Purchasing a Century-Old British Factory for 25 Million Marks
In the summer of 2000, due to poor management, the 175-year-old Trowbridge brewery in the UK declared bankruptcy. The owner of the brewery, Gary Todd, prepared to sell off everything in the facility. Soon, a preferred bidder emerged: the then-supreme leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-il.
At the time, Kim Jong-il planned to develop an emerging brewery industry in North Korea and ordered the North Korean Embassy in Switzerland to complete the task. The embassy found a German intermediary named Uwe, who specialized in reselling second-hand breweries. Uwe boasted, "I am busy building a brewery in Southern Sudan, and I have already built six breweries in Russia; I will certainly help you find the best second-hand brewery." Consequently, Uwe came to Trowbridge, UK, and discovered the newly bankrupt brewery. After multiple discussions, the deal was finalized for 25 million German marks. To this day, the brewery owner Gary Todd still remembers the day the North Koreans came to take the brewery away. He recalled, "After our brewery was acquired, the first to arrive was a 12-member North Korean team, including two engineers, two brewers, and the rest were government officials. After arriving at the brewery, I was responsible for hosting them, but their behavior was very strange. They seemed to find the facilities inside the brewery very novel and treated everything as a treasure. In the end, they took everything they could take, even moving the toilet seats and floor tiles 'intact' to North Korea, which finally led to the production of 'Taedonggang Beer'."
Currently, there are seven types of Taedonggang beer, named "No. 1," "No. 2," etc. Last year, Todd bought two bottles of "Taedonggang Beer" from a Russian through various channels. Speaking of the taste of North Korean beer, Todd said, "Although it has little foam and it disappears quickly, the taste and color are quite good."
Transported to North Korea in 30 Containers
After buying the brewery, how to transport it to North Korea was a challenge. The North Korean Embassy in Switzerland hired a truck driver from Manchester named Nick to be responsible for the transport. Nick is now the owner of a British construction company and occasionally handles the business of relocating breweries to developing countries. He recalled, "North Korea gave us 800,000 pounds to complete the work of relocating the entire brewery. Over several months, my trucks shuttled between Trowbridge and the port of Bristol, carrying over 2,000 tons of equipment and various items from the brewery. Eventually, the 30 containers stacked at the dock arrived at the port of Wonsan in North Korea after a month. Of course, we also bribed several customs officers at the Bristol dock along the way. These items shipped to North Korea were embargoed during customs inspection, and I gave those customs officials 90,000 pounds in total."
It is reported that North Korea dismantled the brewery piece by piece and shipped it to Pyongyang, where it was reorganized and put into operation under the name "Taedonggang Brewery." Construction of the brewery began in 2001 and it went into production in 2002. The factory covers an area of 10 hectares and has an annual production capacity of 70,000 tons. In 2002, the factory introduced advanced production technology from Germany. Starting in April 2002, it began mass production of Taedonggang beer. Today, "Taedonggang Brewery" is the most advanced brewery in North Korea; the equipment in the factory is British, the production technology was introduced from Germany, and the entire brewing process is computerized.
The First TV Commercial in North Korean History
In 2002, then-North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong-il visited the Taedonggang Brewery. In 2009, North Korean television broadcast its first-ever TV commercial, which was for "Taedonggang Beer," attracting global attention. Accompanied by upbeat music, the commercial first showed a glass filled with draft beer, with the slogan: "The Pride of Pyongyang." Subsequently, the commercial featured a sweating miner drinking beer, as well as young women in traditional North Korean clothing serving beer to men in suits. The commercial also stated: "It represents the new face of Pyongyang. It will become a familiar part of our lives."
It is reported that this beer was once sold to foreigners in hotels in Pyongyang for $1.50 per bottle. However, for most North Korean citizens, Taedonggang beer is still very expensive: North Korean citizens can generally buy a larger quantity of rice wine for the same price, and "Taedonggang Beer" is mostly affordable only to officials and foreigners stationed in North Korea.
