Since the 2002 debut of the Taedonggang Beer Factory, North Korean beer has been a source of national pride — from the ubiquitous brew itself to the drafts available at Pyongyang’s high-quality microbreweries.

Romantic marketing often highlights the beer’s wholly domestic production. Taedonggang, for instance, uses “water of the River Taedong, barley of South Hwanghae Province and hops of Ryanggang Province,” or so state media claims.

But an analysis of Chinese trade data may put a dent in these boasts: for a country that both loves its beer and faces insufficient agriculture production, the industry