CHUNCHEON — Walking from Namchuncheon Station on the Gyeongchun Line toward the downtown area, a steeple painted blue and yellow catches the eye. Its shape reaching into the sky is unmistakably that of a church, but opening the door reveals a space where beer is brewed and guests are served. This is the brewery and taproom of Gamja Island, a craft beer brand based in Chuncheon. Gamja Island bought the building — which had housed a church for more than 30 years and faced neglect after the congregation relocated — and turned it into a local landmark. The blue represents the pristine nature of Gangwon State, while the yellow stands for fresh beer and potatoes.
Kim Kyu-hyun, co-CEO of Gamja Island, met with The Seoul Economic Daily here on the 29th and said the goal is to become a beer brand that represents Chuncheon and Gangwon State, much as Orion does for Okinawa, Japan, and Guinness does for Dublin, Ireland. "We are engaged in many activities within Gangwon State because we want to be a company that puts down firm roots in the region," Kim said.
Gamja Island brews craft beer by replacing part of the barley malt with potato starch. The company was founded in 2020 by Kim and co-CEO Ahn Hong-jun, who studied German language and literature together at Kangwon National University as upperclassman and underclassman. It began with a university entrepreneurship course the two took together in 2019.
"We started from the idea that it would be fun to make 'potato beer,' since Germany means beer and Gangwon State means potatoes," Ahn said. "That year there was a bumper potato crop, and an unusually large volume was being discarded simply because the potatoes were small or misshapen." The COVID-19 pandemic made securing sales channels even more urgent for farmers. In March 2020, then-Gangwon Governor Choi Moon-soon appeared on television himself to help sell potatoes.
The idea of brewing beer with local produce won recognition at startup competitions and through government support programs. The two co-CEOs raised 150 million won in initial funding through them and opened their first location in Chuncheon's Udu-dong in 2021. Turning the idea into a product and a storefront was not easy. "There are few cases of commercializing potato beer even overseas, so developing the recipe and setting up the equipment was especially difficult," Kim said. "For the first location, we did everything ourselves, from demolition to the wiring, plumbing and painting."
The current strategy of focusing on Chuncheon and Gangwon State was not firmly set from the start. As recently as the first half of last year, the company operated four locations, including one in Seoul. Now it concentrates its resources on a single site — Gamja Island Chuncheon, the converted church.
"We went into Seoul with the idea of making potato beer known nationwide, but there were limits to building a brand identity that way," Ahn said. "We concluded that craft beer, which aims for distinctiveness and variety, can only become powerful when it is loved in its own region first, so we made the change last year." Rather than raising name recognition by adding locations, the company put its weight behind creating a space and a brand that give people a reason to come to Chuncheon.
The purchase of the church building came around that time. A congregation weighing relocation because of declining membership and a company looking to establish a regional base found their needs aligned. Still, there was opposition to converting a church into a place that sells alcohol. "Some members of the congregation objected, asking whether we really intended to sell alcohol in a place that had been a church, but we persuaded them by explaining Gamja Island's region-based philosophy and Europe's monastery beer tradition," Kim said.
The renovated site opened last October with a brewery on the first floor and a restaurant on the second, where customers enjoy beer alongside food. The company says monthly visitors number 6,000 to 7,000. It recently completed additional construction and opened the third floor, which will serve as restaurant space and a venue for local exchange.
"Rather than a simple restaurant, we hope it becomes a 'hub space' where people can experience Gamja Island and, more broadly, Chuncheon's local brands," Kim said. "The third floor in particular will be lent free of charge to creators from other regions from time to time, for events such as one-day classes and pop-ups."
Six years after its founding, Gamja Island has grown into a company with 15 employees. Annual revenue is approaching 3 billion won. Its main sources of income are running the brewery and restaurant and supplying beer to markets, restaurants and department stores in Gangwon State.
The company plans to use the foundation it has built in Chuncheon as a springboard for overseas expansion. Gamja Island began exporting to China last year and intends to carry the brand character it developed locally into foreign markets. "In the long term, the goal is to connect domestic demand and exports," Ahn said. "We will establish ourselves firmly in Chuncheon so that we are consumed in overseas markets as 'the most famous beer from a Korean region.'"
