Global Beer Wrap-up

Before we post our final thoughts on the trip, I want to post a conclusion to the informal beer odyssey we partook during our 12 months of wandering. We had previously posted a beer blog at the 6 month mark so we will now give a short update on what we found on the second half of our trip.

Our last beer post ended with us heading to Laos to enjoy the much famed Beer Laos. This we did, enjoying one of the best lagers of the trip (we had A LOT of average tasting yellow lager) drank out of large bottles as we floated down a river in intertubes on a hot sunny afternoon. From there the trip moved on to Singapore where we found craft beer abound as a result of the British colonial influence in the 19th century. There we were also able to visit our largest brewery of the trip, Asia Pacific Breweries, the brewers of the much famed Tiger Beer and also licensed to produce the global brands of Heineken and Guinness. The last two stops of our Asian leg found us in Mongolia and Japan, both delivering unexpected high quality brews. The Mongolian capital of Ullanbaatar had no less than a half dozen craft breweries and Japan exposed us to a country full of beer enthusiasts and the Asian powerhouses of Asahi and Kirin.

From there we took a long flight eastward. If there was one surprise for us on the global beer map it had to be the variety and quality of beer presently produced in South American countries. We sampled everything from small batch beer produced in the countryside to major labels producing $1 large liter bottles in major metropolises. There were exotic beers as well; beer in Bolivia brewed with the infamous cocoa leaf and beer in Patagonia produced with the native calafate berry (think blueberry meets juniper flavors). We were lucky enough to help produce a batch of beer on Thanksgiving Day at the world’s highest brewery in La Paz, Bolivia and we also rode our bikes through the hop fields of El Bolson, Argentina stopping at breweries as we found them along the way.

Some final stats on our beer endeavor. We sampled a total of 292 beers from 33 different countries (the only places we found no domestic beer was in the Muslim state of Brunei and Botswana & Kenya due to time constraints). Argentina lead the way with 53 beers (there seems to be a craft beer revolution going on there, especially in the Lakes Region) followed by Chile with 24 beers, Mongolia with 20 beers and Vietnam with 18.

We were also able to visit 26 working breweries along the way in 11 different countries, again with Argentina leading the way with 8 breweries visited. In Chile and Japan we were also treated to beer museums outlining their local beer histories.

We are now back in the USA and greatly enjoying what we believe are the best craft beers in the world but we do miss the excitement of discovering new brews nearly every day. It was most definitely an enlightening and enjoyable year exploring this wonderful beverage.