Pyongyang Common

How Kim Jong-il rebuilt a British brewery piece-by-piece, and in the process, awoke South Korea’s craft beer scene

Tyler’s beer bar in Seoul.

One of my beer school besties was in town the past week, and we got together to catch up over beers, of course. We spoke about how things were going at our respective breweries—what we’re excited about coming up and what was brewing, both figuratively and literally.

“We’re making a California Common,” he said. I could sense he was less than excited about it. It’s something that happens time-to-time as a brewer: a recipe comes up on the production schedule that you’re not stoked about, but still happy to brew. Hefeweizen is my dreaded brew day, because I hate dragging out the rice hulls.

But when he said, “California Common,” my eyes widened, the little hamster wheel in my head started turning, I slapped the bar and exclaimed, “DO I HAVE A STORY FOR YOU.”

California Common is mostly known as one of the US’s indigenous settler beer styles. As folks moved farther west, one thing they brought with them was their brewing and distilling traditions. In Utah, the Mormon pioneers made what Mark Twain coined Valley Tan, a whiskey made in the Wasatch Mountains.

While Brigham Young and company declared Utah as “This is the Place,” the so-called 49ers started arriving in the Sacramento Valley with the very American dream of striking gold. The German immigrants who also made their way to the West Coast built breweries and brought their lager yeast with them.

But the brewers quickly realized that due to the lack of refrigeration in the warmer climate (ice was scarce and expensive), traditional lager brewing methods weren’t feasible. So, they were forced to adapt and innovate, brewing with their lager yeast and fermenting it at higher temperatures to create a new beer style of its own—a malt-forward, usually amber-ish beer that showcased “New World” hops.

This beer became popular with the working class, and earned the name Steam Beer (there are multiple theories as to why) with dozens of San Francisco-area breweries making their own version before Anchor Brewing Company trademarked the name and the style itself became known as California Common. By the time refrigeration became more affordable and reliable, the style itself became less common, and brewers went on to make traditional lagers instead.

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At the turn of the 20th century, the first brewery in Korea was established in Seoul during the Japanese colonial period. As part of Japan’s modernization efforts during the Meiji Era, German brewers were invited to the country to establish a beer industry, and as such, heavily influenced the beer that was made, and is currently consumed, in Japan—and by extension, Korea. When Korea gained independence in 1945 and breweries were taken over by Korean management, they continued to focus on the mass production of light lagers—which were affordable, easy to drink, and heavily favored by the US military, also present in Korea.¹

By the 1970s, South Korean beer had the same reputation as American beer—bland and “yellow and fizzy,” as the market was dominated by just two breweries: Hite and OB. Beer imports were illegal in South Korea until the mid-1980s, so there were no Belgian, British, or German beers in the country to compare to. Other government regulations made it difficult to start any small brewing operations—brew pubs were OK’d in the early 2000s, but you couldn’t distribute your beer outside of your restaurant. In short, due to a duopoly between Hite and OB, Korean beer sucked (unless you preferred light lagers that came in green bottles—to each their own).

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In 2000, the North Korean leader Kim Jong-il purchased a decommissioned 175-year-old British brewery that was shipped to North Korea by Russians, and put back together by Germans (allegedly). He wanted to make North Korea’s national beer. The brewery was called Taedonggang Brewing Company and in 2002, it started producing beer.

A few Westerners were able to try the North Korean beer, and were surprised at just how good the beer was: “The beer is very good, easily better than the vast majority of Chinese beers, and—although one can get in trouble for claiming this in South Korea—clearly vastly superior to the mass-market South Korean stuff.”

And trouble it did cause. In 2012, a British journalist declared in The Economist that “brewing remains just about the only useful activity at which North Korea beats the South.”

The Economist article caused an uproar in South Korea. The South Korean government basically said OH HELL NO and as a result lessened the entry restrictions for smaller craft brewers in the country. Now brewpubs were able to distribute their beer beyond their own premises.

Off to the left: Cass lager, an OB brand. Center: Magpie Countryfolk saison.

Magpie Brewing is one of South Korea’s pioneering craft breweries. In a VICE Magazine article (RIP Munchies), its founder Hassan Haider said, “The catalyst for the movement was an article by The Economist. It said something crazy. It said North Korean beer is better than South Korean beer. People didn’t like that.”²

These days, South Korea has a vibrant craft beer scene. During my time in Seoul a couple springs ago, I visited a beer bar run by a chatty artist named Tyler, whose beer list reflected much of the trends also of American craft brewing (during my visit, juicy IPAs and craft lagers were all over the menu). Tyler hailed a cab for me and sent me on my way to Seoul Gypsy, whose taproom is situated in a hanok, and whose beers reflected the deliberate elegance of its surroundings. Another evening found us at ArtMonster, a colorful brewpub that hosted the chimaek³ session we craved.

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But back to North Korean beer. The few Westerners that have been able to go into North Korea and taste its beer found out why it was so much better than South Korea’s fizzy yellow stuff (“Darker, fuller-bodied, hoppier, and delicious, it was hands down better than South Korean beer!”). First, rice can be scarce in North Korea, so its beer was all-barley, making way for maltier, fuller-flavored beers. But just as rice can be scarce in North Korea, so can electricity. So, while the German experts who put together Kim Jong-il’s brewery also brought with them their knowledge of lager brewing (and possibly their yeast), they couldn’t use traditional lager brewing methods, just like those Gold Rush brewers found out.

And that’s how North Korea’s national beer style became Steam Beer. I trust that Anchor’s trademark lawyers have no sway in North Korea, so we can call it that, but if not, Pyongyang Common sounds good too.

1. For those who were at Bier Omakase: The Golden Ratio (read the menu here), the tasting chapter called IMPERIAL LAGER, with the Terra Lager in the green 1L PET bottle, covered this time in Korean beer history.

2. In our chapter FIGHTING WORDS, Magpie Brewing’s Country Folk, a saison made with mulberries and plum, was our tasting for S. Korea’s current craft beer scene.

3. Briefly discussed at The Golden Ratio, chimaek is a Korean portmanteau of chikin (chicken) + maekju (beer) and is a perfect match.