The Great Korean Beer Festival on Halloween
It was that time of year again. Honestly I miss all of the festivities surrounding Halloween back at home in the United States. The costumes, activities, themed parties, food, and decorations were awesome. Even the workplace would get into it if you were lucky. Sometimes it is challenging to find places to celebrate in Korea because usually the only areas with lots of foreigners will be aware of what Halloween even is.
In Seoul, there are only a few places where it is acceptable to dress up in Halloween costumes and make-up during this time of year. Those places are Hongdae and Itaewon. Usually there are some themed pub crawls where expats and natives can join in, dress up, drink, and bar hop from place to place. The weather had been really cold for the past two years and I spent the last two either warmly dressed without a costume or bundled up inside watching horror movies and doing a low key type of night. This year I wanted to try to dress up, while being comfortable and warm.
Luckily on a past trip to Japan, I had purchased a cartoon dog onesie costume that came in handy. Why a dog costume? One random day, I was trying to view a sticker set in the Kakao Talks store, I accidentally bought a package of Kakao talk stickers of a character called Pompurin. Since I had already purchased it, I started to use it and it eventually started to grow on me. I ended up buying the costume. On the plus side, it was a cooler version of a snuggy, which made it great for the winter time in my apt.
Halloween was the perfect opportunity. I needed something that was comfortable, warm, and that could pass for a costume. My girlfriend bought a similar bear onesie, so we were ready to go. After going to the previous Great Korean Beer Festivals, we were walking around and a lot of people were asking us to take pictures with them. Some of the weren't even dressed up. Halloween is known by some, but most are reluctant to fully embrace it. It's kind of fun for the ones who do because sometimes natives think Halloween costumes are just witch hats or bat-patterned dresses. It's cool to see events like this where people can learn about it more and drink some decent craft beer, which is usually hard to find.
After walking around, there were several food trucks and businesses that were catering the event. Though the prices were a bit high for the portions of the food, I couldn't complain much. A craft beer in Korea will run you about 6-14,000 won and there are some that aren't very good. Fortunately there were several breweries present. I'm a fan of IPAs and Stouts and they had some pretty cool ones. Check out the list of breweries below!
Andong Brewing, Brewery 304, Budnamu Brewery, Galmegi Brewing Co, Gorilla Brewing, Hop More Brewing, Kabrew, Ark Craft Brewery, Levee Brewing Company, Magpie Brewing Co, Playground Brewery, Hand and Malt Brewing Company, Ranch Brewing Company, The Table Brewing Company, Wild Wave Brewing Company, Brooklyn Brewery, Czech Beer, and Goose Island.
