Region & History

How did beer come to Japan? Through Yokohama. The port opened to foreign merchants in 1859, and with them came a thirst for beer. On the hillside of Yamate, where the foreigners lived, the Spring Valley Brewery was founded around 1870.

Its founder, William Copeland, was Norwegian, born Johan Martinius Thoresen. He built near a spring, dug a tunnel into the hillside to serve as a lagering cellar, and brewed three beers: a wheat-based "Bavarian Beer," a bock, and a pale lager. His customers were, at first, foreigners down at the port.

In 1885 the Japan Brewery Company took over the site, and in 1907 it became the Kirin Brewery Company. To this day, Kirin regards Copeland's brewery as its origin and has revived the Spring Valley name for its craft beers.

In Tokyo, the starting shot came in 1890: Nippon Beer Jōzō brewed Yebisu beer in the Ebisu district, using equipment and brewmasters from Germany. For distribution, a dedicated freight station called Ebisu was built in 1901, and by 1928 the entire neighborhood had taken on that name. Today, Yebisu belongs to Sapporo.

Asahi, founded in Osaka in 1889 according to the brewery, is now headquartered in Sumida, Tokyo. Together with Kirin, Sapporo, and Suntory, these companies divide the market among themselves.

There's no protected designation of origin here as there is in Europe. What counts as "beer" in Japan is determined by tax law, and that story unfolds at the Malt station. Small breweries only became possible in 1994, when the state lowered the minimum output required for a license from two million liters a year to 60,000.