E-Malt.com News article: South Korea: Imported beer gaining increased space on store shelves in Korea

Many Koreans love an ice-cold beer or two after a long day or week in the office. Their choice used to be limited to mostly Korean beers, but now you can easily find beers from all four corners of the world, even in a regular grocery store, Arirang News reported on January 26.

Not so long ago, it wasn't all that common to see imported beers on store shelves in Korea, but in recent years imports have been swelling.

Foreign brands, like Asahi, Heineken, and Guinness, to name but a few, are stacked high and wide.

The imported beer trend started to take off in Korea in the mid 2000s, and has been intensifying ever since.

Top dog at the moment is Asahi.

The Japanese beer has been number one in the imported beer market in Korea for the last four years and continues to widen its base of loyal customers in Korea with its crisp and refreshing taste.

Last year, Asahi imported over 26 thousand tons of beer into Korea, triple the amount it imported in 2010.

Overall, beer imports to Korea topped one-hundred million U.S. dollars in 2014, jumping 24 percent from the previous year.

Korea exported around 73 million dollars of beer, leaving the country with a deficit of almost 38-and-a-half million dollars last year.

So why are Koreans increasingly choosing imported brands over old local favorites like OB, Cass and Hite?

Korean consumers are going from high alcoholic content beverages to low, so beer sales are increasing across the board. Tastes have broadened too as more people travel and study abroad so they become fond of the beers they tried overseas.

Feeling the heat, Korean breweries have been rolling out fresh brands that are quite the departure from their original beers.

In the case of OB, it released two different brands last year and upgraded its premium OB beer to give it a deeper taste. Local beer companies are also developing new flavors to adapt to the changing tastes of the Korean consumer.

Given the surging number of domestic and foreign brands in Korea, Korean beer makers are looking overseas to make up for their weakening sales at home.

Korean breweries exported four-and-a-half million dollars of beer to Iraq last year, becoming the Middle Eastern country's third largest supplier.

Hite Jinro, which began exporting to Vietnam in 1966, now ships to some 60 countries. And OB is expanding its overseas markets, including Mongolia, Hong Kong, and Australia.


28 January, 2015