Travelers may be surprised at the way Hanoians drink draft beer. The glass they use must be a rough handmade glass, mint green colored, with bubbly foam inside. It is dirt cheap and fragile, but no modern and beautiful glass can replace it. This kind of glass can be seen at all sidewalk beer bars in Hanoi.

Nguyen Ngoc Lan, 56, the owner of a beer shop for more than 10 years on Hoang Hoa Tham street, near the Hanoi Brewery, affirmed that draft beer drinkers use that kind of glass every day.

“Whenever people want to drink draft beer, they think of this traditional kind of glass, not the cup with a handle or a white glass cup. It is the culture and habit of Hanoians,” he said.

When pouring beer into glass, the foam of beer can exist longer than in a plain white glass thanks to the roughness inside. Because of this, the glasses look more attractive. Meanwhile, a plain white glass can keep little foam and the foam dissolves quickly. 

Lan said many beer shop owners once tried to use other glasses, made to order, with higher roughness to keep beer foam longer. But they failed. 

“The glass we use is ideal. The glass with roughness inside makes it difficult to wash. Sometimes, it may causes scratches on hands,” he explained.

Lan said his beer shop is just a ‘small shop’, but he always keeps hundreds of glasses in stock, in case some glasses are broken.

“We have to use 100 new glasses each month,” he said. The glasses sell at just VND9,000 per product. However the glasses are not cheap at all because they are fragile and need to be replaced regularly.

“The simple glass is a type of Hanoi’s culture. It is irreplaceable,” Lan said.

Lan recalled a day which occurred several years ago. A group of four American men came to his shop and ordered beer. One of them showed special interest in the glass. He made a video call to his friends and showed the glass.

“I did not understand what they said. But when leaving, they told me that they wanted to buy some glasses and bring them to the US,” Lan said.

Besides the street beer shops, Hanoi has many destinations for people to enjoy beer. In modern restaurants, customers sit in air-conditioned rooms and they mostly use white tumblers to drink canned and bottled beer. However, Hanoi’s old generations and beer connoisseurs prefer drinking beer at street beer shops and enjoy the taste of drinking beer from the rough glass.

The glass that contains memories

At Lam Gia (Old Lam) beer shop on Nguyen Trai street, which looks modern and bustling, Nguyen Manh Lam, 62, the owner of the shop, said that since the opening of the shop, he only uses that kind of glass.

“Before becoming the owner of a beer shop, I was a beer drinker and I only drank beer from this kind of glass. Whether to use this old glass is not decided by me, but by the… culture,” Lam said.

Covering an area of hundreds of square meters with nearly 100 tables, the beer shop consumes 12-18 barrels and always keeps thousands of glasses on the shelves.

“Beer shops only sell draft beer if they use that kind of glass,” he said. “People may drink bottled beer with more beautiful glass, but the traditional glass is used to drink draft beer."

Lam believes that that kind of glass is used only by Hanoians, though draft beer is sold in other localities as well. A friend of his, who lives in HCM City, sometimes has to fly to Hanoi to buy tens of glasses and carry them to HCM City, so as to be able to ‘enjoy beer in true style’.

One day, Lam took an order for beer from clients in Ha Giang province, far from Hanoi. And his workers not only delivered beer barrels to the clients, but also provided glasses.

“If they drink Hanoi beer with white glasses or  bowls, it would be ridiculous,” he said.

Nguyen Thao