Country
Japan
A precise lager-brewing culture whose commercial categories were shaped as much by malt-based taxation as by brewing choices.
Japanese brewing was established on German lines in the late nineteenth century and is technically exacting, with a mainstream of crisp, dry pale lager often brewed with rice.
Japanese beer tax has historically been assessed on malt content. That produced two commercial categories that exist nowhere else: happoshu, brewed with reduced malt, and so-called third-category products using other fermentables entirely. These are tax classifications, not styles, and BeerHQ records them as such.
A separate craft sector emerged after 1994, when the minimum production volume for a brewing licence was reduced sharply.
Hops grown in Japan
Breweries in Japan
Carried because a reference beer, a tradition or a historical event needs them. Not a directory.
Beer history in Japan
1987 Super Dry reorders the Japanese market
A highly-attenuated "dry" lager launched in Japan and triggered a market realignment that changed the ranking of the country’s brewers.