffic. As a result, new beer-focused excursions, such as Vespa Adventures’ bar and brewery motorbike trip, have contributed to the frenzy.
Truong anticipated expatriates and visitors to drive sales before launching, but he was pleased to find that in the first six months of operation, 85% of his customers were Vietnamese. According to Truong, this is partially attributable to Vietnam’s rising middle class. With an annual rise of 6% in GDP per capita, Vietnam’s middle class will account for 23% of the country’s 95 million people by 2020, up from 16% in 2015.
The culmination of the above aspects of craft beer, like rising demand, a multitude of flavors, burgeoning middle class, and western influence, etc, have made the craft beer market a lucrative destination for foreign investors. However, investing and opening a craft beer brewery in Vietnam would require a lot of run-around and make you prone to pitfalls. It’s better to have an outsourcing company help you every step of the way.
Awards, Awards & More Awards
Vietnam is the oscar-worthy craft beer capital of Asia, without a doubt. From the Hong Kong International Wine and Spirit Competition in Hongkong, to the Asia International Craft Beer Competition in Singapore Vietnam’s crafters are taking home the medals more than any other country. The craft beer brewers with the most awards include Heart of Darkness, Pasteur Street, East West and 7 Bridges. In the 2018 Asia Beer Competition in Singapore, Vietnamese craft brewers took home an impressive 15 awards from 21 categories.
How Can Cekindo Help?
In Vietnam, establishing a beer brewery entails a series of time-consuming and unduly formal procedures. Having company registration pros on your side, such as Cekindo, may save you a lot of time and make the process go smoothly. Cekindo offers a wide range of auxiliary services linked to business formation, including legal advice, license and document acquisition, tax and accounting, and HR services.