Dispatches by John P. Gamboa

Ever since I’ve been in Korea I’ve talked about homebrewing my own beer. This need has been exacerbated by the very terrible lagers like Cass, Hite and OB that I’ve been putting up with for four months, as you have seen in previous posts.

I’ve been wanting to brew a batch of IPAs or pale ales, but I never actually got started because, to be honest, I have no idea what I’m doing.  I’ve bought a few pieces of equipment, joined the Hombrew Korea forums, but I don’t know where to start.

I haven’t done it sooner because most of my fix for good beer since I’ve been here have been bottles of Arrogant Bastard Ale, Green Flash Imperial IPA and Alesmith Speedway Stout brought from America by me and a friend. That, and the decent Alley Kate Full Moon Pale Ale which is sprinkled around Seoul have been keeping me from complaining too much.

Enough is enough.

That’s why next Thursday I’m going to Booze Bros. Homebrewing Class and Beer Tasting in Gangnam in southeastern Seoul (Check the link for info on cost, location and time):

Are you tired of the beer in Korea? I know I was when I started home-brewing more than a year ago. Since then, I’ve made a variety of stouts (espresso, chocolate, etc), ales (IPAs and pale ales), and even a mushroom beer! Variety is indeed the spice of life.

“Wait, wait, wait.”, you maybe saying. “Homebrewing in Korea?” Yes! Not only is it possible, but there’s a slow-growing explosion in the number of homebrewers here and the ingredients and tools available. However, Korea’s homebrewing scene is extremely new.

That’s why we’ve started this class with Daniel Gray’s O’ngo Cooking Studio in Gangnam. Not only will we teach you how to brew your own fine concoctions, we’ll be giving you the tips and tricks you need to brew successfully in Korea, where improvisation is the name of the game. The class will be held at the O’ngo cooking studio near Gangnam-Gu Office station, exit 2 on June 24th, at 7:30 PM…for 55,000 won.

Why should I brew, you ask? If you haven’t noticed, I like beer a lot.  Back in San Diego I spent most my free evenings at beer bars like Hamilton’s Tavern, Small Bar and the Blind Lady Alehouse. I even wrote an article on San Diego Beer Week and the beer scene in San Diego for my last article at the Daily Aztec.

I even took an empty bottle of Arrogant Bastard Ale with me to China and have a picture of it in front of Chairman Mao.

But what really made me want to Homebrew was seeing  Anat Baron‘s documentary, “Beer Wars,” which highlighted the problems with the American beer culture up until the craft/home brew movement in the early 1990s.

That’s exactly the situation Korea is in. There are a handful of brewpubs like Castle Praha and Platinum around Seoul, but their beer styles are limited as is their clientèle.  That could be changing. It’s ripe enough for its own post sometime later. I want my taste buds to be assaulting with hops. I want beer with as much kick as a bottle of soju and flavor beyond bitter yellow water.  So, let’s see how it all goes…

If you notice on the bottom right-side column of my site there’s a box that says “Ask Me Anything.” It’s from this site called formspring.me, which is a mix of Twitter and old school anonymous question and answer.

I figured I should promote it because I’ve been getting a lot of questions from people lately about teaching English in Korea.

While answering these emails and Facebook messages is not a burden in any shape or form (in fact, I encourage it), sometimes I feel like I get similar open-ended questions about my experience out here. So, if I answered some of the most common and put them online, everyone would benefit. Sort of like a teaching experience wiki.

So far, I haven’t posted any of my answers because  I’ve only answered two questions (both of which were suggested by formspring.me):

If you could only listen to one song for the next month, which would it be?

Sorrow by The National, off their new album “High Violet.” (Listen by clicking the song title)

So, why don’t you scroll down, ask me some questions so everyone can benefit?

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So my advanced 9th grade students have a speaking test next week. That means this week I am having them practice on their skills. Most of them are finally understanding what they are actually saying when they speak. Others, not so much.

These two boys need to practice more so they can really understand what they meant.

Jiho: Hello, Jinho. How are you today?
Jinho: I am very boring. What about you?
Jiho: I’m very wonderful. What do you think about World Cup in South Africa?
Jinho: I think South Africa is very scary. However, I do think it can be very fun at times.
Jiho: I agree, I feel the same way about North Korea.

The students were supposed to talk about something they enjoy like shopping or playing computer games. They tried to go above an beyond and it just didn’t make sense. Such as  ”I think shopping is boring. However, I do think it can be very fun at times. ” The next kid would say something like “I agree, I feel the same way about fishing.“

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A guy named Erik over at the Homebrew Korea Forums made this awesome map with Google a little while ago. It shows the locations of all the places to find good beer in Seoul. Places like Beer O’Clock, Rocky Mountain Tavern, etc.

The reason this exists is because beer in Korea isn’t that great. Most of the beers in the map are microbrews or the imported Canadian Alley Kat Pale Ale. Alley Kat is probably as good as beer you can get in Seoul without spending a helluva lot of money.

The blue icons are locations for homebrew equipment and supplies and the yellow icons are for places to find good beer. I’ll likely devote a post a little later on the available types of beer in Korea. Stay tuned!

View Seoul Beer in a larger map

Let me first preface by saying that I know almost next to nothing about fashion. Yes, I can pick the right clothes that work well for me and so on, but I don’t know anything about designers, models, seasons and all that jazz.

Last week I posted a photo on Twitter and Facebook of what appeared to be a “Konglish” Marc Jacobs jacket.  After getting an array of comments on the photo describing said jacket’s hilarity, I just wrote it off as some ridiculous Konglish that a kid wore and had no idea what it meant.

The jacket read: “Jacobs by Marc Jacobs for Marc by Marc Jacobs. In collaboration with Marc Jacobs for Marc by Marc Jacobs.”

I figured that Marc Jacobs’ name was written just for fun. Oh how I was wrong.

My sister, Chrissy, pointed out that she had a tote bag just like it.  I did some research and discovered that indeed, the same logo has been used -redundancy intact- on a fairly-inexpensive real Marc Jacobs  canvas bag.

Oh, I thought, maybe they just ripped off the logo like so many shirt printers do in Thailand with Threadless  t-shirts (check out a great photo here.)

It turns out that Marc Jacobs has a wry sense of humor when it comes to his diffusion line name. The synthesis from all the blogs I’ve seen point to the fact that he is being ironic and essentially making fun of the people who buy his stuff for his name only. “Want my name on my stuff? Have it a million times!”

The best example, as seen in Racked NY, a New York fashion blog, is a fairly cheap-looking Marc Jacobs wallet that squeezes that entire logo onto a small wallet. Some of the text is almost unintelligible. This isn’t a knock-off, but an actual Marc by Marc Jacobs Accessories store product.  One commenter noted, “Essentially, he’s knocked off himself. And he’s making fun of the people who are buying it, while taking their money. Genius!”

Now, this is where it comes down to hypothesizing the jacket’s origin. The jacket the kid was wearing was pretty flimsy-looking. I’ve seen knock-off Dodgers jackets of the same caliber at my school. So it boils down to these possibilities:

1. An Actual Marc Jacobs Jacket: This kid is wearing an actual Marc Jacobs jacket and the designer continues to be ironic. However, I haven’t been able to find it anywhere else online.

2. Knock-off Unaware of Irony: Knock-offs in Korea are not as prevalent as in China or Thailand, but they do exist. They don’t necessarily purport to be copies, but rather products as a result of “inspiration.” Essentially, this jacket is a knock-off of something that is supposed to be like a knock-off, but is really not.

Why does any of this matter? I’m not sure. I have a bit of time to kill this afternoon.

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