(500) Debut of Beer

By Andrei Lankov

Of all alcoholic beverages, beer might be one of the oldest. It was drunk in ancient Mesopotamia about five thousand years ago; was tremendously popular in medieval Europe; and during the last two hundred years or so beer drinking has spread across the globe.

It was a European import, of course, but peoples in distant lands embraced it with great enthusiasm, and Koreans were no exception.

It seems that we relish accurately pinpointing the first time a Korean tasted this beverage. This historical event of great significance took place in 1884, when Korean and American representatives celebrated the signing of a treaty between the two states.

The surviving pictures of the banquet clearly show that beer bottles were present on the table. Perhaps, some Koreans tasted the strange liquid, even if it remains unknown what they thought of its peculiar taste, so different was it from the beverages they were accustomed to.

However, this was but a small episode, which probably did not have much impact on the consumption of beer in Korea. After all, to the Korean dignitaries of the era it did not matter which strange beverages those odd Western barbarians were ready to consume.

So, the introduction of beer only began at earnest in the 1890s, when Japanese merchants introduced the Sapporo brand to Korea.

Japan is also a relative newcomer to the world beer scene. However, by the 1890s Sapporo was one of the oldest Japanese breweries, established in 1877, soon after the beverage was first introduced to Japan.

Two other major Japanese breweries, Kirin and Asahi, began to sell their beverages in Korea a bit later, in the early 1900s.

The Korean name for beer, maekju, is of Japanese origin, but consists of two Chinese characters (the Chinese themselves use different characters, however). It means ``barley liquor.''

It seems that the first small brewery (I would probably not apply the modern description of ``microbrewery'') began to operate in 1908 in Seoul, being open by Kirin.

Initially most of the consumers were local Japanese settlers, but in due time the beer began to win approval from Korean customers as well.

The year 1933 was a great turning point in the history of the Korean beer industry. Almost simultaneously, two large breweries began to operate in Seoul (well, not quite in Seoul, strictly speaking, since the Yeongdungpo area where both factories were located, was only formally included in the city limits a few years later, in April 1936).

Both factories were Japanese property belonging to major Japanese brewers. In August, a large brewery was opened by the owners of the Sapporo brand, and in December Kirin joined the race, opening its facility nearby. Thus the great saga of the two competitors began.

After liberation from Japanese colonial rule in 1945, both breweries were confiscated by the authorities and for a brief period they remained government property but they were soon privatized.

The brewery which once was managed by Kirin became the Tongyang Co., producers of the OB brand, while its competitor became Crown Beer, eventually renamed Hite Beer.

For the subsequent decades these two companies constituted the backbone of the Korean beer industry. There were some minor players, but they were very minor indeed, and seldom lasted for long.

The first years of independence were a hard time for everybody, including brewers. It is difficult to believe, but it was the shortage of bottles, which was the major impediment in the late 1940s when two major companies were running at only 20 percent of their capacity.

The Korean War struck a new blow, so in 1954 the country produced 13.5 million standard (that is, 0.5 liter) bottles of beer. This means that the average Korean in those days consumed one bottle per year ― almost unbelievable by present-day standards. Most ingredients had to be imported from overseas until the 1970s, when local production began.

It is remarkable that beer was seen as a somewhat glamorous beverage, a drink of the upper middle class. In Korean movies romantic couples drank beer where characters of a Western production would drink champagne.

Even the taxman saw beer this way: It was taxed much more heavily than soju, the supposed liquor of choice of the common folk. Since 1997, beer has been taxed at 130 percent while for soju the tax level is merely 35 percent. In earlier days, the difference was even greater.

The rise in beer consumption began in the 1970s, following both urbanization and an increase in income levels. The new city dwellers wanted to drink something more sophisticated than old good makgeolli or other common beverages.

They also had money to afford this pleasure. This was also when beer halls began to proliferate across the country (yes, until the 1970s there were no ``hoffs" in Korea).

Beer consumption in 2000 was about 32 liters (or some 64 standard bottles) per capita. If one takes into account only adults the figure will be close to 70 liters.

This is not very high compared to the great beer-drinking nations of Germany, Ireland and the Czech Republic.

For example, in Germany in 2001 the per capita consumption was 123 liters, nearly four times the Korean level, and Czechs were drinking even more, some 160 liters! Still, in recent decades beer has accounted for almost exactly half of the alcoholic beverage market in the country.

Since then, however, beer consumption has begun to decrease. It seems that it is losing its old glamorous connotations, and is increasingly seen as a beverage of overworked aging company workers. The current craze for all things healthy, the ``well-being boom'' also contributes much to this decline.

Prof. Andrei Lankov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and now teaches at Kookmin University in Seoul. He has recently published ``The Dawn of Modern Korea,'' which is now on sale at Kyobo Book Center and other major bookstores. The book is based on columns published in The Korea Times. He can be reached at anlankov@yahoo.com.