Thread: Local Beers and Headache

Am I the only one suffering from major headache and hangover after drinking a few locally brewed bottled beers ? I don't have the same effect with the draft and the real imports ?

I am starting to suspect something is wrong with the local brewers, time to switch to 100% import even if it means paying a whole extra 40 THB !!!

also, any recommendations for buying at the supermarket the good import brands ? I went to Carrefour and there was quite a selection of them so I took a sample of all of them for tonight.

Any special brand you would recommend ? I like mostly german beers btw, the English ones are for unsophisticated piss head like MtD

It's the formaldehyde that is put in local beers that is doing it to your head and it is in damn near all SEA brews.
I like home brew my self and used to make a lot of it, but I don't drink anymore so don't worry about what is in that shit.

Originally Posted by blackgang

It's the formaldehyde that is put in local beers that is doing it to your head and it is in damn near all SEA brews

OMG one would expect better from you BG...one of THE greatest urban myths ever to come out of Thailand...

formaldehyde

"Beijing residents can breathe easier today. Yanjing Beer, Beijing's largest brewery and the producer of 11% of the nation's beer output, said today that it stopped adding formaldehyde to its beer back in 2002. Taken together with the denials issued by Tsingtao and China Resources (makers of Snow beer), China's beer market ought to be at least 35% formaldehyde-free.

Reports today have tried to reassure consumers that this scare is different from recent cases of poisonous food additives and counterfeit products. The 95% figure is from 2003, and was wrong then, too. And a little bit of formaldehyde won't kill you - after all, it's in the foreign beer, too. Beijing Evening News spoke with Zheng Yangming, director of the Department of Technical Quality at the Yanjing Beer Group:

Using formaldehyde as an additive in the brewing process was not invented in China, but was instead a foreign invention. To this day in foreign brewing textbooks and other materials, formaldehyde is still listed as a stabilizer...starting in the 1970s, foreign brewers began to eliminate formaldehyde as an additive during beer production. Entering the 21st century, major domestic breweries also stopped adding formadehyde."

Source: Danwei publishing

Originally Posted by klongmaster

one of THE greatest urban myths ever to come out of Thailand...

^ explain please

Chang gives the most vile hangovers imaginable. I haven't had a drink in ages but when I do I know drink gin and tonic, the quinine acts as a mossy repelant, so you have good excuse to drink it.

Good info from all. Thanks. From the name formaldehyde, I guess that it's chemical dehydrant to give a draft feel to canned or bottled beer.

Why about Spy? Does Spy contain formaldehyde too?

The heinken sold in Thailand is significantly stronger than the "English" stuff which was alomst impossible to get drunk on.

San Mig Light is the cleanest beer I've drunk in Thailand. Never had a hangover on it. It's still 5% but without much in the way of that disgusting lager taste.

Originally Posted by Ramseth

Good info from all. Thanks. From the name formaldehyde, I guess that it's chemical dehydrant to give a draft feel to canned or bottled beer.

No, formaldehyde is a cancerogenic preservative used in morgues but banned almost anywhere for use on food-stuff. It does keep the beer 'fresh' while being transported across the country in the tropical heat, it also prevents veges or anything imaginable from decomposing, used more often than one would like to know in asia...

Originally Posted by Marmite the Dog

San Mig Light is the cleanest beer I've drunk in Thailand.

I drink the normal San Mig at home. Don't like the Light as much as it is a bit watery.

When I stopped drinking the San Mig Light in the pub and switched back to Heineken and Tiger I noticed the hangovers were worse.

Used to get headaches after only a couple of singhas. Stopped drinking it and since then no real problems to speak of. In fact it might help if I did get the occasional hangover could act as a breaking mechanism

Originally Posted by Butterfly

Any special brand you would recommend ?

I like Mexican beers. Not Corona. It's shit. Bohemia, Pacifico or Dos Equis are good.

How long have you lived here Butters? Well known that Beer Chang is not 100% beer. More likely cut with that commercial lau khow, better known as diesel. Even though the other popular Thai/Lao beers are fashionably "beer", there's a slight suspiscion that should be waivered.

Originally Posted by Rural Surin

How long have you lived here Butters? Well known that Beer Chang is not 100% beer.

Not sure but I believe some Thai beers are "fortified" to increase alcohol content. Fortified must mean they add alcohol and probably is Loa Khow or something simular.

Originally Posted by Norton

Originally Posted by Rural Surin

How long have you lived here Butters? Well known that Beer Chang is not 100% beer.

Not sure but I believe some Thai beers are "fortified" to increase alcohol content. Fortified must mean they add alcohol and probably is Loa Khow or something simular.

Fortified! At least. Beer Singha is OK. The only Thai beer that has long been under the direction and production of European beers. Beer Leo and Beer Lao are passible. But Beer Chang is lethal. If you've ever imbibed in Chang as your regular everyday beer, you'll find that it soon becomes destructive to your health. Might as well drink lau khow everyday. Beer Chang has this way about it if you over drink....the feeling of impending vomitting, bad hangovers, rots your gut as that local white brew does. FOK! I use to drink lau dang everyday to be drunk. THAT SHIT!!!! I'm surprised I'm still alive today. I live where foreign beers are not readily available, so I've become comfortable with Singha - real beer. Occasionally, we might make a business run to Khorat, where foreign beers can be found....

What about Beer Lao. anybody

Originally Posted by TSR2

What about Beer Lao. anybody

Yes, Beer Lao is fine. Actually, amongst Farang residents and travellers as well, Beer Lao gets all the good marks. Tasty, "real" beer, not too expensive....

Someone told that there is/are a place in the Laos/Thai border on the river where you get a Laos guy to cross the river in his boat, buy Lao Beer on your behalf for a consideraion and return with a boat, anyone kow more on this, The savings are said to be good

Stick with the quality products and you will find the hangovers less severe.
Pretty fokin simple to work out. "You only get what you pay for".

Originally Posted by TSR2

Someone told that there is/are a place in the Laos/Thai border on the river where you get a Laos guy to cross the river in his boat, buy Lao Beer on your behalf for a consideraion and return with a boat, anyone kow more on this, The savings are said to be good

Green blob for the Best travel anecdote/tip of the year. Sounds like a television advert !

Some may think life is too short to travel to the Mekhong and hire beer smugglers. (I don't)