The Beer

Let me start off by saying, I never have drank a beer that I haven't liked. Oh sure, I might say Stag is awful, or Coors light tastes like water, or PBR stands for Probably Bull uRine, but I like them. If I was stranded on an island and I had to choose between those beers and no beers, I would choose those beers. And yes, that collection would have me salivating like Pavlov's dog, or a parched hick at the Indy 500.

Korean beer is worse than those beers. It's more water like than any of those beers. Europeans and other beer enthusiasts (snobs) often say that the vast majority of American beer is water. (I may or may not agree, but that is neither here or there) They need to come to Korea, because this beer is WATER! These beers are light and airy. That being said, you would think that I would just stick to mixed drinks or import beers. If you thought that you would be WRONG!* Korean beer is cheap, and I follow The Simple Economic Rule to a T: If the price is low, then the demand is high, and if the price is high, well I'll stay the hell away.
The price of import is high, while the price of Korean alcohol is low. Soju, (remember 20% ALC, tastes like watered down vodka, and costs one dollar for a pint of it) Korean beer (one dollar), and Korean wine (one dollar) are very cheap. Those are all convenient store prices in case you were wondering.

*There are many business ideas that come into my head over here. The best one yet might be a Small brewery/pub/restaurant idea. I love these joints. It would be similar to a Flat Branch/Freestate/75th street brewery place.** Here is why it would work:

** I have never used that many slashes in my life...combined...including 3rd grade when the math curriculum centered around division.

1) The amount of foreign teachers coming to Korea to teach English is increasing.
2) Koreans love the majority of things associated with America and the western world.
3) Half of the Korean population could be considered alcoholics.
4) The lack of quality beer in Korea
5) I came up with it, how could it not succeed?

Idea number 2- Transplant El Rancho right in the heart of Seoul. El Rancho is fabulous, greasy, sloppy, Mexican food. It dominates the late night food options of Columbia Missouri. It is authentic Tex/Mex. (that probably gets a hyphen, but I'm on a roll with the slash) All the employees are from across the boarder, and they may or may not have green cards, but they can roll a burrito the size of your head in a matter of seconds.
Why it would work:

1) There is a real lack of quality Mexican food in Korea. Any Korean attempts at Mexican food are poor. They have a franchise Mexican chain that is pretty good, serving small portions of over-priced food. Really, pretty good in the sense that it is Mexican food in Korea. Beggars can not be choosers.
2) They don't have Taco Bell
3) If you get the Mexican Crew to sign up for this transplant experiment, you would get one of the world's highest quality workforce (at least North America's right?) to sell many big burritos. Why this would work: it's not like the majority of the workers at El Rancho can speak or read English anyway, so I imagine they could be equally adept fumbling around with the Korean language. There's no difference!
4) Same as the above number 5


What was I talking about again? Oh right, Mackju. Korean beer is called Mackju. It's cheap but not that good, but it beats paying 8 dollars for a Guinness. Budweiser is pretty prevalent in Korea, but I try and stay away. I don't like large, looming conglomerates and InBev OWNS the worldwide beer market, including Korea's water beer. There is only one large beer company in Korea that is not owned by InBev, and that's my beer of choice.

InBev, a Belgium company, bought Budweiser a couple of months ago. As John put it, "I thought Budweiser would buy Belgium." I try and refrain from buying InBev products because, hell that is what a consumer is supposed to do when having an objection with a company. I know it won't matter to InBev, who bought an icon of America, an icon of my state. So my beer of choice is HITE, Korean beer water not associated with the global machine InBev. As of writing this blog InBev does not own HITE, that could of changed in the minutes I've spent writing this.