Water & Soil

Bangkok sits on the flat floodplain of the Chao Phraya, barely two metres above sea level. There are no rock springs here and no cool mountain cellars. For a beer brewed in tropical heat, water is really a question of treatment.

Singha advertises that its brewery in Pathum Thani, north of the capital region, uses only water from deep wells. The technical term is artesian water: it rises on its own from a deep-lying layer because the rock above it puts it under pressure. This is a claim from the producer; no hardness figures are given.

What the water does to the beer depends heavily on its dissolved minerals. Soft water lets hop bitterness come through clean and lean, while hard water sharpens it. Modern breweries adjust for this anyway, desalinating and then re-blending minerals back in. Brewing water therefore no longer dictates style today. What matters is that it's sterile and consistent from batch to batch, so that Singha, Leo and Chang taste the same every single day.

More important than the terroir here is the heat. Bangkok rarely sees a month with an average daytime temperature below 25°C. Fermentation and storage therefore require an unbroken cold chain, from the fermentation tank all the way to the fridge in the corner shop.

The river also shapes the beer culturally. Along the canals known as khlongs, drink stalls and street kitchens stand side by side. Sit by the water there, and you'll usually get your beer in large bottles resting in an ice-filled cooler box.