“I’ve sold monorails to Brockway, Ogdenville, and North Haverbrook, and by gum, it put them on the map! Well, sir, there’s nothin’ on Earth like a genuine bona-fide electrified six-car monorail! What’d I say?” – Lyle Lanley, Monorail Salesman
It is abundantly clear that Dave has a way with words, or at least that he’s a talkative fellow. Holding court from behind The Local Brewpub’s bar like Lanley at a Springfield town hall meeting, the nanobrewery’s owner/brewer responds exuberantly when we approach to order two pints of MoJob, a 5.3% IPA single-hopped with the earthy and mildly tropical Mosaic varietal, before retiring to a quiet corner table.
Six of the pub’s eight taps run this evening—three from the two-year-old Local, which brews most of its beers in 40-liter batches, and three from elsewhere, including a 5.5% mango pale ale from Indochine Beer, a brand under the Kingdom Breweries umbrella in Phnom Penh.
“Hey, buddy, what’ll it be? What do you like? I have a hefeweizen, hoppy lager, and let me ask you–do you like IPAs (eye-pee-ayes)? This one here is just tapped, very very fresh, and let me tell you I love it we only hopped it with one hop Mosaic hops and why only one hop? Wellllll…. because we just loooooove this hop, that’s why. Here, let me give you a taste and you can see if you like it and if you don’t well I’ll getcha something else and by the way…”
Or something like that. We smile and tell Dave that, yes, we do like IPAs and that we’ll have two, and that we actually write about beer. (It just comes out.)
“Well, I don’t care if you write about beer or not, just asking what you like! And did you know we’re one of only eight microbreweries in Cambodia? I bet you didn’t know that, did you, most people don’t do their research, and anyway lemme get you two MoJobs and if you don’t like ’em you can bring ’em back and get something else and…”
It’s good to see locally brewed beer surfacing in Siem Reap; Siem Reap Brewpub is the city’s other source. Tonight, we really just want a beer.
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The Local Brewpub and Guesthouse is located at 115 St. 20 in Siem Reap, Cambodia. +855 81 618 233. Open Monday to Thursday 8am – 10pm, Friday to Sunday 8am – 12am. It is currently one of only eight microbreweries in Cambodia.
