The Taedonggang Brewing Company (Korean: 대동강맥주공장) is a state-owned North Korean beer brewery company that brews the Taedonggang beer. The brewery is located in East Pyongyang and has facilities of tens of thousands of square meters.[1]
In 2000, the North Korean Government decided to acquire a brewery. At that point having good relationships with the West, via connections to Germany the Government of North Korea bought the intact and still in place brewery plant of the closed Ushers of Trowbridge, Wiltshire, England for £1.5M via broker Uwe Oehms. Concerned it could be used for chemical weapons production, after assurances, Peter Ward, of brewing company Thomas Hardy Brewing and Packaging bought the plant, and arranged for a team from North Korea to travel to Trowbridge to dismantle it.[2] Groundbreaking of the Taedonggang Beer Factory took place on 15 January 2000. The brewery is located in the Sadong District of Pyongyang.
Taedonggang beer is named after the Taedong River, which runs through the center of Pyongyang.
On July 3, 2009, a commercial for the product was broadcast on state-run Korean Central Television in a rare move, as there are very few advertisements on North Korean television.[3] [4] It has been broadcast three times in all.[5]
See main article: Taedonggang beer. The Taedonggang Brewing Company is mostly known outside the DPRK as the producer of the beer known as Taedonggang beer, which is the flagship beer of the companies. However the brewery also produces a brand of draught, a brand of black beer and a rice beer.[6]