North Korea's Taedonggang Beer Launches First Ever Beer Commercial On State TV (VIDEO)

In a tacit gesture towards capitalism, North Korea has released its first ever beer commercial on state television for the locally-brewed Taedonggang beer company, the BBC reports. The beer is called the "Pride of Pyongyang and it promises to relax drinkers and become a North Korean staple."

Watch:

According to the BBC report, North Korea's leader Kim Jong Il visited the factory in 2002 and has since become rather attached to it:

"Watching good quality beer coming out in an uninterrupted flow for a long while, he noted with great pleasure that it has now become possible to supply more fresh beer to people in all seasons," North Korea's state news agency, KCNA, said after he visited the brewery in 2002.

Based on reader responses solicited by the BBC, Taedonggang is actually a tasty beer, though it is described as heavy and "cloudy".

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Comments

[sportwarrior]

I want this exact ad run in english, in its entirety, all over the US. Then we can see what REAL beer ads are like.

[DXM]

So? How many North Koreans are going to even see this ad? Not many can afford a television and there are lots of power outages so you can't watch even if you have one. And how many North Koreans even have the money to buy beer? Vast swaths of the population are at or even below starvation-level rations.

[freethinking moderate]

I so want to insult this beer, but I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out ot be better than Budweiser/Coors/Miller/Corona and the other flavored water favored by so many Americans.

[Weirdwriter]

Perhaps the government figures if it can keep is people drunk they won't mind so much that they are starving.

[posttheist]

They could use those grains to feed its people!! On the plus side, if more and more people drink beer there, perhaps the wheels of change could get greased up a little more and people might start to talk about their situation...