Thai brewing: Rebel microbreweries thirst for change in the law
Brian Spencer, for CNN • Updated 19th December 2017, http://www.cnn.com/travel/arti...-thailand/index.html
Bangkok, Thailand (CNN) — The droning buzz saw of a motorized longtail boat cruising up Chao Phraya River drowns our conversation, so Wichit Saiklao stops mid-sentence, smiles, and raises a glass of his homebrewed weizen, a crisp, golden-hued ale that goes down easy on balmy afternoons like this one.
From Bangkok I've taken a train, then a bus, then a ferry, then a motorbike taxi to reach Koh Kret, a small island located about 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of Thailand's capital city in Nonthaburi province.
It's where Saiklao -- friends call him P'Chit -- founded Chit Beer, his open-air, riverside microbrewery and the de facto home base of a growing resistance to long-standing laws prohibiting Thai people from brewing and distributing their own beer.
As outlined in the country's 1950 Liquors Act, those caught doing so face a nominal fine of 200 baht (about $5.50) for brewing, and another 5,000 baht ($140) and/or six months in jail for selling it.