At Goose Island, the 'K' in 'K-beer' apparently stands for 'kimchi'

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At Goose Island, the 'K' in 'K-beer' apparently stands for 'kimchi'

Published: 04 Jun. 2025, 22:29 Updated: 05 Jun. 2025, 17:25

CHO YONG-JUN
[email protected]

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

Goose Island Brewhouse Seoul’s brew master, Lee Chang-hyeon, speaks during the Goose Island tasting event at the Goose Island Brewhouse in Gangnam District, southern Seoul on May 30. [OB BEER]

Beer is beer, right?

Well, while all beers are created with a combination of four key ingredients — water, barley, hops and yeast — some breweries add extra ingredients, such as orange peel, cinnamon, lavender and others to give their own twists.

Goose Island Brewery got Korean with their kick, tossing regional specialties into the mix, such as local grapes, Jeju tangerines called hallabong, a citron known as Buddha’s hand and — get this — kimchi.

“Goose Island has always been a brand that tries out new things; they were the first to produce barrel-aged beers,” Goose Island Brewhouse Seoul’s brew master Lee Chang-hyeon said during the brewery's tasting event last Friday at the Goose Island Brewhouse in Gangnam District, southern Seoul.

Lee, who won a gold medal at the World Beer Cup in 2024 with his Provence Farmhouse beer, a farmhouse ale, said he is continuing the company’s tradition by using local ingredients to make different kinds of craft beers and other alcoholic beverages starting in 2020.

During Friday’s session, Goose Island Brewhouse provided five craft beers for tasting: Life is Bittersweet Sour, Funky Magic, Dark Dark Goose, Dongchimi Gose and Patbingsu Brown Ale. The five different craft beers all provided unique and different tastes and mouth feel, with some easier to swallow and some harder.

From left, Life is Bittersweet Sour, Funky Magic, Dark Dark Goose, Dongchimi Gose and Brown Ale beers are served at the Goose Island Brewhouse in Gangnam District, southern Seoul. [CHO YONG-JUN]

Life is Bittersweet Sour, featuring Buddha’s hand, ginger and honey, had a pleasant sour taste with a hint of ginger flavoring to create an overall light body. The citrus, native to China and Japan, is sourced from the only farmhouse in Korea that harvests the fruit, in Yeosu. Lee said he began making the Life is Bittersweet Sour because he likes lemonade and other sour drinks.

Similarly, Funky Magic used Korea’s local Cheongsu grape to create a wine-like beer. The beverage had a distinctly more soda-pop and a bitter-tasting finish.

Dark Dark Goose is a dark lager, poured in a similar fashion to Guinness. But unlike the Irish mainstay, it had Hallabong flakes added to the drink, which can be felt when drinking the beer.

But the real star of the show, the one that may receive a polarized reception from many, was the Dongchimi Gose. Featuring unorthodox ingredients such as radish, garlic, ginger, large green onion, chili pepper and pear, the beer is supposed to feel like drinking a dongchimi soup, made with a type of radish kimchi.

And it sure did. The drink felt less like an alcoholic beverage and more like actual dongchimi. The pièce de résistance, however, was the pairing menu's complementary dish: actual dongchimi kimchi, which was decorated like a lime on top of a margarita.

The Patbingsu Brown Ale was a drink that was designed to be paired with a cup of Patbingsu in the summer. Using red beans as an ingredient, the brown ale had a relatively thick body and bitter flavor, which paired well with a sweet cup of bingsu.

Different pairing foods are served at the Goose Island Brewhouse in Gangnam District, southern Seoul. [CHO YONG-JUN]

“Creating and developing new craft beer types take a minimum of six months to three full years, depending on their concept and the type of ingredients mixed,” Lee told the Korea JoongAng Daily, adding that beers with added grain, fruit or different kinds of spice would take six months, while “experimental beers” would take up to three years.

“Craft beers mixed with wine, makgeolli [Korean rice wine], or featuring never-used-before ingredients — like dongchimi and vegetables — require me to engage in a study of the ingredient matter,” he said. “For the Dongchimi Gose, I had to start from learning about how kimchi was fermented.”

Dongchimi Gose and Patbingsu Brown Ale will hit the market in June, while Funky Magic is set to be released in July. Lee also said he was developing beers with blood plums, a Jinju native wheat and pine knots, expected to be released later this year.

BY CHO YONG-JUN [[email protected]]