Wine, Beer, Sake, Whiskey Blog at MoIppai » Sapporo

New Japanese Beers for the Summer

MoIppai — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 03:32:30 +0000

This Summer saw the release of three new Japanese beers from the main Japanese breweries, Kirin, Asahi and Sapporo. Although only Kirin released a real beer.
The other two opted for the cheaper option of beer-like drinks (daisan).

Asahi Blue Label

First came the Asahi Blue Label which, inevitably, being a fake beer from Asahi, was pretty disappointing.

It was however drinkable, and on the plus side, it’s only 27kCal/100ml and has 0 sugar.

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Read the rest of New Japanese Beers for the Summer (174 words)

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Post tags: Asahi, Japanese beer, Japanese lager, Kirin, Sapporo

Japanese Brewers Give Up on Happoshu

MoIppai — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 14:32:43 +0000

A Sapporo Happoshu

Ok, this news is a little bit old, as the Daily Yomiuri reported it back in January, but I’ve been busy and not
had time to put this post up.

Basically it seems that some of the major Japanese brewers, Suntory and Sapporo to be precise, are essentially stopping their production of Happoshu (low-malt beers).
They will continue to make seasonal and regional happoshus apparently, but in-principle at least, they are stopping production.

Asahi is also reducing it’s production by 20%, but Kirin (who make the very popular Tanrei happoshu) have no plans to reduce their happoshu range.

The reason behind this is it seems happoshu become popular as a cheap alternative to regular beer (as they are taxed less due to quirks in the Japanese alcohol tax system that sets a tax rate based on the amount of malt in the drink).

The problem is, the tax has increased twice in recent years making it not really noticeably cheaper than regular beer, and also the introduction of Daisan (or third-category beer) which uses even less malt, and therefore is even cheaper has reduced the desire amongst consumers for Happoshu.

Although a news report I blogged about back in December, talked about the Japanese government considering raising the tax on Daisans aswell.

So who knows, maybe in the not too distant future we’ll just be left with regular beer here in Japan.

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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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Read the rest of Asahi Breweries Back On Top (122 words)

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Post tags: Asahi, Daisan, Happoshu, Happousei, Japanese beer, Japanese lager, Kirin, Orion, Sapporo, Suntory

Sapporo Beer Advert – Legendary Biru

MoIppai — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 11:38:39 +0000

This fantastic new commercial from Sapporo came to my attention through the Mutineer Magazine blog, I’ve yet to see it on Japanese TV. Maybe I’m not watching enough NHK variety shows! (Thankfully I don’t watch any!).

It’s a phenomenal live action/cgi trip through Japanese brewing history and mythology (I guess!) – including sumo wrestlers, geisha taiko drumming and dragons – and is just quite beautiful to watch.

Makes a change from the usual J-pop stars and variety “talent” chugging beer and saying “Umai!”.

The standard Sapporo lager (with the black star) is only average I think, but the Premium Yebisu (Red Can) is excellent. (Click the links for my reviews).

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Sapporo Winery to Scale Down Production in Katsunuma

MoIppai — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 02:59:24 +0000

Katsunuma in Yamanashi Prefecture (not too far from Tokyo) is one of the major wine producing areas in Japan.
Last year my wife and I visited the area and visited some of the wineries.

One of the larger wineries, which was initially on our list to visit but turned out to be a bit further away than the others and involved a taxi or bus trip so we didn’t go was the
Sapporo Winery (which is actually in Koshu City, not Katsunuma itself).

I think this was very popular with tourists as it had a visitors area, a winery tour, etc and also has the famous Sapporo brand name, so more people have obviously heard of it compared to say L’Orient.. Although to be honest I thought they only made beer.

Anyway, to get to the point, I’ve just seen in the paper this week that from this year they are scaling down their wine production in this area and concentrating on their Okayama Winery in Okayama Prefecture (which is east of Osaka – the “other side” of Japan to Tokyo, kind-of).

They’re going to concentrate on specialised, high quality wine at the Katsunuma winery and produce only about 5000 cases a year from next year.

They are also closing the visitor section so you won’t be able to visit it anymore.
You can tour the Okayama Winery but apparently it is even more remote and involves a few bus trips, etc (we were planning on visiting it last year but because it was so inconvenient we went to Katsunuma instead).