Ale Tasting - Taedong Bitter
An irregular series focusing on Ales and Beers from around the world...
Taedong Bitter. Not a name that immediately comes to mind when thinking of quenching your thirst. It’s a brew from behind the bamboo curtain. Taedong Bitter; the working man's drink of North Korea!
And here it was in my sweaty palm. Now, being of an open mind, and always ready to do my bit for XenoxNews.com, I was willing to crack it open. I wanted to try it so you, the longsuffering XenoxNews.com reader, wouldn’t have to drink it first without knowing if it was going to kill you or not.
Straight from the Workers Paradise to you... Taedong Bitter
Well, after the top was removed the bottle opened fresh and clean. The poured head was frothy and compliant. On first taste it excited the palate with the crackle and fizz of an AK-47 aimed squarely at some Yankee’s fat arse. The tingle as it when down the throat had me thinking of my time in Pyongyang; or more precisely, with that female traffic warden in Pyongyang.
I must admit I was rather impressed by my first taste of this godforsaken bitter; for though it had the aroma of a stale bun, its flavour buds were rather enhancing!
The flame of re-unification burns bright in this bottle of piss!
After my first glass I started to not only re-adjust my feelings about North Korean beer, but also about the North Korean people themselves. I was overcome by feelings towards them; their struggles against the evil and wily capitalist chaebols of Seoul, the cruel and inhumane boycott by the US, and their overwhelming love for Dear leader Kim Jong-Il...
Why were the people of North Korea being punished for the sins of the West I thought…
After I opened my second bottle of this hardy brew I found myself being amazed by the latest tomato harvest figures of the Pyongyang regime. Maybe that crackpot Kim Il-Jong had really founded a Xanadu for the worker; an egalitarian paradise for the common man and woman.
And besides the Moonies hated them so they mustn’t be all bad!
Sucking more Taedong down I imagined the day when with rifle in hand the people of the North would swarm the border and finally liberate the South from their American and Japanese oppressors...
No wonder Pyongyang needed the atomic bomb; they were being crushed on all sides!
More bottles followed. We were toasting long life for Dear Leader and his five wives! It was a congress of like minds; all eager to bring about the workers revolution, in all the world!
What a brew it was; like a magical elixir that had you embracing class struggle with a new fervour.
Did you know this was Che Guevara's favourite drink?
When I awoke I was face down in a Tottenham gutter. The revolution, it seemed, had begun.
And all because of Taedong Bitter.
So get down to your local bottle-o and do yourself a favour.
Taedong Bitter, the choice of working class champions!
