Of all of the issues an individual can affiliate with beer, the Korean musical phenomenon Bangtan Sonyeondan—broadly recognized the world over as merely BTS—is probably going not on the highest of the listing.
The seven-member boy band has been credited introducing to its 60-million-and-counting fanbase (ARMY) to a protracted and illustrious listing of topics they could not have been aware of earlier than—corresponding to Korean literature and trendy artwork—and the efficiency of the group’s endorsement reveals no indicators of slowing down. (As a latest instance, band members Jimin and Jungkook sported a pair of T-shirts made by a little-known kayak store in Previous Lyme, Connecticut, throughout their travelogue video sequence. The shirts immediately bought out and gave the store its personal quarter-hour of fame).
However in relation to beer, the beverage itself is a comparatively new addition to the Korean Peninsula, a land extra well-known for its soju (a distilled spirit much like vodka) than its lagers or ales.
Each BTS and the nation that birthed them include multitudes past what’s seen on the floor. When the seven band members should not busy serving out their obligatory navy service or plotting their comeback tour for his or her much-anticipated return in 2025, every member has a number of solo initiatives. Probably the most beer-relevant of those is Suchwita, the most recent selection present by BTS’s rapper-songwriter-producer, Min Yoon-gi, aka Suga.
The premise of the present is that he invitations his well-known associates, whether or not Okay-pop idols, Okay-drama actors, skilled soccer gamers, or after all, fellow members of BTS, to speak about their careers. There’s just one rule—every visitor should carry their very own drink to share. Assume The Graham Norton Present, however with a BYOB twist. Individuals have lengthy been curious to know what the richest and most well-known international superstars are consuming with their associates. Suchwita satisfies this primal curiosity, and does rather more.
Opposite to what its title suggests (i.e., a present about getting drunk with Suga), the speak present facilities extra on the type of considerate, in-depth conversations facilitated by a glass of individuals’s brew of selection. Up to now, there has but to be any precise drunkenness on the present. Relatively, the drinks turn into the last word icebreaker, a means for visitors to show-and-tell their favourite liquids whereas making themselves (and their host) extra comfortable.
It’s no secret that the host is a significant whisky connoisseur, so all kinds of whiskies have made frequent appearances, together with latest debuts from Taiwan and Japan. However the breadth of the conversations on the present could also be surpassed by the number of liquid treats his visitors carry with them. Aside from these tried-and-true spirits, a number of lesser-known drinks have been featured:
- Makgeolli—a milky rice wine much like soju, however with purported well being advantages and a decrease alcohol content material
- Sikhye—a wine-based cocktail fashionable throughout Lunar New 12 months that can be made in a non-alcoholic model
- Russian Jack—a surprisingly reasonably priced (and curiously named) white wine from New Zealand
- Leroy Bourgogne Blanc—in contrast to Russian Jack, it is a shockingly unaffordable French white wine
- Even non-alcoholic drinks make the occasional cameo, from sujeonggwa (a dessert drink laced with cinnamon, ginger, and sugar) to espresso and iced tea.
However probably the most notable of the drinks on the present could also be its beers. Provided that beer isn’t endemic to South Korea, the beer-based drinks featured on a chat present by the nation’s most well-known cultural export (BTS) is a testomony to the globalization of the beverage.
It’s been roughly a century because the brew first entered the nation, due to the inflow of Japanese immigrants who introduced their favourite issues to sip with them. Initially handled as a luxurious merchandise whose price ticket, as soon as many instances the value of a sack of rice, rendered it a deal with for the wealthy, beer had a rocky time on the peninsula by means of a lot of the twentieth century, due to the impacts of struggle, liberation, and import restrictions on what residents received to drink. It wasn’t till the flip of the millennium that Korea noticed its first technology of microbreweries.
Beer dynasties have continued to merge and develop since then. It solely took half a century for beer to go from a measly 5 p.c of home alcohol gross sales to dominating the market as the preferred alcoholic drink class within the nation (Kim, 2020). Possibly it’s the climate—there’s nothing like a chilly bottle of beer to get an individual by means of monsoon season—or the spectacular means during which beer and Korean fried rooster go collectively, however lately, the typical grown-up in South Korea now drinks 83 bottles of beer yearly (Neff, 2024).
Apparently, the rising reputation of beer even extends to the wealthy and well-known. On Suchwita, it took 13 episodes for beer to make an official, stand-alone look, after a quick cameo when Korean-Canadian hip-hop artist Tablo (of the trio Epik Excessive) introduced Guinness Draught, together with Jameson Black Barrel and Bailey’s Irish Cream to make Irish Slammers. When comic Jo Se-ho introduced beer on the present midway by means of the 27-episode season, he went all out: Not solely did he carry bottles of Kelly malt beer from Korean brewery HiteJinro, he additionally introduced the model’s newest contraption for delivering it—the Terra Tower. As a beer dispenser, the Tower was particularly designed for making somaek, a beer cocktail that entails a 3:1 ratio of beer and soju. In case you’re fancy, you possibly can pour three bottles of beer and one bottle of soju into the tower and watch the twister operate combine the 2 with sufficient horsepower to resemble a meteorological occasion. Or, in the event you’re something like Yoon-gi or his comedic visitor, you possibly can simply eyeball it and pour each right into a glass.
The truth that somaek exists is testimony to the flexibility of beer and the best way the universality of a brewed beverage can tackle culturally distinctive varieties—fusion, however for malt drinks. Yoon-gi and Jo Se-ho made it Korea’s hottest beer, however technically any lager-style brew would work with the soju of your selection.
On the very subsequent episode, fellow BTS member J-Hope introduced one other beer-adjacent beverage within the type of Soonhari Lemonjin, a fruit-flavored soju seltzer. Two episodes later, triple risk actor-singer-songwriter Hwang Min-hyun introduced a Belgian white ale with its personal ritual. On this case, it concerned chilling a can of Hoegaarden Authentic and a glass, then pouring two-thirds of the beer into the chilled cup and shaking the rest to supposedly intensify the orange notes of the drink earlier than depositing the remaining.
Then in Episode #19, fellow singer-songwriter Kim Jong-Wan additionally introduced Guinness, arguably probably the most well-known stout on the planet. As a substitute of utilizing the normal gradual “Guinness pour” right into a pint glass, they opted to drink it straight from its matching black can. The very subsequent present, Taemin (of Okay-pop teams SHINee and SuperM fame) introduced cans of 1664 Blanc Beer. The host and his visitor loved the citrusy French lager whereas opening up about all the thrill and challenges of their day jobs—the type of revelatory dialog that beer brings out in individuals. At one level close to the tip of the interview, Yoon-gi requested Taemin if he felt nearer to him now. His visitor indicated that sure, he did need extra. Possibly he was simply speaking about friendship and dialog. Extra seemingly, he was additionally speaking in regards to the beer.
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