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Asahi Breweries Back On Top

MoIppai — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 11:45:48 +0000

Asahi Beer Mug

The Daily Yomiuri newspaper reported yesterday that Asahi Breweries Ltd. has taken back the top spot in the beer market in Japan after two years in second place to Kirin.

Asahi was top in the first half of 2010 with 37.1% of sales followed by Kirin with 36.4%, Suntory 13.4%, Sapporo 12.3% and bravely bringing up the rear, Orion Breweries from Okinawa with 0.9%.

Overall sales of beer and “beer-like” drinks (happoshu, daisan) in Japan have slowed down so far this year, apparently because young people are moving away from alcoholic drinks and it’s been cold this year.

However the summer is definitely kicking in now, so I’m sure sales will pick up.
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Post tags: Asahi, Daisan, Happoshu, Happousei, Japanese beer, Japanese lager, Kirin, Orion, Sapporo, Suntory

Barreal – ￥88 Fake Beer from Aeon

MoIppai — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 04:38:42 +0000

Aeon Supermarket, Japan

With the on-coming onslaught of the unbearably humid Japanese summer Beer manufacturers in Japan are finding ways to maximise their sales, and big supermarket chain Aeon recently launched a ￥88 ($1) daisan (beer-like drink) onto the market.

Tax on alcohol is (compared to say the UK) very cheap, with whiskeys and other spirits in off-licenses being usually around half the price of English prices, but due to the strange Japanese beer tax system where the tax relates to the amont of malt in the beer, canned beer itself can be quite expensive.

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Read the rest of Barreal – ￥88 Fake Beer from Aeon (162 words)

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Post tags: Asahi, Daisan, Happoshu, Happousei, Japanese beer, Japanese lager, Kirin, Suntory, Third Category Beer, Third Kind Beer

Blue Beer from Hokkaido Japan

MoIppai — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 03:35:25 +0000

Japanese Blue Beer

One of the bigger supermarkets around here (Hankyu) is having a Hokkaido Fair at the moment with speciality food and craft beers from the region.

Hokkaido, for those that don’t know, is the northern most of the 4 main Japan islands, where Sapporo Beer is from (Sapporo city is kind of the capital of Hokkaido). I haven’t visited there yet, but it’s famous for it’s snow, beautiful scenery, nature and sushi.

My wife picked up two of the craft beers for me the other day, the Yubari Coal Mine Black Beer and the bizarre Ryuhyou Draft Okhotsk Blue which is a BLUE happoshu from Abashiri Brewery.

Ryuhyou　in Japanese is 流氷 which means Drift Ice, and to be honest I don’t know if it’s made with drift ice water or it’s just some marketing thing.

Unfortunately, despite the colour, it’s just a disappointing happoshu with a fairly chemical taste. Full marks for trying though. Click the image below for a full review.

Ryuhyou Draft

Yubari Coal Mine Beer

Edited 7th June 2010: Just found this on YouTube

The Abashiri Brewery’s (Japanese) website can be found here.

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World Cup 2010 Themed Kirin Beer

MoIppai — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 11:33:03 +0000

Japanese Football Team Colours

As anyone who has a passing interest in football – and that doesn’t describe me – knows, there’s the World Cup taking place this year in South Africa.

Now, I have no interest in football, but I do have perhaps more than a passing interest in Japanese beers, so this new can design caught my eye in the supermarket the other day.

I thought it was a new beer (they seem to release a couple of new happoshu’s or daisans – third category beers – every month here in Japan), but it’s the old Kirin Tanrei Happoshu repackaged in the Japanese football teams colours.

I can only assume Kirin sponsor the Japanese Soccer League.

Despite it not being a new beer, I bought it anway and can confirm it’s exactly the same as the usual Kirin Tanrei, by which I mean it’s nothing like a beer and has the usual slightly metallic taste of a happoshu but, to be fair, I’ve had worse.

Edit (7/4/10) : I just remembered, the Japanese winery Chateau Mercian also released a range of wine to commemorate the Japan/Korea World Cup in 2002. They can be seen on my blog post here.

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So Just What is Happoshu Anyway?

MoIppai — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 11:39:22 +0000

This question bugged me for quite a while when I first discovered that Japan has 3 categories of beer, and I don’t mean lager, beer, bitter, etc.

Japanese Happoshu

Thankfully, an article in the Daily Yomiuri yesterday cleared it up for me.

The reason Japan has 3 different categories of beer is essentially for tax reasons.

Regular beer which must contain at least 67% malt is taxed at the highest rate.

Happoshu (which means “Sparkling Spirits” 発泡酒 in Japanese) contains less than 25% malt and is therefore taxed at a lower rate (which obviously means it’s cheaper to the customers).

There is a Third-Category “beer” called 第三のビール (Daisan no Biru) which basically doesn’t have any malt and is made from “other” ingredients (I believe corn, peas, soy, etc), which has an even cheaper tax rate.

Partly due to the global economic crisis, sales of Happoshu and third-type have been increasing year on year in Japan and Japanese breweries are planning to increase theis sales to more than 30% of the total beer market for the first time this year.

White Kirin

Unfortunately, the Happoshu’s and particulary the Third-category “beverages” are not very tasty, and often have an unpleasant metallic taste to them.

The best one I’ve had is Shiro Kirin (White Kirin) from, obviously, Kirin. This one is made from Malt, Hops, Barley, Rice and Corn and is actually fairly drinkable.

The best Third-Category I’ve tried is Suntory Jokky Nama and despite being a huge 8% is actually quite light and for a Third-Category beer, fairly drinkable.

Each of the main breweries have announced new beerlike beverages for this year,
1000 from Kirin, which uses hard water, Strong Off from Asahi with 7% alcohol and 60% less carbohydrates, and finally Relax from Suntory, made from seven types of hops.

Although Sapporo don’t have a new drink in the pipeline, they are reducing the price of their
Draft One happoshu.