Since doing our interview with Yo-Ho Brewing at the end of 2018, this question has been nagging away at me like a bad hangover that pounds on your head. Seeing the big macro breweries bring out craft(y) beers, as they so-called, and trying to eke into the market not so much by subtlety, but more like brute force. Brewing and pushing the beers onto shop shelves that they already dominate across the country in the hope of gaining part of the (slowly) growing market.
In this series of craft beer, we’re not going to be telling you what to do but instead raise awareness of how the big breweries are not going to lie back and let you be happy. There is mass obfuscation in markets around the world from larger breweries, buying smaller breweries, making new lines of beer, trying new styles in the hope of gaining part of this growing market.
If you want to drink Asahi or Kirin or Bud – go ahead. Enjoy it! Beer is supposed to be enjoyed but realise you are supporting breweries that are deliberately confusing people. If you want to go and drink your Kirin Session IPA or the Sapporo Craft Beer series, go ahead, but realise that it isn’t a small independent brewery, rather a much larger behemoth that is still trying to confuse people about what is, and what isn’t craft beer.
- An Abridged History of Craft Beer in Japan
- What is Craft Beer? Definitions and Explanation
- What you can do?
An Abridged History Of Craft Beer In Japan
The First Generation – 1994 to 2000
Craft beer wasn’t always craft beer in Japan. Back in 1994, the first generation of craft beer, it was more commonly known as ji-biiru, or local beer. Breweries popped up from their parent sake companies, more about that later, to join in the new trend of beers. Those beers, predominantly German style beers, sold well as local products are wont to do in Japan; however, their quality varied a lot – some were great and won awards, while others were dreadful and helped contribute to the crash of the late 90s.
The number of breweries reached its peak – even to this day the number has reached the heights – of 300 breweries, yet by the end of the 00s, that number had decreased to less than 200 breweries due to the flooding of the market of ji-biiru. To this day, the stigma of ji-biiru still remains and breweries are loath to label their beers as such.
Notable breweries from the 1st Gen that are around now: Sankt Gallen, Echigo Beer, Minoh Beer, Hitachino Nest, Oh! La! Ho!, Fujizakura Heights Beer, Yokohama Beer
The Second Generation – 2001 to 2008
It wasn’t until the early 00’s that the term “craft beer” was adopted – the second generation of craft beer – though who brought the term into the Japanese lexicon is unknown. One thing that all of them shared at the start is size – terms such as nanobrewery and microbrewery went some way into describing the size of the brewery; however, even now, those terms still lack transparency into the actual amount of beer brewed.
This generation of breweries had learnt somewhat from the mistakes of their forefathers – quality rather than quantity was important. Breweries began to employ those with an interest in beer and also those with some knowledge of brewing techniques. Moreover, as sake breweries began to understand the market, subsidiaries began to grow – off-shoots of the parent companies where the staff were not busy during the warmer months of the year. As the original brewers from the first generation left, this new generation had spent time learning the craft and American beers began to influence the market with IPAs and pale ales slowly becoming the force they are now.
Notable breweries from the 2nd Gen that are around now: Baird Beer, Shiga Kogen, Aqula, Baeren Beer, Hideji Beer, TY Harbor, Harvestmoon, Johana Beer,
The Third Generation – 2008 to 2014
Since the third generation of craft beer began around the turn of the decade, these nano and micro breweries have become more and more prevalent, mainly due to costs and also viability of brewing beer. At the time, there were two licenses available for breweries, a happoshu licence, which included any beer made with an adjunct – white ale with coriander would be considered a happoshu, and an annual production of 6,000L of per year – an easier amount to manage and also allowed for a variety of styles to be made. The beer license, which meant nothing but the four ingredients of water, malt, hops, and yeast, would be for 60,000L but limited breweries into making beers without adjuncts.
This period of time also began to see the rise of craft beer bars across Japan, with Kanto and Kansai seeing the main effects. The majority of breweries in Japan at the time were located far from conurbations, and with Japan’s strict drink-driving laws it meant people were unwilling to travel to buy beer. Bars began to notice this and picked up on rising, albeit slow, demand for these craft beers. Areas of cities began to become known as craft beer centres – for example Kannai in Yokohama, Kanda in Tokyo, and Umeda in Osaka – and since then, bars have tended to congregate in areas of other bars.
Taprooms also began to show some influence with the larger craft beer breweries in Japan having built up enough of a following to be able to sell their own beers on tap. Baird Beer, Minoh Beer, and Shimane Beer Hearn, to name three breweries, all found space in the market to open taprooms in other parts of Japan.
Notable breweries from the 3rd Gen that are around now: Mojiko Retro Beer, Virgo Beer, Yorocco Beer, Bay Brewing Yokohama.
The Fourth Generation – 2015 to 2020
The most recent development of craft beer in Japan has been the brewpub – a common occurrence in the USA and it’s slow progress in Japan hasn’t been unnoticed. With the cost of owning a brewery AND a taproom being prohibitive to growth, newer breweries have encompassed brewing on site for a bar on site, thus reducing operating costs for both of them.
While Japan began to see some semblance of introduction of the brewpub during the third generation, for example with Y Market Brewing, TDM 1874 and the infamous chain of Beer Kobo that sprawl across the Chuo Line, it’s only in the last few years that brewpubs have really taken off. Brewpubs are to beer what farm shops are to food in Japan – places where communities can meet and chat, while supporting the local business in the area. With town space at a premium in Japan, they also help fix the problem of finding two spaces and replacing it with one. While larger breweries are still going to be around – there’s only so much space for brewing equipment and bottling machines, we expect brewpubs to overtake larger full-scale breweries over the next few years.
Notable breweries from the 4th generation of craft beer in Japan: TDM 1874, Devilcraft, Ushitora, Be Easy Brewing, Kyoto Brewing Company,
The Fifth Generation – 2020 to Present
Covid. It came, it affected us all and even now, there have been long lasting changes from that period of time. While bars were forced to close down, due to strict government “suggestions” – in spite of what foreign media stated, Japan was never allowed to do a lockdown as in the UK, USA, and other western countries due to its constitutional rules – breweries still needed to sell beer. The biggest turning point in this period was the introduction of online brewery stores. Whilst the internet has been around since the mid 90s for most people, it seemed like up until this point, many breweries in Japan had been ignoring it.
With flagging sales from bars, and people drinking at home, breweries started to canning their beers more and more. Of course, breweries that were using bottles found the change hard, but even then, some of the bigger breweries in Japan, for example Far Yeast and Hitachino Nest, began to can most, if not all, of their range of beers. Other breweries, such as Kyoto Brewing Company, began to can their beers more and more. This made it easier to transport beers due to a decrease in weight, and also being less susceptible to breakages during transport. Another benefit of this is that the cans last longer on the shelves of supermarkets, opening up new avenues of sales.
New breweries that opened up during this time began using cans instead of bottles to improve their B2C sales and now it’s rare to see regular beers in bottles, with Baird Beer, Shiga Kogen, Ise Kadoya, and Fujizakura being the main exceptions to canning.
