Craft Beer Enjoys Lockdown Bonanza
19 June, 2021
Demand for craft beer is going through the roof at convenience stores as more and more people drink in the home through the coronavirus pandemic. To meet up the soaring demand, microbreweries are contracting major players like OB Brewery and Lotte Chilsung to bottle their ales.
Jeju Beer Company has been listed on the junior Kosdaq, and today big players like OB Brewery are jumping on the bandwagon by rolling out their own quasi-craft beers.
A woman shops for beer in a convenience store on Tuesday.
Craft beer accounted for about three percent of the entire beer market in Korea in 2020. That might still be small, but the growth is phenomenal, increasing from W22.7 billion in 2015 to W118 billion this past year, up almost five times (US$1=W1,130).
In lockdown, more persons decided to enjoy themselves in the comfort of their homes and sample craft beers if they had nothing easier to do.
What started the boom was Gompyo Wheat Beer sold in CU convenience stores, and some 600,000 cans of Nordisk Camping Beer in GS25 convenience stores sold-out just two days after hitting shelves on June 10.
CU continues to provide services including dark Malpyo Squeeze Beer and Vienna Lager, both created by OB Brewery under its new Korea Brewers Collective label.
One marketing staffer at a brewery said, "Consumers within their 20s drank a whole lot at home and this drove up demand for craft beer in uniquely designed cans, and several posted the pictures on Instagram."
New alcohol taxes that went into effect in 2019 also played a job. In the past, taxes were levied on alcohol based on the manufacturing cost, so craft beer made in small batches was disproportionally expensive. However now they are levied based on volume, reducing a craft beer tax from W1,758 per liter to W1,343.
Regulations were also eased allowing one brewery to contract a different one for production, opening just how for microbreweries to mass-produce their products. Monthly sales of Gompyo Wheat Beer surged from 200,000 cans a month to three million cans in fourteen days after Lotte Chilsung took over production in April.
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