At the Mansugyo Beer Bar if nowhere else, North Koreans have consumer choice: seven choices, actually. And, unlike in England, there’s no need to pre-decipher what the Old Speckled Brew Oil on offer might actually taste like. 

Taedonggang, the state-owned brewery, has a simpler system. It helpfully differentiates what’s on tap by number, according to its strength and barley to rice ratio – Two is a crisp German-style pilsner, for example, while Six and Seven are British-style porters. Porters, in North Korea? The UK brews might seem incongruous at first – until you consider the fact that this North Korean brewery was, rather bizarrely, shipped brick by brick from Wiltshire. 

In late 2019, as a result of a half-joke in a Twin Peaks themed-bar in Berlin that got out of hand, I found myself on holiday at the Mansugyo about to watch a former member of the Korean People’s Army be treated to his first blast of Taylor Swift’s “We Are Never Getting Back Together” via the iPhone of a 22-year-old German backpacker. 

Until that point of the trip, the relationship between the Korean guides and our tour group had been akin to a parent and a curious but irritating child. 

“What does that mean?” or “but why?” we would jabber at our patient minders from the back of the bus every time we passed some slogan or monument. “Economic self-reliance” or “single-hearted unity” they would politely mutter in response. Much of a North Korean tour, incidentally, takes place in the bus, shuttled as you are to and from the bright lights of Pyongyang or the hotspots of Kangwon province.

And an odd bunch we were. Among the group were Baby Boomers who, 20-30 years into a final salary pension-funded retirement, had simply run out of other places to visit. There was also a recently divorced Welsh Buddhist, some mid-30s TEFL lost-boys, a few gap year kids and a London bus driver. And then me of course, and two long-time friends, Reiss and Adam, the three of us in our early 20s, who were to be christened “The Boyband”. 

Strangers in the strangest of lands, and prevented from stepping out of the sight of our allocated Koreans under threat of arrest and possible death, we all quickly became uniformly deferential. We reservedly nodded our heads, we went to bed on time, and we said the vinegary cold-noodle soup was “delicious, actually”. 

On the second or third night, instead of heading straight back to the hotel, our guides announced we would go to the aforementioned local beer bar.  

It was bright, spotlessly clean, and had no tables or chairs. Koreans drink standing up, eating dried fish. Fish as a drinking snack of choice is not unique to Korea. Russians have it too, but in bite-sized, crisp packet form, which feels like the height of urbanity after watching a Korean smack a brittle, trout-sized monster of a thing on the beer shelf and scatter the pieces to his friends. 

But alcohol’s great redemptive feature is its egalitarianism. It gets everyone drunk (although some more drunk than others). This is a levelling quality I now know to be true after Kim (one of the guides and no relation to the boss, I was told), three or four glasses of Five or Six down, announced to me with a grin: 

“Daniel, I just don’t think Brexit was a good idea.”

Well, I never! Especially with all the guff on economic self-reliance. Telegraph readers, I would have liked nothing more than to report that there was some link between the Remain campaign and the North Korean state. But, alas, no. Kim – who stood proudly before me with a Kim Jong-un pin on his lapel – did not really have strong convictions on either Nigel Farage or the Gina Miller case. 

As we continued our increasingly inebriated discussion, I realised Kim was doing what men and women all over the world ordinarily use conversation for: status signalling. And I adored him for it. 

In throwing around the buzzwords of British 2016 politics, he was transmitting that he was an educated, informed individual just like any other. In response, I could feel myself attempting to not look an idiot, either. 

As we know, from business meetings to dates, covert communication is much more human than overt. If he’d have asked me straight, in the muted, state-edict like manner of the bus, we’d have got nowhere. But now, some of that cavernous gulf of ideology between us had started to narrow. 

This seemed to be happening for the others, too. One of the lost-boys had taken an interest in one of our female guides, who was also called Kim (and also no relation to the men of the statues). Despite being reminded that, should he be successful in his endeavour, he would not likely leave the country alive, he was undeterred. 

And then “The Boyband” was called over. The former soldier had removed the headphones the German backpacker had foisted on him and was about to give his verdict on one of the best-selling artists in the Western world. 

“No,” he grumbled, shaking his head. 

Apparently, Taylor Swift was one step too far. 

The FCDO advises against all but essential travel to North Korea. For more information, see