Hair of the Dog
Mike MacDonald helped found Mikkeller Bangkok and Pete Spalding ran its taps; in 2015 the two Canadians opened their own bar above Mahatun Plaza, and BK Magazine has named it Bangkok's best beer bar two years running, 2024 and 2025.
Why go
This is the city's rare-imports room: 13 rotating taps skewed to US and European brewers, imperial stouts as a house strength, and fridges of barrel-aged bottles, all inside a space BK's opening review described with "hospital beds doubling as tables and other medical-themed props giving off a haunted hospital vibe." It closed for 18 months in the pandemic and reopened January 28, 2022 with a bigger bar, more fridges, and a gin annex; Spalding's summary was "we thought fuggit let's open." The 11th-anniversary party ran July 3, 2026, so the save is current.
Order this / avoid
- Order: ask what's rarest on tap that day, then work the stout end of the list; the fridges are where the barrel-aged bottles hide. Gin drinkers get their own corner since the renovation (Coconuts Bangkok).
- Avoid: Sundays, when the original is dark; the Phrom Phong branch runs daily from 11am. And budget for import duty: pours started at B180-430 back in 2015 and only went up.
What locals & experts say
- BK Magazine (2025): winner
for the second year in a row,
andthe first thought for beer lovers in Bangkok.
1 - BK Magazine (2015):
One of the most serious beer bars in town.
2 - Coconuts Bangkok (2022), quoting Spalding:
We survived the pandemic and used it as an opportunity to make some renos and make it even more badasser.
3
Good to know
- Timing: Mon-Sat 5pm to midnight or later; closed Sundays (venue site).
- Getting there: 2nd floor of Mahatun Plaza, under 100m from BTS Phloen Chit; upstairs from Billy's Smokehouse.
- Two branches: this is the founders' original; the Phrom Phong branch (separate entry) is bigger, opens at 11am, and adds The Clinic cocktail bar and a takeaway bottle-shop function.
Verdict
should-visit — BK Magazine's best beer bar two years running, built by the pair who set up Mikkeller Bangkok, with the deepest rare-import and barrel-aged list in the city poured under morgue lighting. It survived an 18-month pandemic closure and came back bigger. The craft on the taps is other people's, which caps the culinary ceiling, but as a room to drink serious beer in Bangkok it has no local equal.