From Saigon to San Diego, in the same glass

Connecting cultures through craft beer

East West opened its first taproom in Ho Chi Minh City in 2017, with a simple idea: world-class craft beer for the Vietnamese community, inspired by the East (Saigon) and the West (San Diego, California).

The difference is in the room: the beer is not trucked in but brewed behind the bar, in stainless tanks guests can see — bright steel by day, purple-lit by night. A line-art brewing-process mural runs along the wall, captioned in Vietnamese: Ủ BIA, LÊN MEN, ĐÓNG CHAI.

The kitchen follows the same idea: classic Western gastropub dishes beside authentic Vietnamese flavours, every dish with a matching beer. The kitchen even uses what brewing leaves behind — spent grain becomes flatbread dough, then cookie dough for dessert.

From one taproom, East West has grown into a brewing company with rooms in Da Nang, Quy Nhon and Phu Quoc — but the Lý Tự Trọng hall remains the first, where taproom, brewery and Bottle Shop share one two-story corner building.

Daytime bar with wood and marble counter and brick menu walls — The bar by day

Tanks in the room

Watch your beer being brewed

The steel tanks behind the bar are not decoration — they are the brewery. Sit at the bar and you drink metres from where the beer was made.

Copper and chalk

The chalkboard decides tonight

Copper taps, brick walls, a handwritten beer board: Pale Ale, Far East IPA, Summer, Rosé, Porter, Blonde — and two flights for tasting before you commit.

Two shores

San Diego meets Saigon

A founder from San Diego, a head brewer from Portland, an executive chef from Los Angeles — with Vietnamese ingredients and flavours in between. The name says it all.

Takeaway

The neon Bottle Shop

The neon-lit fridge nook in the hall sells beer to take away, beside a merch rack. Taste at the bar, take bottles home.