Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

  • Home
  • About
  • Editorial
  • Birthdays
  • Art & Beer

Socialize

  • Dribbble
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Flickr
  • GitHub
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
Powered by Head Quarters Built on WordPress
You are here: Home / Beers / North Korea’s First Beer Commercial

North Korea’s First Beer Commercial

July 11, 2009 By Jay Brooks

korea_north
Taedonggang is a brand of beer from North Korea. It’s brewed by the state-owned Taedonggang Brewing Company based in Pyongyang, and is named for the nearby Taedong River. The North Koreans bought an English brewery, Usher’s Brewery in Trowbridge (part of Wiltshire), in 2002 and shipped it back to Asia. They produce 4 brands of beer, of which Taedonggang Beer is the flagship.

In a somewhat surprising move for a fiercely communist country, the state-owned Korean Central Television aired their first ever commercial, and it was a beer ad for Taedonggang beer.

A BBC article describes the ad:

Young women in traditional Korean dress are shown serving trays of beer to men in Western suits.

Billed as the “Pride of Pyongyang”, the advert promises drinkers that the beer will help ease stress.

“It represents the new look of Pyongyang,” the two-and-a-half minute advert says. “It will be a familiar part of our lives.”

I don’t know Korean, but according to a CBS report, “the commercial said the beer relieves stress and improves health and longevity” and went on to assure “viewers of the beer’s quality and nutritional value, saying it was made of rice and contained protein and vitamin B2.”

To see the strange, at times surreal, commercial, click on the image below.


Taedonggang beer, originally uploaded by Rikke Søvsø Nielsen.

Filed Under: Beers, News, Politics & Law Tagged With: Advertising, North Korea, Video



Comments

  1. Michael Reinhardt says

    July 13, 2009 at 2:58 pm

    Double the propaganda. People can’t afford food, but they encourage them to drink beer. This makes it look like they get along with the west and like they can actually buy beer. Obviously, I don’t take issue with beer having good health effects. However, this one is a bit like the infamous “the people have no bread (rice in this case). Let them eat cake (rice beer in this case)”.

  2. Homebrew Japan says

    August 9, 2009 at 10:00 pm

    I’ve had this in North Korea a few years ago:

    http://homebrewjapan.beerinjapan.com/2009/07/04/north-korean-beer-advertisement/

    Tasted like a generic “national” beer – think Hite / Cass from South Korea, Tsing Tao, etc…

Find Something

Northern California Breweries

Please consider purchasing my latest book, California Breweries North, available from Amazon, or ask for it at your local bookstore.

Beer Bulletin Email

Enter your email address to receive daily digests:

Recent Comments

  • Martyn Cornell on Historic Beer Birthday: Anton Dreher Jr.
  • Martyn Cornell on Historic Beer Birthday: Anton Dreher Jr.
  • Martyn Cornell on Historic Beer Birthday: Anton Dreher Jr.
  • Lucy Corne on Beer Birthday: Lucy Corne-Duthie
  • Kendall Staggs on Beer In Ads #4341: Miss Rheingold 1955 Filling Yuletide Requests

Recent Posts

  • Beer Birthday: Rich Higgins March 29, 2023
  • Historic Beer Birthday: Michael Piel March 29, 2023
  • Beer In Ads #4394: Brooklyn Girl Is Named Miss Rheingold 1957 March 28, 2023
  • Historic Beer Birthday: Jaromír Vejvoda March 28, 2023
  • Historic Beer Birthday: August Anheuser Busch, Jr. a.k.a. Gussie Busch March 28, 2023

Tag Cloud

Advertising Anheuser-Busch Announcements Bay Area Belgium Brewers Association Brewing Equipment Budweiser Business California Christmas Europe France Germany Guinness Health & Beer History Holidays Hops Humor Infographics Kegs Law Mainstream Coverage Miller Brewing Northern California Pabst Packaging Patent Pennsylvania Press Release Prohibitionists Rheingold San Francisco Schlitz Science Science of Brewing Sports Statistics The Netherlands UK Uncategorized United States Video Washington

The Sessions

session_logo_all_text_1500

Next Session: Dec. 7, 2018
#142: One More for the Road
Previous Sessions
  • #141: Future of Beer Blogging
  • #140: Pivo
  • #139: Beer & the Good Life
  • #138: The Good in Wood
  • #137: German Wheat
Archive, History & Hosting

Typology Tuesday

Typology-png
Next Typology:
On or Before March 29, 2016
#3: Irish-Style Dry Stout
Previous Typologies
  • #2: Bock Feb. 2016
  • #1: Barley Wine Jan. 2016
Archive & History

This month’s posts

March 2023
S M T W T F S
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728293031  
« Feb    

BBB Archives

Go to mobile version