Region & History

Anyone wanting to know where Laos's beer comes from ends up in Vientiane, the capital on the Mekong. There, in 1971, the Lao Brewery Company was founded as a joint venture between French and Laotian businessmen. Production started in 1973, with a capacity of three million liters a year.

Back then the company was called Brasseries et Glacières du Laos, or BGL for short. It bottled a beer called Bière Larue for the domestic market and an export beer under the brand "33" for neighboring Indochinese countries. Brewing beer thus arrived in the country with French capital, just a few years before the political upheaval.

In 1975 the Lao People's Democratic Republic was proclaimed, and the brewery passed into state ownership. It initially sold its beer as Bière Lao, and in early 1995 that became Beerlao. Most Laotians simply say "bia," the Laotian word for beer.

After several changes in ownership, the company has since 2005 been a joint venture between the Laotian government and the Danish group Carlsberg, each holding a 50 percent stake. The headquarters remain in Vientiane. Besides Beerlao, the company also bottles soft drinks and drinking water.

How many breweries exist in Laos depends on who you count. One towers over all the rest: for 2008, Lao Brewery is cited as holding a 99 percent market share. There is no European designation of origin for Laotian beer, and no entry from Laos appears in the EU list of protected beer names. Beerlao is a brand, not a protected place name.