Asahigate

We're all familiar with the idea that, with big name 'international' beer brands, there is little relationship between the beer itself and the brand name - 'Carlsberg' and 'Heineken' are just names slapped on to any locally made piss. The extent to which beers with a certain brand name are consistent varies; of course 'Guinness' is always going to be a stout, but the recipe and quality will vary enormously depending on whether you're in Dublin, Frankfurt, Kuala Lumpr or Addis Ababa.
When such beers arrived in the UK, and the beer drinking public cottoned on to the fact that the fancy Eurolager that they thought they were drinking was actually brewed in Bishops Stortford, then there were many advertising campaigns for the real imported ones which went out of their way to stress the origin of the beer - 'brewed in Bremen... Germany' etc.
So if you want to be sure that the beer you are drinking is the genuine one from the beer's country of origin, what do you look for? You might familiarise yourself with the original design of the bottle label, or you might look for something saying it was an imported one, as batches of the beer destined for export might have an appropriate label to draw your attention to this.
For example, if you saw this:

then you might, not unreasonably, believe that this beer had been imported from Japan. If, on the supermarket shelves, you also saw this:

Then this might well confirm it.
Unfortunately that would not be the case. Imported it may be, but the country of origin is China, not Japan. Closer examination of the back of the bottle reveals:

Yep.... it's brewed under 'supervision of'' Asahi of Tokyo... in fact, Asahi in this form in Hong Kong is made at the same brewery as the local Carlsberg, in China.
As for the label in the supermarket, claiming it is 'imported from Japan'? Lies.
Consumer protection law isn't big in Hong Kong. A flat here may be advertised as being 50 square metres, but that area will include the area of the shared lift and corridor outside... claiming a beer is imported from Japan instead of China is small beer.

Hong Kong beer bars

Hong Kong has quite a few beer bars dotted around town - the problem is they're all the same. The names are different but there the similarity starts; they're all part of the same chain with the same beers and menus.
Some comedian thought it would be amusing to divide the menu up into "boring beers" and "interesting beers".

At least it used to say "interesting beers" the last time I was here 5 years ago - now it's changed to "Exciting Micro-Imports", which both loses the effect, and is totally inaccurate. Fulller's, for example, are probably both delighted and disturbed to discover that they are in fact a micro-brewery.

Yes, a Grimbergen is considered an exciting micro-import, so even Inbev are a micro-brewery according to these beer gurus.
You might expect that a chain of bars that makes a big deal about having exciting micro-imports might just have some sort of clue about arcane concepts such as the optimum temperature to serve different styles of beer, but no, everything's served at meat-locker temperatures, so the exciting micro-brew you ordered might end up being not that distinguishable from a boring beer. Next time I'll try a red wine and see if it gets the same treatment.

This would have probably been a fine beer had it been put in a sauna for 20 minutes. There are large bowls of nuts forced on you constantly, the shells of which you are encouraged to chuck on the floor in an utterly hedonistic manner; the nuts themselves help to disguise any taste the beer might have had had it not been too cold in the first place.
The most well known of these is on Causeway Bay on Hong Kong island, and is nowadays named "Inn Side Out". This is immensely popular with local office workers at both lunchtime and evenings; rarely for Hong Kong you can "al fresco", if you don't mind queuing for one of the outside tables; inside it's easier to get a seat.
"Slim's" is another branch closer to the financial district. The pale ale they had on tap was splendid, and almost exciting.

On the south side of Hong Kong island is a tacky foreigner enclave called Stanley, where on the seafront can be found the small "Vern's beach bar". This makes a fairly feeble attempt to convince you that you are in Honolulu.
As in all of these bars, you won't hear much Cantonese spoken. In this branch, though, you will overhear many conversations taking the following form:

- "And I was like..... and she was like....."
- "Noooooo!!!!!......."
- "And she was like.... and they were like.... and I was like....."
- "Oh m'gaaaaaad.... like Daaaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!!"

There is in fact massive scope for devising drinking games whilst listening to such conversations, an exercise which I leave for the reader (Shane Watson - did you hear that?).

Lagers Ying & Yang

Two beers found in Hong Kong supermarkets, both lagers but very different. First up is simply titled 'Hong Kong Beer'.

Most beer actually brewed in Hong Kong is locally brewed under licence Europiss like Carlsberg or Heineken, or San Miguel from the Philippines (you can get both the locally made and original San Mig in supermarkets). This one is a happy exception though: it's 'hand-crafted', although presumably not literally.
It reminded me straight away of a Brewdog lager I had once; floral hops, although there was something subtly different about them from the bog-standard citrus hops you seem to get in every IPA. My Mother-in-Law said it tasted like soap, although that was because it's probably the first hoppy beer she's tasted. I'm sure we've all overheard a conversation in a pub when, faced with a round of drinks on the bar and unsure which is which, someone might try one at random and ask "errrr... did someone order pineapple juice???" when it's actually a citrus-hopped beer.
As is depressingly  familiar though, to purchase this you have to go to a poncey foreigner-oriented supermarket; the local ones don't stock it, although there are a few bars around town that have it.

Next up: Mesquita from Cordoba in Spain.

To be honest I didn't know exactly how to approach this at first: I wasn't even sure if it was a lager or an ale. I had it straight out of the fridge, although the ABV strength of 7.2 and the dark pour suggested I might have been better off letting it sit for half an hour. It is a lager though, but unlike the Hong Kong Beer it was totally over to the malty end of the spectrum. When I taste a strong very malty lager I can't help thinking 'tramp juice' but this was far from it. Certainly one I'd look out for if I'm ever in Cordoba again (and if they actually sell it in Cordoba, of course. It wouldn't surprise me if you can't actually get it there.)

Stoke via Hong Kong

Not the Stoke which produced Lemmy, or the Stoke who like to kick lumps out of the shins of persons wearing red and white outfits, but rather the Stoke brewed in Nelson, New Zealand by the McCashin family.

Beer in Hong Kong is unfortunately dominated by the evil Triad of Heineken, Carlsberg and San Miguel. If you cross their path, you may wake up to find a bag of decaying barley under your bedsheets (which they would have otherwise used to make their foul excuse for beer.)
But if you make an effort you can find decent beer without much trouble. Even in your bog standard supermarkets you can find some decent imported stuff like this: and at less than £1.30 or so a bottle you don't have to be Li Ka Shing or borrow from loan sharks to afford one.
They claim it's brewed with 14,000 year old water, and is made "the old fashioned way", with "bespoke" yeast, whatever that means. Despite that it's a very decent quaff, especially on a humid day. The 'gold' in particular has just the right floral / spicy side without getting in the way of things.