Anyone who knows me knows I like cheap white wine, but expensive beers. So drinking most of the Vietnamese and Khmer beers for the past month has been a nonevent. I've had Tiger, Hanoi, Hue, 333, Saigon Red, Saigon Green, Anchor, Angkor, and Cambodia over and over. And if you lined them up and tried to make me guess which was which, I would completely fail. Because they all look and taste exactly the same: light yellow lagers, barely carbonated, just a hint of any sort of flavor, and goes down very easily. It's basically like drinking water. But at least they come cold! And cheap! I've had drafts for as little as 40 cents!
When I heard Phnom Penh had its own microbrew, Kingdom Beer, AND that they did tours that included two free drinks, I dragged Lisa back into a tuk-tuk to get there as soon as it was noon (a completely arbitrary cut off time that I deemed appropriate for starting to day drink).
And the tour turned out great! We had a private tour, and no one cared at all if walked right up to the huge malting and boiling and cooling and mixing vats, instead of seeing everything from a distance behind seven layers if glass like other brewery tours I've been on. If you accidentally burn yourself on the 200+ degree pipes, oh well. Should have known better! And afterwards, we sat in their tap room with a perfect view of the river drinking dark lagers and pilsners brewed by a German brewmaster! Heaven! I must have said to Lisa ten separate times about how this was the best beer in all of Asia (I may need to rescind that statement at some point--but for now, it was certainly the best beer I've tried in all of Asia).
Point of this story is, you don't come to Asia for the beer. But when you find a good one, go to their factory and demand a tour and free drinks immediately!