Oriental Brewery plays it safe, voluntarily recalls beer

The nation’s top beer maker, Oriental Brewery, said yesterday it will voluntarily recall about 55,000 boxes of OB Golden Lager contaminated with diluted caustic soda in the manufacturing process at its plant in Gwangju, South Jeolla.

Oriental Brewery found trace amounts of diluted caustic soda for food when an employee cleaned empty fermentation tanks.

The company immediately reported the incident to the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety and decided to voluntarily recall the related products.

Oriental Brewery said the caustic soda can be used as a food additive and that the pH concentration of the residual amounts found was not different from those of normal products, according to an analysis.

The company said that although they would not be subject to a mandatory recall, it decided on the recall to reassure its customers.

The recalled products are 18 percent of the 300,000 boxes produced through the fermentation tanks.