Meet Sang Soo Bae | Brewer & CEO

We had the good fortune of connecting with Sang Soo Bae and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Sang Soo, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
Brewing is our family business. It always has been my ultimate goal to become a brewer. Our family has committed our lives for the last 100 years throughout the four generations. My dream was to globalize Korean hazy rice wine called makgeolli and make it well-known by people in the world.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
We are Newwave Brewing Co, currently a Korean alcohol company. Our brewery descends the 100 years of legacy of Bae family’s brewing technology and know-how’s. Throughout the 4 generations, Bae Family committed their entire lives to rebuilding the Korean alcohol culture eliminated under the Japanese colonial regime.

Our team is here to spread makgeolli and Korean alcohol worldwide. This is our mission.

And the first step we had to take was of course America. The American dream never dies in my opinion. It’s been only slightly more than a year since we started. But there were fairly a lot of challenges. The biggest problem was the short shelf-life of three months because business customers hesitated to supply ours due to the short life. I once thought about sacrificing the quality and taste and increasing the shelf-life to increase financial and systematic efficiency. Yet, we believe serving fresh and authentic is our key brand identity. We did not give up and stuck to better taste and short shelf-life, because that’s the authentic Korean way of drinking makgeolli. Now, we penetrated Korean supermarkets including Zion Market and Hannam Chain. and lots of restaurants in Koreatown. Customers love us since we are distinguished from other regular market players.

We believe this is the beginning of the beginning, and we will keep trying as hard as we can to serve authentic and fresh throughout the world.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Well, our brewery is located in the northern part of San Diego County. if our best friends were coming over, we always took them to Torrey Pines Golf Course. Even if you don’t play golf, you can enjoy its amazing scenic view. If you play golf, it’s even more amazing. You could always go to La Jolla Cove and Shore to watch sea lions taking a nap. You can also have a fish Sandwich from El Pescador Fish Market.

If you are bored with tranquility in the Northern Part of San Diego, you can always the Southern part of San Diego, where I don’t particularly need to mention how fun it is.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
A party that I would like to shout out is a Korean gastropub located in Koreatown called Dwitgolmok,

So the time was when I went off for sales activity for the first time in my life. I was scared of being rejected by bars and restaurant owners. Unsurprisingly, I was rejected by many of them. After going around about 10 shops, I was frustrated and had no energy to go further.

Then I had to hit the last spot which Dwitgolmok. This is one of the iconic Koreatown gastropubs, and I heard that unpopular or newly launched alcohol products tend to get rejected most of the time. So I

I gave some samples and explained the features and left.

And that day, I passed out right after I got home. The next day, I woke up looking at a text to my phone from Dwitgolmok to order our makgeolli. And till this day, they are the biggest customer among restaurants and great friends.

Website: https://www.ssangmak.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sangmakgeolli