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| Models promote HiteJinro's Max Special Hop at Cheonggye Square near Cheonggyecheon Stream in Jongno-gu, Seoul. The Korea Times' 24-hour online poll showed 57 percent of the respondents disliked Korean beers, particularly the products of major conglomerates like OB, HiteJinro and Lotte. / Korea Times file |
By Ko Dong-hwan
More than half of people who tried South Korean beers, including perennial top seller OB's Cass, said they didn't like them.
In a 24-hour poll conducted by The Korea Times March 6-7, among 340 respondents, 57 percent said "No" when asked whether they liked Korean beers.
The poll was conducted online and the questions were in English so Koreans' opinions were not properly reflected.
People gave a variety of reasons for liking or disliking the beers.
"They taste like an accident in a chemical lab," one respondent said.
Another said Koreans "dump soju (a popular liquor with alcoholic levels of about 20 percent) into Korean beer to make it taste better," which shows "how bad the beer tastes." One netizen dubbed all major Korean beers "awful," branding Cass and Hite, the two leading brands, "the worst beers in the world."
"Even Korean restaurants in London sell Japanese brands," another anti-Korean beer netizen quipped.
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The detractors claimed the beers were like "dirty water," "bland" or "watery." Another even argued that Korean beers weren't brewed properly and people who drank them reek of alcohol, which doesn't happen with real beers.
One respondent praised China's Qing Dao beer. Another claimed that Korean beers are "far worse than those from nations such as Japan, China and Thailand."
While they were critical of the beers of major brands like OB and Lotte, they admitted that craft beers from Korean micro breweries deserved praise.
"There are some fantastic craft beers in Korea, which is why I say I ‘like' Korean beer," one respondent said.
The fans of Korean craft beers like them enough to list the local brewing companies, including Magpie, Hand & Malt, Gorilla, Table Booth and Maloney's.
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| T.O.P from K-pop boy band BIGBANG acts in a commercial for OB's Cass. / Korea Times file |
"I do like some Korean beer," one netizen said. "Just not the light lagers made by the big conglomerate Korean brewers like Cass, Hite, Kloud and OB. Those beers are as boring as the Budweiser, Coors or Miller brewing companies from the U.S."
Korean beer fans, on the other hand, acknowledged that the Korean products are merely different from other beers. One came up with the analogy that Korean lagers and exotic craft India pale ale (IPA), or dark European beers, are like "apples and oranges." "It is important to moderate our expectations accordingly," the netizen said.
They were aware that many non-Koreans disliked Korean beers. But they said such opinions were "exaggerated." "Korean beer is very mediocre and it's not as terrible as a lot of them say," one netizen said.
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