North Korea is raising a glass to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the pouring of the first pint of its flagship Taedonggang beer — although the accolades have failed to acknowledge its distinctly capitalist roots.
North Koreans are proud of their national beer without knowing about its foreign heritageImage: Wong Maye-E/AP Photo/picture alliance
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With a "crisp and clean finish," Taedonggang lager is extremely popular in the beer gardens of Pyongyang in the summer months — even though drinkers have no idea that its distinctive flavor is a legacy of its foreign heritage.
The state-run Korean Central News Agency published a story recently in which it feted the Taedgonggang brewery's two decades of creating beer in Pyongyang, emphasizing that the factory was "built under the care of Chairman Kim Jong Il," the leader of the nation when construction commenced in 2000.
Apparently, the portly dictator "initiated the construction of the new factory producing beer of the best quality for the people." He also selected the site for the factory, KCNA reported, and "showed deep care for its construction."
'Flavor and quality'
Kim Jong Il's son and heir, Kim Jong Un, has followed the brewery's progress, visiting the site several times to "encourage its officials and workers to further improve the flavor and quality of beer and thus exalt the honor of the factory as the one popular among the people," according to state media.
The brewery produces 70,000 kiloliters of beer a year, utilizing water from the natural springs in the Milim district and barley and hops grown in the North. The factory's beer has an alcohol content of 5.7%, which is unusually high for a beer produced in East Asia but also an indication of its heritage.
North Korea's Taedonggang beer has a taste closer to an English aleImage: Kyodo/MAXPPP/picture alliance/dpa
In 2000, relations between North Korea and the rest of the world were in a far more positive state and, relatively well financed at the time, the government in Pyongyang decided it wanted a brewery. With virtually no domestic knowhow, it decided the simplest way of achieving that aim would be to purchase a foreign beer-making facility.
Through connections in Germany, North Korea asked business broker Uwe Oehms to secure a suitable brewery. After scouring Europe for a suitable plant, Oehms discovered that a plant that had been operated by British brewers Ushers in the town of Trowbridge, in Wiltshire, had recently been closed down and the equipment was being sold off.
"It all came as a bit of a surprise when we heard that it was being sold to North Korea," said Gary Todd, who had been the head brewer until the plant was closed down and was asked to assist in the sale.
"One day, these North Korean government officials and some brewers arrived, although it was very clear that they know nothing about brewing," Todd told DW. "There were also some Russian engineers involved and, because of all the languages, it was a very complicated process."
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Teaching brewing skills
It was quickly apparent that Todd would need to walk the inexperienced North Korean brewers through every step in the process required to turn the raw materials into beer. That crash-course in brewing took five months, during which the brewery and all its fixtures and fittings were being taken down around them, carefully packaged up and prepared for shipping to North Korea.
"They were very impressed with the Ushers set-up and seemed excited that they were going to be able to move it all to North Korea and set it all up again," he said. "But they wanted absolutely everything in the building. They wanted all the plastic cups from the drinks vending machines because they said they couldn't get them back home.
Sanctions on North Korea now mean that it is virtually impossible to purchase Taedonggang beer outside the countryImage: Wong Maye-E/AP Photo/picture alliance
"They wanted the toilet seats — I remember one walking around with a toilet seat around his neck — and the bolts in the floor," he added. "They took the tiles off the wall one-by-one and took them all away."
Towards the end of the project, the North Koreans caught Todd by surprise.
"They told management that they wanted me to go to North Korea to set everything up and start the brewing processes, but it would have been a two-year commitment, at least, and I had a young family at the time and I didn't want to go."
Still, he did get to enjoy a bottle of Taedonggang beer some years later when a journalist who had visited the plant in Pyongyang brought him a souvenir of the trip.
"It was very good — far better than I had expected — and I was impressed," he said. "It was crisp and with a good clean finish."
North Koreans are also proud of their national beer.
"I remember being surprised at how 'deep' the taste was, at least in comparison to Japanese beers," said Chung Hyon Suk, a North Korean resident of Japan who has made regular trips back to her homeland in the past.
Riverside beer gardens
"There were a lot of beer gardens alongside the Taedonggang River in central Pyongyang and people would go there after work in the summer months to relax and meet their friends," she told DW. "My friends told me that it was their favorite thing to do when it was hot and it was really popular with younger people and women."
Sadly, she said, international sanctions on North Korea now mean that it is virtually impossible to purchase Taedonggang beer outside the country, while the closure of the border with China due to the coronavirus pandemic has made it even harder to find the beer abroad.
"I remember it being darker in color than Japanese beer and with a taste that was closer to an English ale," she said.
North Korea in pictures: a rare glimpse into the isolated country
A team of journalists explored North Korea for a week, accompanied by officials who monitored the images and ensured not a single citizen was interviewed. The secluded country opened up and revealed itself.
The reporters from AP covered over 2,150 kilometers (1,336 miles), in a country of barely 25,000 kilometers of roads, merely 724 of those paved. They came back with only their photos as evidence of the life in the northern part of the secluded country. In the picture: A woman walks along a road southeast of Pyongyang in North Korea's North Hwanghae province.
A North Korean man sits by a cooking fire he built to roast potatoes and chicken in the town of Samjiyon, in Ryanggang province. Possibly more than any other populated place on earth, North Korea is terra incognita, but the AP team was granted access to see North Korea and travel through places that, they were told, no foreign journalist and few foreigners had been allowed to see before.
A boulder lies on a path near the peak of Mount Paektu in North Korea's Ryanggang province. North Koreans venerate Mount Paektu for its natural beauty, but more importantly because it is considered the home of the North Korean revolution. They also consider the mountain sacred as the place of their ancestral origin.
Farmers walk in a rainstorm with their cattle near the town of Hyesan, North Korea in Ryanggang province. "To get out of Pyongyang, we weaved our way around buses, streetcars, the black sedans of party officials and fleets of colorful new taxis that have over the past few years become commonplace," says Eric Talmadge, one of the jourmalists who participated in the journey.
Young North Korean schoolchildren help to fix pot holes in a rural road in North Korea's North Hamgyong province. The country's best road is the 200-kilometer stretch of highway connecting the capital to the east coast port city of Wonsan. Beyond Wonsan, potholes, cracks or sudden patches of dirt road make travel a bumpy experience.
North Korean residents walk on along a river in the town of Kimchaek, in North Korea's North Hamgyong province. The once-productive cities along its east coast, like the coal mining town of Kilju and the nearby city of Kimchaek - built around a sprawling but now eerily quiet ironworks complex - have become a rust belt, gritty and relentlessly gray.
The remains of lunch left on a restaurant table in the city of Wonsan, North Korea. The government "minders" accompanied the journalists throughout the entire trip. Like foreign tourists, the AP team only saw a bare trace of the deprivation residents experience. Most of the country's citizens cannot afford proper housing, let alone a visit to a restaurant.
The journalists' itineary was dictated by North Korea's terms. There would be no stopping to interview random people. "It's quite possible none of them had ever seen an American before," said AP's Eric Talmadge, "but our presence went unacknowledged. No glances were exchanged. No words were spoken." Here boys are playing soccer in the town of Hyesan, in the northern Ryanggang province.
North Korean men share a picnic lunch and North Korean-brewed and bottled Taedonggang beer along the road in North Korea's North Hwanghae province. This year, according to United Nations experts, the country could come closer to feeding itself than it has in decades. But hunger remains a serious problem, with a third of North Korean children stunted in growth due to poor nutrition.
A farmer carries a fully grown cabbage after harvesting it from the main crop which will be harvested early November, on the outskirts of Pyongyang. About four-fifths of North Korea's land is too rugged to farm. Providing enough food to feed the nation is a struggle for North Korea, which suffered a near cataclysmic famine in the 1990s.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/Wong Maye-E
No detour allowed
A man works on his car as others sit next to the Wonsan Sea in North Korea. For the most part, AP's reporters were not allowed to detour from their pre-approved route, which, to no one's surprise, did not include nuclear facilities or prison camps.
A group of young North Koreans enjoys a picnic on the beach in Wonsan. "Even on the loneliest of lonely highways, we would never be without a 'minder,' whose job was to monitor and supervise our activities," Talmadge explains. "We were not to take photographs of any checkpoints or military installations."
North Korean people rest next to the railroad tracks in a town in North Korea's North Hamgyong province. "Though we would not get to know the people along the way, the country itself had a great deal to say. And it was opening up before us," Talmadge said upon his return. "We had been granted unprecedented access."
