Vietnamese Craft Beer Tasting - Hue

Hue is known for many things, food, culture, ancient buildings, but 2026 put it on my map for Vietnamese craft beer. Local restaurants, pubs and bars serving craft beer from all over the country – or even brewing their own on premises, Hue has it all.

Imperial Craft Bia Brewpub

My first stop was at the Imperial Craft Bia Brewpub. They have been serving craft beer on tap since 2019 and expanded to have their own brewery in 2021. So I could already have visited during my week in Hue in 2022. Alas, back then I didn’t know they existed.

I arrived there during a tropical downpour and was the only guest in the pub for a while. Which lead to interesting conversations with the employees and a mini tour of the brewery room you can look into from the main pub room. We talked about beer (since I am from Germany it is kinda expected I know stuff about it) and their current flavours.

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Vietnamese Craft Beer tasting flight

Some back and forth between the bartender and me later I ended up ordering their “Beer Flight” and got these four of their craft beers:

Strawberry Fields Hard Soda – 5%
Pink Clouds Hibiscus Wheat – 4.3%
Đi Lính Rice Lager – 4.5%
Dragon Baby Micro Hazy – 3.2%

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Strawberry Soda was very sweet, to the point where you almost couldn’t taste the beer. (Not the worst, especially if you are not a beer fan, although then what are you doing here?). It was the strongest of the beers I tried that evening!

Pink Clouds was tart and heavily hibiscus leaning. But not like hibiscus sweet tea, but hibiscus flower. The most flowery beer I’ve ever had. I was quite impressed that the flowery taste was able to overwrite the mash taste.

Đi Lính Rice Lager evoked a strong reminiscence of rice wine. As if I was drinking a beer flavoured rice wine and not a rice wine flavoured beer.

The Dragon craft beer is described on the menu as having “notes of citrus”, but honestly it’s more like a lemon peel punch in the face. With beer. Delicious! It also had the most foam out of the four beers I tried, although I am not sure if that is due to composition or pouring.

All in all it felt like those four were amazing choices in a Vietnamese craft beer flight, all distinctly different from one another and all a new take on a classic “beer” flavour.

Together with the beers I had one of their pizzas, the “Bánh Mì”. I was curious how they made a banh mi into a pizza. The pizza dough was topped with pulled pork, red onion, fresh cilantro, pickled shredded carrot (lots of it), mozzarella and honey ginger banh mi sauce. It had an interesting taste. To me it ended up neither a pizza nor a banh mi, but somewhere in the realm between both of them.

The Chàm Craft Beer and Whisky

At The Chàm Craft Beer and Whisky they also have local beers on tap (7Bridges, Xứ Huế, Heart of Darkness), as well as an extensive menu of local, international and craft beers.

I wasn’t in the mood for second flight of beers in as many days. After perusing the menu for a while I settled on an East West Rosé – 4,2%: a wheat ale with the flavours of raspberry, mulberry, and strawberry.

Although it has Rosé in the name I would compare the taste less to a Rosé wine and more to a berry liqueur or berry cordial. German beer purists would cry if they drank it, but I thought it was delightful.

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Huế = party city?

There is a lot more nightlife in Huế than I though, even back in 2022 – right after Covid. Hue Walking Street and the surrounding area turn into a hotspot for all different kinds of nightlife. Though both the density and the amount of cafes, restaurants, bars, pubs, clubs and streetvendors has more than doubled since then. It’s not for everyone and certainly not for me, but walking past or through this area was still a lot more tolerable than the beer street/s in Hanoi.