Here’s what the guys over at Seoul Homebrew had to say about their venture:
“My friends and I were originally looking for a way to drink good beer and stave off boredom and once we realized that there was a homebrewing presence in Korea along with the fact that we wanted to open some kind of business here, we thought we had found a good idea – to open an actual store front brewing shop in Korea. Online shopping is quite popular in Korea, but having a store gives us the opportunity to interact face-to-face with a lot of people already brewing in Korea and it also gives us the ability to provide classes to people who want to start brewing.
One of the coolest things about having a store is that we can meet homebrewers and exchange ideas and information about brewing; things like recipes, techniques, and just details about the brewing process that it’s harder, if not impossible to communicate when just ordering from a store online. The microbrew scene in Korea is getting popular as people here are developing their tastes for beers with more character than what the big beer makers here provide. And recently the laws regarding micro-brewery operation have changed which is allowing breweries to open and to actually make some profit off of what their selling. I think that before the general public in Korea wasn’t really aware that there were types of beer that wildly varied in flavors, but now that microbreweries are popping up here and there and more people are making their own beer, people are starting to appreciate what beer can be. We’ve had a couple events here at the shop where we invited homebrewers to bring what they’ve been brewing and share with other brewers and the results were really awesome. One guy came in with a burnt mead, which is fermented honey, and that was quite unique. Another homebrewer came in with a rye stout that he had finished off by adding a shot of scotch whiskey to in each bottle and it was very good, and quite high in alcohol.
Along with drinking as many beers made by other people as we can, our goal is to try and be really involved in the homebrew scene and not just to make money, but to bring brewers together. What was really surprising to me is the number of homebrewers in Korea and how organized they are. We sometimes post on Facebook and I usually check the “Homebrewer’s in Korea” Facebook pages and I’m pretty amazed at the amount of activity that goes on in the clubs; people are always brewing and it’s really cool to see the kind of interaction that goes on between homebrewers here. What happens on the Facebook clubs’ pages isn’t too different from homebrewing forums in the US, but if you follow the scene here you can start to see that, and probably because of the small size of the expat population in Korea, people really know each other and actually hang out together to brew, drink, or whatever. We’re still a small business with a lot of learning to do, but we’re excited to be part of something that’s bringing Koreans and expats together.
What was really surprising to me is the number of homebrewers in Korea and how organized they are. We sometimes post on Facebook and I usually check the “Homebrewer’s in Korea” Facebook pages and I’m pretty amazed at the amount of activity that goes on in the clubs; people are always brewing and it’s really cool to see the kind of interaction that goes on between homebrewers here. What happens on the Facebook clubs’ pages isn’t too different from homebrewing forums in the US, but if you follow the scene here you can start to see that, and probably because of the small size of the expat population in Korea, people really know each other and actually hang out together to brew, drink, or whatever. We’re still a small business with a lot of learning to do, but we’re excited to be part of something that’s bringing Koreans and expats together.”
Read the article in our current issue by clicking here!