What Phnomenon Says About Cambodia’s Microbreweries and Kingdom Brewery

Phnomenon covered Cambodia’s microbrewery scene in an October 2010 post about Kingdom Brewery launching another Asian pilsner. The site framed Kingdom as only Cambodia’s second microbrewer and highlighted an interview with CEO Peter Brongers by Robert Carmichael of Radio Australia. The post’s main takeaway is that brewing is the easy part; marketing is the real challenge.

What Phnomenon reported

The Phnomenon post, titled “Cambodia’s second microbrew,” does three things:

• Notes that Kingdom Brewery launched another Asian pilsner.
• Points out that Kingdom is only the second microbrewer in Cambodia.
• Credits CEO Peter Brongers for pulling together the funds to get the brewery started, regardless of how the beer tastes.

The post also links to a Radio Australia interview by Robert Carmichael. In the excerpt Phnomenon quotes, Carmichael asks whether a Czech person walking in would find a Clouded Leopard Kingdom pilsner tasting much like what they would get back home in Prague. Haupenthal answers, “We try to think so.”

The interview exchange Phnomenon highlights

Phnomenon reproduces a short back-and-forth from the Radio Australia interview:

The post congratulates Kingdom Brewery for launching another Asian pilsener and jokes about the brewery having “the sheer hubris to use Comic Sans on their website.”

The industry point Phnomenon makes

Phnomenon’s commentary goes beyond the product launch. It argues that getting a microbrewery off the ground is a significant achievement, and that the harder problem comes after brewing:

• Brewing is described as “the easy part.”
• Marketing is described as “the rub.”

The post also notes that Kingdom is only the second microbrewer in Cambodia, which gives context for how early the market was at the time. Phnomenon asks readers for tasting reports, indicating the site treated the launch as something worth verifying through drinkers’ own experiences.

What this tells you about Phnomenon’s coverage

This post fits Phnomenon’s broader focus on food and drink in Cambodia, including restaurant reviews, recipes, and industry observations from Phnom Penh. The microbrewery post is not a formal review; it is a short news and commentary item that combines a product launch, an interview link, and an industry observation about the difficulty of marketing a new brewery.

If you are looking for Phnomenon’s specific claims about Kingdom Brewery, the key points are: it launched an Asian pilsner, it was Cambodia’s second microbrewer, CEO Peter Brongers was credited with securing funding, and the site emphasized marketing over brewing as the harder task.