The best known Thai beer after Singha, since 1994, from a 33 cl export bottle which, much to my surprise, is brown, suggesting it should be better protected from the dreaded lightstruck effect. ’Chang’ apparently means ’elephant’, two of which are famously shown on the label. Clear pale golden with slow fizz, loose and rather thin, not too stable, snow white head. The aroma is indeed free of skunk, nothing lightstruck here; it has a sweet, even somewhat bubblegum-like, bready maltiness to it, which seems to confirm that this version is indeed brewed without the rice (which is used in the domestic version); I get hints of honey, rubber band, chalk, sourdough, biscuit, sourish but fresh green apple, wet paper and grass - this is a bit unusual, but in any case better than I had expected. Taste is a bready and slightly honeyish malt sweetness with a sourish, grainy accent, relatively soft carbonation especially for a pale lager, a bit minerally, a bit metallic but not disturbingly so and less thin and watery than expected; finishes fairly neutral, with a very brief and very late hint of grassy bitterishness, weak enought to leave the malt sweetness to fade away in instants without being supported by anything else, though a subtle kind of faint ’rubberiness’ seems to pop up ever so briefly (brief enough not to become truly disturbing). Very straightforward, could do with more hops, but admittedly this is a lot less bad than I had feared; compared with other tropical Asian lagers, I see why this has earned itself several medals. I’d place this at about the same quality level as its competitor Singha, or even slightly above it. This is far from the worst in its particular style, in fact I had worse pale lagers from western countries. And given the fact that only barley malts are used here without any adjuncts, why not classify the export version as a premium lager instead of just pale lager?

33 cl. bottle @ home, bought @ the local Lidl supermarket Very pale yellow with a thin white head. Aroma is grainy and slightly grassy. Taste is not too sweet for a macro lager