Craft Beer in Phuket: The Expanding Beachside Experience
The fact that there’s a growing scene of craft beer in Phuket is no surprise. Craft beer is pretty much everywhere across Thailand, and is popular the world over. Lots of the traditional party bars in Phuket are starting to stock exciting craft beers alongside their usual Leo, Chang, Singha and international lagers. There are new bars opening up all of the time across Phuket, it hasn’t quite exploded like craft beer in Bangkok, but the wave isn’t far off shore.
Renaissance Resort and Spa
You read that right. Resort and spa. Not your usual place to find a craft beer set up, we’ll give you that. Resorts and Spas on the island are the haunt of those who want to spend their whole time lounging by the side of the pool and sinking endless weak cocktails. But look a little closer and you’ll see what’s exciting about this particular resort. Renaissance have decided to embrace the expanding craft beer culture and have built their own small outlet.
The resort opens the little stall pretty much when it chooses, but if you’re feeling confident just act like you belong and ask for a member of staff to open it. After all, you’re here to drink their beer.
Full Moon Brewworks
This is an unsurprising entry given the nod to this craft beer brewery above. Better yet, you won’t have to travel far from Bodega Phuket to get your fill of their excellent brews. Head on down to Jungceylon Mall in Patong and you’ll be living in craft beer paradise. You won’t, however, feel like you’re in Thailand anymore. The bar is designed specifically to mimic those dark wooden, exposed cement hipster bars that have cropped up across the states. The bar works on a rotation basis with its taps, so if you head in one night you might get the chance to try some different beers on another night.
Full Moon Brewworks has laid claim to the fact that they’re the only craft beer brewers on the island and are set up in Patong, just down the road from Bodega. Currently they’re offering three different craft beers; the Chalawan Pale Ale, the Chatri IPA and the Bussaba Ex-Weisse. Each of them as good as they sound, and they sound like beer. Which always sounds good.
They’re not as cheap as the local lager style beers and at Renaissance you can expect to pay around 210 baht per drink. But that is considerably cheaper than the Corona or Vedett that’s also on the menu.
Location: Jungceylon Shopping Center, Rat Uthit Rd., Patong
Hours of Operation: Daily 10:30am-11:30pm
You don’t have to look hard for craft beer in Phuket!
Whilst we’ll always have that special place in our heart for an ice-cold Leo after a long day, the expanding craft beer scene is welcomed in Thailand and Phuket is no exception to that. We highly recommend that you give these beers a go, but not to the expense of drinking all damn night with us on one of our legendary pub crawls!
