Pasteur Street Brewing Co.

Pasteur Street Brewing Company poured its first beer in Ho Chi Minh City in January 2015, among the first craft breweries in Southeast Asia and a starting point for Vietnam's craft beer scene. The idea was to pair international brewing methods with fresh Vietnamese ingredients: roasted malt from Belgium and Germany and American, Australian and New Zealand hops, brewed with local fruit, herbs and spices such as jasmine, pomelo and passion fruit. The company is based in Saigon, where it brews, and says it has released more than 200 beers. Its best-known award came at the 2016 World Beer Cup, where Cyclo Imperial Chocolate Stout, made with Vietnamese chocolate, took gold in the chocolate beer category.

The beers

• Jasmine IPA, IPA brewed with jasmine flowers, 6.5%
• Pomelo IPA, IPA, 6.2%
• Passion Fruit Wheat Ale, wheat ale, 4%
• Jasmine Amber, amber ale, 4.5%
• Craft Lager, lager, 4.5%
• Double Jasmine IPA, double IPA, 8.5%
• Cyclo Imperial Chocolate Stout, imperial stout, 13%

The core list also takes in a 2.5% salted-lime Bia Chanh Muoi, a Blonde Ale, a Nitro Irish Stout, a Session IPA and a Pale Ale, with seasonals and small-batch releases alongside. Bottles and cans are sold for delivery, and the brewery says its beer pours in more than 600 restaurants and bars from Saigon to Sapa.

Where to drink it

Pasteur Street runs 15 taprooms in Vietnam, most of them in Ho Chi Minh City. The original Pasteur Street Brewing Co. taproom is up an alley at 144/3 Pasteur in District 1, and nearby are the Dong Khoi flagship in the Grand Hotel Saigon at 8 Ngo Duc Ke and the Le Thanh Ton taproom at 26A Le Thanh Ton. In Hanoi, the cosiest of its three rooms is Pasteur Street Craft Beer (Au Trieu) at 1 Au Trieu, behind St Joseph's Cathedral, with others at 30 Cua Bac and 122 Bui Thi Xuan. Other Saigon taprooms in the directory are Bui Vien, Ly Tu Trong, Thao Dien and the Ngo Thoi Nhiem head office in District 3, which has its own small brewery. Outside its own taprooms, look for it at Malt Saigon in District 1 and, in Hanoi, at Craft Beer Pub on Hang Buom and Bia Sanh Dieu. Abroad it has featured at Almost Famous in Singapore, Taps Beer Bar in Kuala Lumpur and Embargo Craft Beer Bar in Phnom Penh. All of these are listed below.