Nothing makes you thirsty like a beer you cannot drink

Nothing makes you thirsty like a beer you cannot drink

VANG VIENG, Laos (story from NY Times) — In this tourist town on the Nam Song River, Beer Lao is as ubiquitous as sneakers and sunburns.

Bottles of Beer Lao at the Lao Brewery factory in Vientiane, Laos. Part of the rice-based lager’s appeal may be that it cannot be found just anywhere.

Backpackers stroll the streets with a bottle of lager in each hand. Beer snobs like it, too. Time magazine has called it Asia’s best local beer. And the brand’s logo adorns everything from patio furniture to street signs.

But the buzz stops there. Outside Laos, Beer Lao is notoriously hard to find.

Like a film festival winner without a distribution deal, the rice-based lager has struggled to turn cult status into anything other than good press. Even with backing from the Danish brewer Carlsberg, which owns 50 percent of the company that makes Beer Lao in partnership with the Lao government, just 1 percent of its annual production is exported.

The company, Lao Brewery, hopes to change that. It would like to see 10 percent sold abroad, and it is counting on Vang Vieng’s beer-loving backpackers to help them make the sale.

Lao Brewery is building a network of fans-turned-distributors who import and sell the beer in select markets. Some distributors are former travelers who see potential in a brand with little international exposure. Others just really like the beer.

In Hong Kong, the brand is in the hands of Jerry Cheung, who has a love for lager and an affinity for the laid-back pace in Laos.

Mr. Cheung first tried Beer Lao while living in Cambodia in 2006. “It was the most unique beer I’d ever tasted,” he recalled. He flew to Vientiane, where the beer is made, soon afterward.

Beer Lao is made with rice in addition to malt. This, Mr. Cheung says, gives the beer a flavor that is light and crisp.

Not everyone is sold on the beer. Randy Mosher, a beer marketing consultant and author of “Tasting Beer: An Insider’s Guide to the World’s Greatest Drink,” is skeptical about the beer’s “unique” taste.

“This is very much one of the international-style pilsners that happens to be brewed in exotic locations,” he said. “Fizzy yellow beers tend to be all the same.”

Mr. Cheung, however, was sold. Within a year he had quit his job, persuaded Lao Brewery to appoint him as a distributor and founded an import firm with two Canadian friends.

That firm, Aseurica, is now the exclusive distributor for Hong Kong and Macao. It sells cases of beer to local bars and sponsors yachting trips and beach parties aimed at expatriates.

The beer is priced competitively, Mr. Cheung said. In Hong Kong’s central district, it sells for 44 Hong Kong dollars, or about $6, a bottle — about the same price as Carlsberg, Stella Artois or Heineken.

Part of the challenge is selling grass-roots chic to the masses. Since Hong Kong is low on backpackers and high on bankers, Mr. Cheung and his partners use locally made promotional materials instead of merchandise from headquarters.

This allows them to offer, say, a yacht-appropriate custom-fitted bottle cooler instead of a branded beer glass.

Mr. Cheung said the strategy was a bit do-it-yourself, “but it gives us flexibility.”

Butsarakorn Srikhongrak, Lao Brewery’s marketing manager, said the ad hoc approach was working. Because of similar deals with a handful of distributors, Beer Lao is available across Southeast Asia and in cities in the United States, Japan, Britain, France, Germany, Australia and New Zealand. There are plans to expand to the Philippines, Israel and China next year, she said.

Lao Brewery said it sold 132 million liters, or almost 280 million pints, of beer last year and had revenue of $145 million. This year, the company is expecting revenue to grow 10 percent.

Beer Lao enjoys a 99 percent market share in Laos. In other countries, however, when it is lined up next to big brands like Heineken and Corona, it becomes more critical to stand out.

An added challenge, said Sivilay Lasachack, Lao Brewery’s Laos-born, Czech-trained brew master, is that few people know what — or where — Laos is.

“When I travel internationally, people say, ‘I like your beer, but what is Laos?’ ” she said. “I tell them it’s the country next to Vietnam, come visit.”

Mr. Cheung encounters similar questions. “Even here in Asia, people are like, ‘Laos, where is that?’ ” he said.

Relative obscurity, or the lure of the exotic, is certainly a big part of the appeal — as Coors learned in the days when its beer was available only in the Western United States. That may be why Carlsberg and Lao Brewery are moving slowly.

It is definitely why Fiona Read, a teacher from Britain, shopped for Beer Lao T-shirts while vacationing in Vang Vieng recently. A friend from Britain had asked for a Beer Lao shirt. Ms. Read obliged.

“Apparently it’s quite a cool beer to drink in London,” she said.

“I think it’s considered sort of a funky, travelers’ beer,” she added. “Anybody who has traveled would drink it.”

Lao Brewery hopes that proves true. Not everyone has traveled, but nothing makes you thirsty like a beer you cannot drink.

 Aseurica backpacking Beer Lao Lao Brewery Laos Travel