Korean brewery searches for passersby who cleaned up huge beer spillage

In June, a truck accidentally shed its cargo of 2,000 bottles of beer onto the road in Chuncheon. Now, Oriental Brewery Company is seeking to thank the citizens who helped to clear up the mess.

It’s a scene straight out of a nightmare: the driver, his truck laden with beer, takes a sharp turn, causing the side to swing open and crates to fly out across the street, the bottles shattering on impact.

The CCTV footage then showed pedestrians and residents helping the driver to clean up the destroyed cargo, with some even bringing brooms to sweep up the broken glass.

Though the moment may have been destined for a short-lived stint as a viral video, the story did not end there. After the incident, AB InBev-owned Oriental Brewery Company released a recording of the incident and wrote that it was looking for “the real heroes of Chuncheon”. On Twitter, that video has approximately 2.9 million views.

The company also stated that the driver was not held liable and the damaged stock was covered by insurance.

Speaking with ABC News, the brewery’s associate public relations director Joo-hwan Baek said: “We wanted to find the citizens and express our gratitude to each of them in person. We also helped to spread word of the good they did. It was very inspiring for us as well.”

ABC News also reports that a similar incident took place not long afterwards with civilians clearing up broken vodka bottles dropped by a truck in Incheon. It has been suggested that awareness of the incident in Chuncheon on social media has encouraged acts of goodwill such as this across the country.

db has reached out to ascertain what exactly the “thanks” those who helped the clean up will receive constitutes.