I tried Carabao’s lineup on a trip through Bangkok, sitting down at a Tawandang beer hall where most of these cans started out as draft pours. Since it is still not sold in the US, I’m backing up my own notes here with wider community data and 88 Bamboo’s side-by-side tasting panel, both linked in the references below, to give a fuller picture than one trip alone.
Carabao is the newest big name in Thai brewing, and it did not come from a traditional brewery. It came from an energy drink company. Launched in late 2023, Carabao Beer and its sister brand Tawandang set out to become Thailand’s third major beer player behind Singha and Chang, and after two years on shelves it is worth a proper look at what it actually tastes like, where it came from, and whether you can get your hands on it outside Thailand.
Carabao Beer at a Glance
| Style | Pale lager (Carabao Lager); the wider lineup spans a dunkel, an IPA, a rose beer and a weizen |
| ABV | 4.9% (Carabao Lager and Dunkel); 5% to 5.5% across the Tawandang IPA, Rose and Weizen |
| Brewery | Carabao Group, brewed at a German-style facility in Chainat Province, Thailand |
| Country | Thailand |
| Launched | Late 2023 |
| Serving temp | 3 to 5 C (37 to 41 F) |
| US availability | Not currently stocked on Saucey or mainstream US delivery apps |
Who Makes Carabao Beer
Carabao Group is best known in Thailand for Carabao Dang, an energy drink that rivals Red Bull in its home market and is named after founder Yuenyong Opakul, whose stage name, Aed Carabao, comes from his years fronting the Thai rock band Carabao in the 1980s. For over a decade, the company also quietly ran Tawandang, a German-style brewhouse and beer hall in Bangkok that opened in 1999 as one of the city’s first legal microbreweries, serving its own beer alongside live music and Thai-German fusion food.
In late 2023, Carabao Group used that brewing know-how, plus serious backing, to launch five beers across two brands at once: Carabao Lager and Carabao Dunkel under the everyday Carabao name, and Tawandang IPA, Tawandang Rose and Tawandang Weizen as the more premium line, essentially canned versions of what the Tawandang brewhouse had been pouring on-site for years. All five are brewed according to the German Beer Purity Law, using only malt, hops, yeast and water, at a facility in Chainat Province capable of producing up to 400 million litres a year. Unlike the on-premise Tawandang beers, the Carabao and Tawandang cans are distributed through convenience stores and supermarkets nationwide, the same channel Carabao Dang already dominates. Carabao Group also sponsors English football’s League Cup, known as the Carabao Cup, through its energy drink arm, a separate sponsorship from the beer line reviewed here.
How Carabao and Tawandang Beers Taste
Based on 88 Bamboo’s five-beer tasting panel, the lineup splits fairly cleanly into a workmanlike everyday tier and a more interesting premium tier.
Carabao Lager (4.9% ABV) pours a deep gold and opens with an initially yeasty, slightly funky aroma that settles into notes of marmite and white flowers. On the palate it is fuller-bodied than most mass-market lagers, with a honeyed, cereal-forward malt character and a crisp finish. 88 Bamboo scored it 6 out of 10, calling out the body as a pleasant surprise given the odd start on the nose.
Carabao Dunkel (4.9% ABV) is a very dark brown amber with molasses, toffee and a light umami savouriness running through both the aroma and the finish. It reads as a cleaner, less rich take on the German dunkel style, also scoring 6 out of 10.
Tawandang IPA (5.5% ABV) leans old-school, built with a long hop boil rather than modern dry-hopping, since the German Purity Law rules out some newer techniques. Expect wet grass and pine on the nose, softening into apricot and orange blossom on the palate, with more fruit than bitterness. It scored 6.5 out of 10.
Tawandang Rose (5% ABV) was the standout of the tasting, a deep copper beer with a light rose tint that delivers raspberry jam, raspberry gummies and red licorice in a full, chewy body without tipping into overly sweet territory. It was the only beer in the lineup to score in the 9 out of 10 range.
Tawandang Weizen (4.9% ABV) is highly aromatic, built around candied orange peel, rice cracker and a touch of white pepper and coriander, landing closer to a refreshing, balanced wheat beer than a classic German weizen. It scored 7 out of 10, the second-highest of the five.
The wider community view of the Lager specifically is notably harsher, sitting around 2.9 out of 5 from over 5,000 ratings, a reminder that online reviewer bases skew toward committed craft drinkers who tend to mark mass-appeal lagers down regardless of brand. If you want a sense of how that split between casual and craft opinion plays out elsewhere, Snow Beer, the world’s best-selling beer by volume, gets the same treatment.
Carabao’s Newest Release: Pattaya Beach Beer
In September 2025, Carabao Group added a sixth beer aimed squarely at a younger, more casual crowd: Pattaya Beach Beer, a 3.9% ABV light lager, the lowest-alcohol beer in the portfolio, built around a natural lime aroma that Carabao says comes from a specific hop selection rather than added lime flavouring. The can itself is unusual for the Thai market: a fully openable lid that turns the can into a makeshift cup once opened, meant to let drinkers smell that lime aroma properly rather than through a small pull-tab opening.
Carabao is positioning the beer as the unofficial drink of Pattaya, Thailand’s beach resort city, with a 490ml can for local shoppers and a smaller 320ml bottle aimed at tourists. Pricing stays deliberately low, a bottle runs about THB45 (roughly $1.38) and a can about THB60 (roughly $1.84), which fits the affordability push Carabao’s marketing team described as central to the whole beer strategy: using imported malt, hops and yeast without pricing the beer out of the value segment that made Carabao Dang a household name in the first place.
Where to Buy Carabao Beer
Carabao Beer is not currently stocked on Saucey, Amazon or the mainstream US beer delivery apps I’d normally point you toward, and I could not find a specialty importer carrying it either, which tracks given it only launched in Thailand in 2023 and has focused on domestic distribution rather than export. If you want to try a real, widely available Thai lager while you wait for that to change, Singha is the closest equivalent on the market, and my honest pick if you’re shopping today.
Carabao itself is not on Saucey yet, so here are five real, currently available Southeast and East Asian lagers worth grabbing instead while you wait for that to change:
Pros and Cons
- Genuinely five distinct beer styles launched at once, more variety than most new entrants attempt
- Tawandang Rose is a real standout, worth seeking out on its own merits
- Brewed under the German Purity Law, so no shortcuts on ingredients
- Backed by a company with serious distribution muscle in Thailand
- Not available through Saucey, Amazon or US specialty importers as of this review
- The base Lager and Dunkel are the weakest beers in the lineup
Want more Thai beer context before you commit to a purchase? See how Carabao compares to Leo, Thailand’s best-selling lager, or browse our 10 iconic international beers list and the most popular beer in every country map for where Carabao fits into the wider world of imported lagers. If dunkels are more your speed, our lager beer brands roundup and Chinese beers guide cover the two other big Asian beer markets worth knowing.
FAQs
Is Carabao Beer available in the US?
Not through Saucey or mainstream delivery apps as of this review. It is sold in Thailand through convenience stores and supermarkets, alongside Carabao’s better-known energy drink line.
Who makes Carabao Beer?
Carabao Group, the Thai company best known for the Carabao Dang energy drink, brews it at a German-style brewery in Chainat Province, Thailand.
How strong is Carabao Beer?
The core Carabao Lager and Dunkel are both 4.9% ABV. The related Tawandang IPA, Rose and Weizen run from 5% to 5.5% ABV.
Is Carabao Beer any good?
Reviews are mixed but improving further up the lineup. Online reviewers rate the base Lager around 2.9 out of 5, while 88 Bamboo’s tasting panel scored the five beers between 6 and 9 out of 10, with the Tawandang Rose the standout.
What is the Carabao Cup?
It is the English League Cup, sponsored by Carabao since 2017 through its energy drink brand, separate from the beer line covered in this review.
