North Korean beer

Beer
Craft beer at the Taedonggang Microbrewery No. 3 in Pyongyang
Chosŏn'gŭl	맥주
Hancha	麥酒
Revised Romanization	maekju
McCune–Reischauer	maekchu
IPA	[mɛk̚.t͈ɕu]

North Korea has at least ten major breweries and many microbreweries that supply a wide range of beer products. The top brand is the light lager Taedonggang which is internationally known for its quality.

The country's problems with goods distribution and power output has forced North Korean brewers to innovate. To minimize distribution, many restaurants and hotels maintain their own microbreweries. Because unreliable power supply makes it difficult to refrigerate beer, North Koreans have developed their own steam beer, an originally American beer style brewed in higher than normal temperatures, that is widely available.

Although the Korean liquor soju is preferred, beer comes second when it comes to consumption. Since the 1980s, beer has been within reach of ordinary North Koreans, though it is still rationed. Tourists, on the other hand, enjoy inexpensive beer without such limitations.

The Japanese brought beer to Colonial Korea in the 1930s in the form of German lager beers. After WWII and independence, until at least 1960, all beer in North Korea was produced domestically. By the 1980s, beer was in such good availability that the common North Korean could drink it. Until the mid-1990s when the state rationing system started to crumble, North Koreans would receive one bottle of Korean liquor soju and three bottles of beer for every major public holiday in North Korea. All North Korean beers are bottled in domestic made glass bottles that are of poor quality. During the North Korean famine, beer bottles were used for intravenous therapy (IV) due to the shortage of proper hospital equipment.

Although there had been breweries before, brewing in North Korea began in earnest in 2000, when the country's leader Kim Jong-il wanted to build a showcase brewery in the country. The Taedonggang Brewing Company was allowed to buy the old brewery of Ushers of Trowbridge in the United Kingdom and import it to North Korea. The Taedonggang Beer Factory opened in April 2002 in the capital Pyongyang. In August 2016, the brewery opened the first ever beer festival in the country.