RESTAURANT OF THE WEEK Ex-GI becomes Pyeongtaek's 'beer man'
Mike Aptaker, founder of Nōm Beer Co. / Courtesy of Kevin Grabb
PYEONGTAEK, Gyeonggi Province — There are fewer more beautiful things than when passion meets expertise and it results in something tangible and real. A good example is the massive fridge at Nōm Beer Co. in Pyeongtaek's Anjeong-ri. It hosts Korea’s largest selection of domestic craft beer and it’s truly impressive: 100 cans and bottles and an impressive 20 taps.
The man behind this buffet of boozy beverages? Mike Aptaker. Mike’s been around and he’s done quite a number of interesting and important things. Currently, he resides in Pyeongtaek and works in the craft beer industry. But this wasn’t always the case. His residency in Pyeongtaek is not a coincidence and it unsurprisingly started with much of his childhood spent in Korea as a “military brat,” followed by a career of his own in the U.S. military.
Mike was born in 1980 at Seoul's U.S. Army Garrison (USAG) Yongsan to an American father and Korean mother. Mike spent some of his childhood in the U.S. state of Washington, but his most formative years were in Seoul from the ages of 1 to 5 and 9 to 17. It’s no wonder he considered both the U.S. and Korea his homes. He recalls the joys of growing up in Korea, where it was safe for him to roam around Seoul via subway and ride his skateboard throughout the city with his friends. Mike was excited to be in Seoul when K-pop was first introduced to the masses and the country was starting to be internationally “cool.”
Mike graduated as a political science major in 2003 at the University of Washington in Seattle. This year marked the ramping up of the war in Iraq and the country had already been in Afghanistan a few years. 9/11 had affected him quite a bit and as a Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) student, he was ready to serve as a U.S. Army officer, which took him to many locations, such as Iraq, Afghanistan, throughout Europe and eventually back to Korea, where it all began. A whole other article could be written on Mike’s military career but we do, in fact, need to get to his current situation as Pyeongtaek’s “Beer Man.”
The beer fridge at Nōm Beer Co. / Courtesy of Kevin Grabb
Mike was stationed in Korea in 2017 but it wasn’t until the COVID lockdowns in 2020 that he found his passion. During lockdown, troops could only fraternize with family members. As luck would have it, Mike’s cousin, an enlisted Korean American GI, was also at USAG Humphreys. It was his cousin that introduced him to the joys of craft beer. “IPAs were too bitter for me then, but I’d drink anything new that I could.” Under the haze and joy of a can of American beer, the two would make grand proclamations, “We should start a brewery!”
Author’s note: Every beer dork has said this at some point. While it rarely happens, Mike made this a serious mission.
“Every time we’d drink, we’d plan a little more,” Mike bought his cousin a homebrew kit for Christmas and they ended up making a cream ale. “I got obsessed with the process and wanted to brew many more.” Hilariously, Mike ended up keeping the kit himself.
Mike had been on base a long time, knew many people and wanted to do more. This led to the creation of the Facebook group The Pyeongtaek Craft Beer Society. At time of writing, it has 1,118 members. It is a place where people can share their Korean beer adventures in English, with photos of beers, recommendations for breweries and bars to visit and tales of their own homebrewing adventures.
This group also led to Mike involving himself with charity work, creating an event to raise 2 million won for a local animal shelter, Homeward Bound Osan. “The group was growing and I knew the charity event would bring the group together,” he said. Members brought their dogs, walked a set course down Anseong River and finished at a kegerator full of Jeonju’s Nomadic Brewing beers.
The first seed of Nom Beer Co. was born here: “I could serve beer for a living!” A brewery was in his mind, but he needed an intermediate step between a Facebook group and a functioning brewery. He was still in the military at this time, so Mike wanted to create a pub outside USAG Humphreys that showcased his American and Korean sides — a meshing of cultures, American craft beer culture through a Korean production lens.
A great example of this is a minhwa painting that Mike commissioned from a local tattoo artist. The style is undeniably Korean but there, beside the tiger, is a sasquatch, a nod to his Washington roots.
Art at Nōm Beer Co. shows typical animals for Korean minhwa paintings, with a sasquatch representing the U.S. Courtesy of Nōm Beer Co.
Mike partnered with Rich and Elly, two Korean Americans who owned another local bar named AWOL in Pyeongtaek. He used his Facebook group's following as the initial clientele and it grew from there.
“Pyeongtaek needed a place like this," he said. "We have a lot of U.S. style bars but we didn’t have bars for culture that represented locals. This was one of the first places to focus on craft beer and is a little more laid back. We created something different.”
To prepare for civilian life and opening a brewery, Mike enrolled in the UC Davis Master Brewer Certificate Program, which he finished just prior to military retirement. He also used a military program that allowed civilian companies to take GIs on as an unpaid interns, working at Fremont Brewing Company in Seattle. There, for four months, he learned every aspect of brewing, from cellaring, brewing, packaging and lab work, to even working in the brewpub as a bartender. Cycling to and from work, many days through Seattle’s infamous rain, he recalls it as “the best time of my life” and calls the job “much more blue collar than you’d expect.”
“It’s a very physical job and there’s lots of injuries, if you’re not careful, from chemical and steam burns, of which I have a few,” he claimed, rolling his shirt sleeve up to show me.
Mike Aptaker, founder of Nōm Beer Co. / Courtesy of Mike Aptaker
Mike returned to Korea to “retirement” after 20 years in the military and launched Laughing Tiger Brewing Co. At this point, it’s a “gypsy brewery” with the actual brewing taking place at The Table Brewery in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, under the supervision of Mike’s second in command, Talman Pradhan from Bhutan, whom Mike converted into a beer geek and professional brewer.
At the time of this interview, they have four beers available at Nom; a hazy pale ale, a witbier, a lager and a fruited sour. The latest news is that their collaboration, the Sunny Side New England IPA with Pyeongchang’s White Crow Brewery, won a gold medal at the Korea International Beer Awards in April.
A very good start to a promising new brewery and career, right here in the heart of American and Korean relations, right in the ville outside USAG Humphreys.
Follow @nombeerco on Instagram for more information.
Kevin Grabb is a Canadian homebrewer and YouTuber. His channel Korea Brewing Adventure covers Korean alcohol from production to consumption.