McDonald's will bring beer to Asia starting with South Korea

IMAGE: DANIEL GRILL/TETRA IMAGES/CORBIS

BY VICTORIA HOSINGAPORE2 HOURS AGO

McDonald's plans to open a "premium" outlet in South Korea that will serve draft beer — a first for Asia.

The new outlet will open next week on Monday in Seongnam city in the Gyeonggi province, a satellite city to the capital Seoul, reported the Chosun Ilbo.

The restaurant will be able to hold 90 people, and if the concept works, McDonald's says it will open similar premium stores in Seoul's fashionable Gangnam and Sinchon districts.

South Korea may have been a good choice to kick off McDonald's alcohol aspirations in the region, seeing as its people drink twice as much liquorper capita than the next country.

As the most alcohol-hungry country in the world, South Koreas drink 13.7 shots of liquor per week on average, and Russia in second place drinks 6.3 shots per week, according to Euromonitor.

While the introduction of alcohol to a fast food outlet is new to McDonald's in Asia, competing chain Burger King already tried this in Singapore back in 2009 with a similar upscale outlet it called the Whopper Bar.

Burger King had plans to bring the Whopper Bar to other Asian countries if the Singapore pilot did well, but it shut the outlet here about a year later and didn't carry the concept to the rest of the region.

McDonald's has been stepping up its efforts to climb up the food chain, especially in Asian cities where the brand enjoys loyalty from a young audience. This has led to the introduction of truffle fries in Singapore and salad bars in upmarket settings in Hong Kong.

McDonald's first started serving beer in Germany in 1971, and serves alcohol in outlets in France and Spain, but hasn't introduced this to countries like the U.K. or U.S.