Daegu Chimac Festival: here is to beer and fried chicken.
Daegu by night.
I visited Korea in 2018 with a friend. Before sheet facemasks and korean skincare were a thing in the West, before K-Pop Demon Hunters was even in development, before BTS released “Dynamite”, before we ate Kimchi and corn dogs on the streets of London and before K-dramas took over streaming platforms (rightfully so). Before the K-wave splashed the world over in a tsunami of greatness.
I visited Korea at a time where I grossly under appreciated Korean culture. I did not listen to K-Pop, did not watch K-dramas, and quite frankly went to Korea because it was an alternative destination in Asia. Already back then everyone wanted to go to Japan but no one ever talked about Korea despite the Winter Olympics having been held in PyeongChang that same year.
Among the other amazing things South Korea has made known to the world, there is beer and fried chicken. During my trip to Korea, I stayed in Daegu for a couple of nights. I don’t really remember why we stopped there but upon arriving at the hostel, we met two other solo female travellers who told us about a festival happening in the evening.
The Daegu ChiMac Festival takes place every year in July. ChiMac is the combined word of Chi from chicken and Mac from Macju, meaning beer in Korean. Drinking beer with fried chicken is a unique drinking culture in Korea. I recently watched an epidose of Phantom Lawyer (K-drama) where the two main protagonists of the show go together drink beer and eat fried chicken. Daegu turned this into a nationwide five-day party for all to enjoy in the summer.
My first impression was to be completely and utterly bemused at what was displayed ahead of me. Here is mostly what I remember before the beer and heat took over the part of my brain used to catalogue memories.
We went in the late afternoon and there was already a lot of young people. There was this atmosphere so particular to how we enjoyed ourselves before the pandemic. As if we had been through very little yet and were enjoying ourselves a lot. I remember seeing people waterboarding down a slope, water guns being used to splash everyone and anyone (Korea gets very hot and humid in the summer). I remember a very wide esplanade where a giant stage had been held and atop it the logo of the ChiMac festival: a beer-pint bodied chicken.
Countless stands of fried chicken and beer were available.
The smell alone could have converted any vegetarian. From the moment it is dipped in the oil with the familiar sound of frying, to the moment you take a bite of its juicy slightly spicy, and peppery meat through the crunchy skin. There is no other simple yet decadent food on earth.
Pics: korea.net and visitkorea.or.uk
People were seating on benches at very long tables and everyone started talking to anyone, interactions eased by the many pints of beer already consumed. There is something about beer at a festival that makes you temporarily float with happiness. The heat becomes bearable. The crowds become charming. The music, even when you do not know the songs, starts to make sense. The strangers around you no longer feel like strangers, but like people who have simply arrived with the same good idea. I firmly believed that at some point, in my state of bliss brought on by heat and alcohol, I somehow understood Korean.
Later on at night, the DJ came on and Korean singers started bringing the crowd to a groove. We danced for what felt like the whole night. At some point a singer came out rapping with a DHL vest on, which I thought must have been a fashion statement, but then again, beer makes you accept any kind of reality.
That evening, I did not know enough about Korea to understand what I was really witnessing. I saw it as a fun, strange, slightly surreal festival built around chicken and beer. Which, to be fair, it was. But looking back now, it feels like I had accidentally wandered into one small piece of a culture that the rest of the world would soon become obsessed with. What once unknow, or at least under-discussed in the West, now feels global, confident and completely at home everywhere.
2018 Daegu Chimac poster (pic: visitkorea.or.kr)
I was simply hot, slightly confused, full of fried chicken, and holding a beer in the middle of a festival I had not planned to attend with (unknown to me at the time) two broken ribs from carrying heavy backpacks.
And perhaps that is the best way to experience a place: not through a checklist, not through a perfectly arranged itinerary, but by following two strangers from a hostel to a festival dedicated entirely to one of the greatest food pairings ever created.
I think about how many moments from travel disappear completely, while others stay lodged somewhere in the mind for no obvious reason. The Daegu ChiMac Festival stayed.
Maybe because it was joyful. Maybe because it was unexpected. Maybe because beer and fried chicken really do form a perfect pair. Or maybe because, without realising it, I had arrived in Korea just before the rest of the world fully turned its head and looked.
The Daegu ChiMac festival is back in 2026 from 1-5 July, in Duryu Park. Entrance is free.
More info on https://www.chimacfestival.com/ (not affiliate)
