E-Malt.com News article: Germany & North Korea: Paulaner Brewery declines Kim Jong-un’s proposal to open a beer garden with a brewery in North Korea

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has asked Paulaner to open a beer garden with a brewery in North Korea, but the Bavarian brewer declined, German daily Bild reported on July, 19.

The brewer told Bild that it cannot afford another store in North Korea because it already plans to open 12 new beer gardens around the world, including one in the U.S. and one each in Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia in August.

Based in Munich, Paulaner is Germany's leading wheat beer brewer and has beer gardens around the world including 21 in Asia. Bild said Kim Jong-un has "outed himself as a beer lover" though his father was notoriously fond of cognac.

Bild said that it is not certain why Kim came up with the idea amid the regime's chronic food shortage, but added, "Man does not live by bread alone, but beer alone does not fill the stomach."

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization in a recent report said that North Korea needs food assistance from the international community to feed an estimated 2.8 million vulnerable people "until the next harvest in October."


24 July, 2013