Big four Japanese brewers post first-half sales drop

Well, I've been doing my best to help them.

Guess this gives a reason to try harder....

The figures for the sales drops are very interesting:

Asahi 17% down - terrible beer

Suntory 11% - mostly terrible beer

Sapporo and Kirin, which have some really good beers didn't fare too badly.

@BertieWooster - Interesting opinion. I've always found Sapporo to lack beer taste but Asahi super-dry to have some resemblance to beer. I guess my sense of taste is different from yours, which is fine - each being distinctive is in part what makes us all unique. Do you like the non-alcohol versions of Sapporo, etc ?

Brewers' droop.

I have been buying an extra amount trying to take up the slack as far as Super Dry is concerned.

They would do so much better if they would incorporate their product internationally. I've told them a 1000 times on the american sapporo page that they should. But due to some law, they can't ship liquids internationally

Anyone tried home-brewing here in Japan ? Your thoughts and recommendations would be welcomed.

I did a bit of background reading into Home Brewing here in Japan, apparently back in 2018 it was illegal... so I'm guessing it still is. :(

mmwkdw

I wonder if you have ever been to Hokkaido? Sapporo beer tastes much better there. Their "Sorachi," "Hokkaido," and "Sakura" are good beers. "Ebisu" in its various flavours is also much better there, although I will admit that I used to really like Ebisu before Sapporo bought them up. That was a truly great Japanese beer.

Invalid CSRF

@bertiewooster this is probably more to do with the fact that Asahi has the biggest nationwide reach in bars and restaurants so lost out on more volume compared with other brewers due to their closure.

@mmwkdw

Orion may only have a 1% market share nationally, but it absolutely dominates beer sales in Okinawa (something like 90%). I suppose people want to demonstrate their pride by buying local products.

@Rory grace, we can get Asashi beer in the UK and that's direct from Japan, and I am sure that I've seen Kinrin beer to.

They should do what everyone else is doing and make up for it selling hand santizer. They have the equipment to do it and nobody is talking about how much money its made in other countries.

I will do my utmost to support #5 on the list of Japanese breweries...Orion Beer!

My local Family Mart offers the 4 major industrial brands (all lagers that taste the same, except Asahi, which is awful), "beer like" concoctions, and for exotic excitement Heineken and Bud. Given that appalling selection, I would be surprised if sales were doing well.

Japanese Beer pretty much all tastes the same.

You essentially have Asahi Beer, and Yebisu - the rest are sadly not distinctive. And @Kurisu, that includes Orion... no idea why it exists.

I'd welcome local companies attempting to be more experimental in taste, but sadly it seems, they just want to copy each other as presumably thats what the public want...

As to the non-alcohol beers, Asahi is by far the closest to their actual beer taste.

Just whilst I'm here on the subject... Chinese [mainland] beer, is also pretty lousy. Snow brand for example, its probably safer than drinking the local tap water, and cheap too, but makes even the worst of Japanese beers look incredibly good.