Hi,
I’ll be going to London in a couple of weeks and is wondering if any of you have any great tips on where to find exotic countryticks? Bottle shops, restaurants, import supermarkets, anything to help me in my quest to conquer the world (of beer) is highly appreciated!
Best regards:
Jarle / www.beersoftheworldproject.wordpress.com
The Wetherspoons pub chain sells Kenyan beer – Tusker Lager. If you look around Eastern European stores it should be easy to find a Russia tick.
Edit: sorry, I was looking at your ratebeer map. Now that I’ve seen your website it appears that you’ve already got these countries.
Just had a look at your website and the countries you have left all look pretty difficult.
I’m not a Londoner so I’m not much help but I’d say import supermarkets will be your best (possibly only) bet here. I doubt Asian restaurants will be of any help for those as most seem to only carry Singha or Tiger lagers regardless of cuisine they serve.
You might be able to find a Moldovan lager (Chișinău Blondă) if you check some Romanian food shops (just go on google maps and search “romanian food shops London” - there are plenty), but even that is probably quite unlikely.
Historically, Utobeer used to stock a few wierdos, as did The Porterhouse. No idea whether they’ve kept that going. Dodgy-looking random “international” food and drink shops are your best bet.
It might be possible to find some beers from Hong Kong in Chinatown. Come to think of it, there is a Hong Kong beer called Sun Lik, which is (was?) brewed under licence in the UK (not sure if you count such beers at legit country ticks). Also, there may be a remote possibility of finding Armenian and Belarusian beer in Eastern European shops.
Why does your site have Vatican City on the list? Those guys don’t have any breweries. Also I notice you have Kosovo, but no Northern Cyprus/Transnistria/Abkhazia/South Ossetia/Artsakh on the list.
Thanks for the tips guys! Highly appreciated!
I think I would count a beer brewed under license as a legit country tick as I have done so with some of the larger asian lagers like Tiger and Chang.
When it comes to the countries listed on my website it is based on UN member countries, observer countries and countries that are part of one or more UN agencies. I have also included some of the different overseas territories of some of the countries. When it comes to the Vatican City I included countries regardless if they have a brewery or not. Hope that clear things up.
Once again thank you and I’ll make sure to drop by some Eastern European shops and Chinatown 
Having looked at your list I suspect you won’t have that much luck in the more specialist beer shops and bars. Porterhouse had beers you’d already ticked off when I was there a while back. You could Google some African restaurants. There’s one in Islington that did a few different ones but can’t remember what it’s called.
Russia is easy - Wetherspoons sells Baltika, otherwise you should find somehting easily in an eastern European shop.
This Eritrean restaurant cafe serves Asmara Lager Beer:
Once again thank you for your inputs. I’ve been doing some research myself and also found the restaurant Sweet Handz that might have beer from Ghana. Guess I’m eating African some of the days then 
I got food from the Somali stall in Borough market and it was amazing. Also The Rake lets you bring your own food in.
Don’t get caught out by incorrectly added pale lagers though. I noticed that various people have bought a beer in Tanzania, for instance, and added it as a tick when it’s just a licenced South African beer.
I’m back from my trip and once again thanks for the tips. Ended up eating at Sweet Handz and crossing Ghana of the list. I was also going to Adulis but didn’t pay close enough attention to the opening hours so I was there hours before they opened.
No luck finding any new beer in China Town, Brixton or in some of the Russian stores, but not unexpected given which countries I’m missing
Yeah, London’s over rated.
<*))))))><
The reality is that whilst there are restaurants and stores for a huge number of countries in London, few (none?) of these will be bringing in beers themselves. If someone else is importing them then those stores and restaurants (at least some of them) will carry them. That might be an importer/distributor of foostuffs from a particular country that includes beer in their offerings or it might be a beer importer/distributor that decides to include beers from the particular country in their range. For many countries though, there just aren’t beers being brought into the UK by these routes. A lot of restaurants will carry some sort of generic beer of, for example, African or “Oriental” origin, even if it isn’t specific to their own country.
Even for countries that have a lot of people in London, and some decent domestic products - e.g. Poland - it can be tough. Whilst the bog standard industrial Polish beer brands owned by multinationals can be found everywhere, there’s not much (if any) of the “good stuff” to be had.
Someone once told me that a good way to get hold of beers from obscure countries is to sign up to Anglo-whatever “friendship” societies - most countries have them and they sometimes host fairly open invite events at the embassy/consulate/high commission where they’ll provide food & drink, including beer. I guess the embassies can bring in beer from their home countries in the diplomatic bag without the hassle of import/export & customs procedures.
I’ve never put this to the test and it wouldn’t be too practical for a short-term visitor anyway.
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