Going to Kampot is always fun and never a chore, but add in attending a beef festival and taking the very short journey to the city is a no brainer. Thus I headed to the Kampot Beer Festival – again.
And while my non-Cambodian based entourage were not all that impressed, I for one took it for what it actually is, a great few days out and a great place to try the best craft beer within the Kingdom.
What the Kmapot?
I won’t go too much into the what is Kampot thing, as it has been covered in many of my articles, such as best Kampot Street Food, as well as in Salty Bungalow.
But it is a cool small city that is just 3 hours from Phnom Penh by car, or around 4 hours by train. Aside from beer festivals there is a tonne of cool shit here, such as Bokor Hill, nearby Kep, as well as Phu Quoc in Vietnam…..
What the Kampot Beer Festival
Well, it is yearly beer festival held at Monkey Republic, not to be confused with Mad Monkey and whilst ignoring why so many of these places call themselves Monkey.
So, yes as my friends pointed out it is a beer festival held in hostel, BUT to be fair this is a Cambodian beer festival, not a German one and yes Monkey Republic is a bloody big place. To my knowledge this has existed for at least three years.
What the Kampot Beer Festival?
Basically the prime of the Cambodian craft beer scene decent on Kampot to share their brews and generally hang out. There were probably about 8-10 different beer brewers sharing their stuff, as well as at least one liquor company.
I’m not actually much an expert on the world of IPA’s and the like, but I know that big players like Fuzzy Logic – who used to make a great hard lemonade, as well as Seekers, who make the best craft liquor in Cambodia were also.
And it was with the later that I spent most of my tokens at, particular on their many good cocktails, some of which included their Cambodian made pastiis.
And there was also a firm collection of both Khmer local, as well as foreign cooked street food and BBQ, with a range of stalls taking up about 1/4 of floor space.
How much did the Kampot Beer Festival cost?
It was only about $2.50 to get in, for which you got a wristband, with drinks and food needing to purchased with “tickets” rather than cash. This was ai assume to make sure that everyone got their cut….
Said tickets cost $.1.50, with drinks costing anything from 1-3 tickets, whilst the cocktails set you back 4, or $6. And at the bottom end? Cambodia beer of course.
And the Kampot Beer Festival 2024 vibe?
Overall pretty good and as you will see from my video the festival had its desired consequences on me. The food was also very good to be fair, BUT it also got a little too Kampot by the end, which meant droves of people coming in merely for the cheap Cambodia beer and thus it was my time to leave.
I did though manage to eat the best hamburger in Kampot on the same day, so to was certainly no loss to me. Will I be back for Kampot Beer Festival 2025? Well so long as I am still in Cambodia…….