A rice wine that predates most of Korea's written history is now fermenting on Chicago's Near West Side. Yido Brews, founded by Chicago-area native Peter Chung, is producing makgeolli, an unfiltered rice wine naturally fermented with a starter culture, and the business just became its founder's full-time job.
Makgeolli is widely considered Korea's oldest alcoholic drink, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. Chung was born and raised in the Chicago area but spent a year in Seoul from 2018 to 2019 for a postgraduate fellowship, where he discovered and fell in love with the drink's taste, per the same report. He has said he decided to pursue makgeolli brewing in Chicago because no one else in the city was doing it.
The brewing process itself is deceptively simple on paper. Steamed rice is added to water along with nuruk, the natural starter culture that drives fermentation, and the mixture is left to ferment, the Sun-Times report notes. The final result, however, depends heavily on temperature, ingredient ratios, and exactly how the rice is steamed and cooled, variables that took Chung years to master.
Years of Trial, Error and Zoom-Call Brewing
After returning to Chicago, Chung started experimenting with makgeolli at home, and the early going was rough. His first batches sometimes came out solvent-like, bitter or sour, according to the Sun-Times account, and he reportedly brewed rice during Zoom meetings while holding down a day job. It took about three years of experimentation before he could consistently produce what he considered a good batch.
That day job was as a coordinator for Sierra Club Illinois, a position Chung left this month to run Yido full time, the Sun-Times reports. The leap followed a slower build: Chung obtained the physical space for the business in July, then spent weeks waterproofing the floors and securing the proper licenses before production could begin.
Yido's name is a shortened form of a Korean phrase meaning “second city,” a nod to Chicago itself. The brewery's flagship product, White Tiger makgeolli, is described as slightly sweet with a nice milkiness, without being too heavy, Chung told the Sun-Times. Makgeolli broadly carries a creamy, tart and sweet flavor profile with fruity notes, and in Korean tradition it is often paired with pajeon, or scallion pancakes, on rainy days.
From Supermarket Shelf to Self-Made Brewery
Chung's path to brewing was partly born of frustration. He had been buying makgeolli at chain supermarkets because no locally brewed options existed in Chicago, but he was disappointed by the artificially sweetened versions on offer, telling the Sun-Times that store-bought bottles often contained aspartame and sucralose. On its own Substack newsletter, Yido describes itself as Chicago's first rice winery and says the operation spent nearly five years as a homebrewing project before becoming an actual business.
Yido's makgeolli is currently available for purchase at retailers around Chicago. Chung has said he eventually hopes to open a brewpub that would double as a community gathering space, extending beyond retail shelves to in-person pours.
Chicago Joins a Small but Growing American Field
Yido enters a national field that remains niche but is expanding. In 2020, Hana Makgeolli opened in New York City and was, at the time, the only commercial makgeolli brewery in the United States, per the Sun-Times. Since then, a handful of others have opened across the country, including in California, Maryland and Washington.
Chicago has history with the drink, too. In 2013, Slow City in Niles was called the first makgeolli maker in the Western Hemisphere, but it has since closed, according to the Sun-Times report. The drink remains relatively obscure in the U.S. overall, though interest has grown, something Eater has tracked alongside the rise of New York-based producers Hana Makgeolli and Sool, which Craft Beer & Brewing credits with sparking broader interest in the American craft-beverage scene.
By comparison, South Korea remains the drink's epicenter, with more than 760 licensed breweries producing over 2,000 varieties, the Sun-Times reports. The Chicago Reader counted at least eight commercial craft makgeolli breweries operating coast to coast in the U.S., including newer entrants like Columbia, Maryland's JS Brewery, which opened in August 2025 producing fresh, unpasteurized makgeolli, and Los Angeles's Angma Distillery and Brewery, founded by David Faulk, whose makgeolli won gold at the 2022 LA Spirits Awards. For now, Yido's White Tiger is Chicago's entry into that still-small club, brewed a few steamed-rice batches at a time on the Near West Side.
