Beer Journal | Mikkeller Bangkok “Once a beer-lover, always a beer-lover.”

Mikkeller Bangkok

“Once a beer-lover, always a beer-lover.”

By Tracy Chenxi Wang

May, 2014

Right after I landed in the fascinating country of smiles and endless cilantro seasoned dishes, I headed directly to the legendary craft beer bar of this 18 million people megacity, the Mikkeller Bangkok. As the first and only Asian outlet of acclaimed Danish beer brewer Mikkel Borg Bjergsø’s Mikkeller, it opened on January 29th in 2014.

  

After getting away from the bustling main street, onto a tranquil soil, a yard of a small side street, I found it in a green residential area, the teal-colored sign of the Mikkeller Bangkok. Stepping on the lawn of a stylish functionalist house built in the 1960’s washed away all the irritation of the hot weather. There is a huge garden with a few tables on the patio outside. The interior is in a bright Scandinavian style with bright wooden floors and furniture, accomplished with a lot of white. The food menu only has a few items for now, but the management will add more, once the bar becomes busier.

Here I met with Jakob Mørkenborg Rasmussen from Denmark and his Canadian co-partner Mike MacDonald. They both share enthusiasm for beer and love being innovated. Jakob had been importing foreign beers and holding numerous tasting events that Mike, a self-described beer connoisseur, attended regularly. That’s how they met and became business partners. Jakob’s short full beard makes him look to me like a typical Dane. Mike smiles a lot and his outgoing funny ways make him the people’s person of the two. After travelling in South Asia for some years, Jakob felt a growing love for Thailand and moved there in 2004. His fascination for beers got matched by finding work at Carlsberg Thailand, giving him a deep insight of this industry and also the local drinking demographic.

“We really wanted to build something that we would go to every night.”

Most beer-lover would ask why with a lot of curiosity, why would a Danish legendary gypsy brewery locate in Bangkok?

“There are a lot of beer bars in Bangkok and Thais have a really strong beer drinking culture, but what most bars compete with is the amount of beer signage or who has the most number of taps, even though they are serving 50 pale light lager tasting very much like the other”, said by Jakob,

Since the market was dominated by domestic staple Singha, Chang and Leo, Jakob and Mike decided to open a bar to showcase beer of many styles on tap and bottled. “We want to serve beer with respect. My partner and I are both in this business not so much from a financial perspective but more so from a beer culture perspective. We wanted to bring in a different kind of quality than people are used to in this part of the world. The beers may be much pricier than the conventional brands, but we believe they offer a whole different experience in taste,” Mike MacDonald said. “We really wanted to build something that we would go to every night.”

Speaking of the customers they want to attract, they hope to get people who are genuinely interested or curious about great tasting beer. “With most people not being able distinguish between two beers like a Mexican chili beer and Mikkeller American Dream, we want to educate the Thai beer drinking crowd what good craft beer really is. A part of that is having beer tastings with an educational scope as well offering beer tastings in our Imperial Tasting Room.” The staffs are also hardcore beer-lovers with passion. They are ready to educate the customers about craft beer culture, the stories behind the beers, and how to serve and enjoy craft beers. They want to provide a complexion of beer, service and atmosphere which will attract people. “Once a beer-lover, always a beer-lover”, Mike preached.

There is a reason why the bar is a bit away from the busy streets of Bangkok in a much quieter place, they explained, “A requirement from Mikkel was making this bar a destination and I think we have managed just that. It’s not a place you just drop by; you’ve probably made up your mind coming here, well before actually coming here. With the garden we’re able to offer plenty of outdoor seating, people love that.”

I happened travelling in Thailand during the period of political tensions; there was national curfew between midnight to 5am every day, which damaged tourists industry and local food and beverage industry a lot. Mike told me that this (policy) is one of their biggest obstacles for now. Thailand has a lot of festivals and “No Alcohol” days, which adds up to four to seven days a month the bar has to stay close. A sudden feeling of deep dark sadness, dampening my mood, soggy, miserable everything but what Thailand is, fell over me! Mike and Jakob rushed to the bar and poured me 2 pints of their finest each. It took me almost 5 minutes to down them and the world become bright again.

Talking about the theory that they run the bar, “quality is number one; we’re not competing with price. We’ll have no happy hours or discounted days.” They wouldn’t compete with the biggest selection of imported beers, or cheapest beers. “For example, the reason of people going to the wine bar is not because it has the biggest selection, but a unique selection. Another kind of customers go to the nearest bars, they don’t care what kind of beers they are drinking.” With the mission of providing the finest craft beers to the customers, Jakob started his own beer distributing company, Hopsession. Now he imports Danish beers from Nørrebro Bryghus and Bøgedal but also Mikkeller. They only want to build a different place where the customers can keep drinking with their friends. “Every time I came to Bangkok, I’d spend every night here, and I love the atmosphere here”, said an American Sam Craig who was on his business trip here. Since Mikkeller Bangkok was opened less than half a year, it already made it way on the list of Top 10 Best Beer Bar in Asia by CNN.

The bar quenches the thirst of craft beer lovers with a selection of 30 beers on tap, 20 of them are brewed by Mikkeller, and 10 of them are changing guest beers from other craft beer makers. A large selection of bottled beer completes the collection. There’s no cheap beer here, all beers on tap are in the range of 200-350 Baht (￥40-70)per glass, and bottled ones are 250-1500 Baht (￥50-300), on the street you find a local commercial beer for just 50 Baht (￥10).

There are four other venues among the world in total, other than Mikkeller Bangkok, there are two located in Copenhagen, the third is in San Francisco and the fourth is in Stockholm (opened in March of 2014).

Mikkeller Bangkok

Address: 26 Ekamai Soi 10 Yaek 2, Ekamai Road, Bangkok 10110, Thailand

Tel: +66 2 381 9891

Website: www.mikkellerbangkok.com

Here is the list of Top 10 Best Beer Bars by CNN:

Mikkeller Bangkok (Bangkok, Thailand)
BrewDog Roppongi (Tokyo, Japan)
Goodbeer Faucets (Tokyo, Japan)
Smith Street Taps (Singapore)
BREW – Beers & Ciders (Bangkok, Thailand)
Brewerkz – Riverside Point (Singapore)
TAPS Beer Bar (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)

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This article was also publish on Precis magazine on issue seven. Free downloading here: http://issuu.com/istech24/docs/precis_issue_seven_4_30_2015