{"id":565,"date":"2007-09-10T22:52:20","date_gmt":"2007-09-10T13:52:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2007-09-10\/565"},"modified":"2007-09-10T22:52:20","modified_gmt":"2007-09-10T13:52:20","slug":"the-japanese-beer-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2007-09-10\/565","title":{"rendered":"The Japanese Beer Market"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f\/2.8 @ 120mm2 sec, f\/8, ISO 100 —\nfull exif<\/a><\/span>\n(photo setup described here<\/a>)\nJapanese Beer du Jour<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

The Japanese beer market is both interesting and frustrating.<\/p>\n\n

Prior to twenty years ago the few major breweries all produced a few<\/span>\nrich beers that were all more or less the same type of beer available since\nafter the war. After WWII the Japanese people suffered greatly, food-wise,\nso rich lager beer emerged as a way<\/span> a man<\/span> could indulge himself, and thus\n“Japanese Beer” was set in stone for the better part of two\ngenerations.<\/p>\n\n

That all changed in 1987 when Asahi\nBrewery's<\/a> “Super Dry” was released on the market. If I remember<\/span> the\nstory I read<\/span> not long after, a new<\/span> beer was considered a smashing<\/span> success\nif it sold a million<\/span> cases in its first year. Super Dry sold something like\n18 million in its first nine months. It's a clean<\/span>, crisp, light taste, and\nappealed very much to the “not your father's beer” flush-with-cash\ngeneration of the late-80s bubble economy<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

The late 80s and early 90s was an amazing time of awakening in Japan.\nWhen I first<\/span> arrived in 1989 (to work at Omron Tateishi\nDenki<\/a> in Nagaokakyou<\/a>), 39 out of 40 cars in the parking lot were\nwhite. By the time<\/span> I left<\/span> eight years later, a boom<\/span> of cultural\nindividualism had resulted in the mix becoming decidedly more colorful,\nand today, white is not at all a preferred<\/span> color for cars.<\/p>\n\n

Anyway, the entire beverage market also experienced a cultural<\/span>\nawakening, and these days, varieties come and go with the wind (such as\nthis example from the can\ncoffee<\/a> market that I wrote<\/span> about last year).<\/p>\n\n

With beer, each brewer has a few “tenant lines,” but 2\/3rd\nof the beer aisle are varieties that come and go in a few<\/span> months. I think<\/span> that the churn is mostly due to an attempt to capture the attention of the\nconsumer with “new!” and “improved!” (it may well\nbe that the exact same beer is inside all the differently-labeled\n\ncans ),\n\nalthough some of the churn is also of a seasonal<\/span> nature.<\/p>\n\n

The image at right is from some of my research for this post, Kirin's<\/a> seasonal Akiaji<\/i> (“Autumn Taste”) beer.\nWith a can<\/span> this pretty, the taste must be good.<\/p>\n\n

I just don't get the timing of the marketing, though. According to\n\nthe beer's blog<\/a> it'll be on the market\nthrough the end of this month*1<\/a><\/sup>, but the fall foliage season won't start in\nmost of Japan for another six weeks after that. (For example, I didn't<\/span> have\nany foliage pictures on my blog last year until mid November's Kyoto Autumn Foliage (Sort\nOf)<\/a> post.)<\/p>\n\n

And therein lies the frustration in the Japanese beer market. I'm reluctant<\/span> to try a new<\/span> beer for fear of liking it, because I know<\/span> that if I\ndo,<\/span> it'll be yanked out from under me a few<\/span> months later.<\/p>\n\n

I'll have to consider this post a work<\/span> in progress, as I believe<\/span> there's\nmuch more research yet to be done. In fact, I think<\/span> I'll go open another\ncan of research right now....<\/p>\n\n

\n\n

*1<\/sup><\/a> Yes,\nthe specific beer has its own blog. This is<\/i> Japan, you know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Japanese beer market is both interesting and frustrating.<\/p>

Prior to twenty years ago the few major breweries all produced a few rich beers that were all more or less the same type of beer available since after the war. After WWII the Japanese people suffered greatly, food-wise, so rich lager beer emerged as a way a man could indulge himself, and thus \"Japanese Beer\" was set in stone for the better part of two generations.<\/p>

That all changed in 1987 when Asahi Brewery's \"Super Dry\" was released on the market. If I remember the story I read not long [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}