The biosorption characteristics of SRCM 120569 biomass on anionic Congo red (CR) dye. SRCM 120569 strain isolated from Korean turbid rice wine (makgeolli) was identified by 16S rRNA sequence analysis as Bacillus licheniformis. Bacillus licheniformis SRCM 120569 (Genbank Accession No. MW819861) showed superior CR dye biosorption capacity in an aqueous solution. Maximum adsorption capacities of 61.2 and 133.1 mg/g were obtained at pH 3.41 and 0.01 g/50 mL dried cell dosage, respectively. The CR dye adsorption properties by the Bacillus licheniformis SRCM120569 strain were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), point of zero charge (pHpzc) analysis, and phylogenetic analysis. The biosorption isotherm and kinetic models are well described with the Langmuir adsorption isotherm and pseudo-second-order kinetic models.