Malt & Grain

Most Korean mass-market beers are brewed with malt plus additions of rice, corn, or tapioca, a starch derived from cassava root. Brewers call such additions adjuncts. They make the beer lighter, paler in flavor, and drier than a pure barley beer. Rice suits a country where it has been cultivated for centuries. Part of the grain dissolves into the wort without leaving much flavor of its own.

Malt forms when barley germinates in water and is then dried in a kiln. The kiln is an oven that draws water out of the sprouted grain and sets its color. For pale lagers, brewers use gently kilned Pilsner malt with a color of just a few EBC, a unit used to measure beer color.

According to reports, only two mass-market beers are brewed entirely from barley malt: Max from Hite and OB Golden Lager. Both are therefore considered the maltier, fuller representatives of the style. Cass Fresh, by contrast, is described by tasters as a sweetish beer with a clean finish, typical of a lager made with adjuncts.

A distinctly Korean variation is rice beer. One study examined beers made with around 30 percent rice, using varieties such as Samgwang and Hangaru. The starch in rice must be converted into sugar before fermentation, and malt supplies the enzymes needed for that.

Craft brewers, on the other hand, blend several types of malt, including darker-kilned ones. The result is beers ranging from amber to black with roasted notes, which have little in common with the pale lager from the supermarket.