Red Panda Beer

In the town of Bumthang we toured the Panda Beer Brewery and enjoyed sampling the beer. 

The brewery was started by a swiss man, named Fritz Maurer. He joined us for a beer and shared his story. He is a cheese maker by training. In 1969 at age 26 he finished training as a cheese maker. As was customary, he planned to travel for a year before working. He saw an ad in a local newspaper advertising for a cheesemaker in Bhutan. The third King had visited Switzerland for vacation and medical reasons. He came to enjoy Swiss cheese and decided that Bhutan should make cheese. He instructed an aide to find a cheesemaker to come to Bhutan. At the time that the swiss man answered the ad he had no idea where Bhutan was. He flew to Calcutta and then took another plane to a small landing strip near Bhutan. He travelled the rest of the way to the Black Hills by road, The King gave him 50 yaks for cheese making and a one year contract. After a year at the Kings request the swiss man went to Bumthang and started a cheese factory there. The area was not well populated, so when people would pass through they would stay with him. As a result he decided to build a guest house with a little bakery/restaurant. He began making apple juice, apple cider and spirits from the abundant apple crop. Next he started a brewery. Like cheese and baking, beer has a fermentation process so he had the basic knowledge, He learned what he could from a brew master and then started brewing beer. The  equipment, hops and yeast all come from Germany. 

The whole process is down by hand including the capping, labelling and stamping of the expiry date. The beer is made in the weiss style, is not filtered, has no preservatives so is only good for 4 months after it has been bottled. It is also not widely distributed in  Bhutan. I have not been drinking much beer of late, but Red Panda is among the best beer I have ever tried.