My wife and I visited Cambodia in 2004.

First stop was Phnom Penh, when I arrived I was told there were 2 breweries in town but one called "Cambodia Brewery" was about a 2 hour one way trip by taxi, I had a spare day so decided to go on my own as my wife was resting at the hotel. When we finally arrived I showed my introductory letter written in Khmer to the guard at the main gate, he didn't speak hardly any English except "no" which he kept saying, I continued to explain what I wanted but he kept shaking his head, I finally gave up and left realising that they were not going to give me any labels, when I got back in the taxi the driver asked what was wrong so I explained to him what had occurred, he then politely told me " Oh no Sir, they only produce cans at this brewery", great, I had wasted 4 hours, but I did enjoy the scenery !

At the front of the "can only" Cambodia Brewery

When we got back to town the driver then took me to "Cambrew", the other major brewery in Cambodia, it turns out that this was only a distribution centre and the actual brewery is located in Sihanoukville (about 8 hrs south of Phnom Penh), I did meet a nice chap there named Sok Danon, who promised to send me some labels (I had heard this before), when I got home Sok sent me an email to tell me the labels were on the way, sure enough a week later a package with all their labels and a bottle opener arrived in the post, I have since made good friends with Sok and he keeps me updated with all their new releases.

Front of Cambrew in Phnom Penh

Throughout Cambodia they have "beer girls" that operate in the bars and restaurants, these girls are employed by the breweries and work on commission by persuading the patrons to drink their brand of beers, this was a novel approach and I had never seen this in any other country before.

With an "Angkor beer" girl

Cambodia is a memorable country, the Angkor Wat complex is out of this world, the beer is good too !!!

Below are some of my favourite Cambodia beer labels from my collection :