Kirin Brewery
The brewery traces its roots to the Spring Valley Brewery, which William Copeland opened in Yokohama in 1870. Its successor, the Japan Brewery Company, launched Kirin Beer in 1888, and a newly founded company took over the business in 1907. Kirin Lager is still the oldest brand in the range, while Ichiban Shibori, introduced in 1990, is brewed only from first-run wort. The company belongs to Kirin Holdings and brews at nine plants across Japan, from Chitose on Hokkaido to Fukuoka.
Beers by Kirin Brewery
14 beers
← scroll to see all 14 beers →
The recurring character behind the beers
Kirin Brewery brew within a single family — the differences sit in how, not what.
Across these 14 beers, 4 notes keep showing up:
Four notes carry across the range. That's a tight house style — most breweries in the catalogue share just one.
Compared with 145 other breweries brewing Pale Lager:
They stay close to the peer baseline on their recurring notes.
How we measure this
Two thresholds are at work here:
- The signature list shows notes that recur in at least 6% of this brewery's beers. A low bar — enough to flag a pattern, not high enough to call it an exclusive trait.
- The peer comparison below shows only notes where this brewery's coverage differs from similar breweries by at least 20 percentage points. A higher bar — enough to call a real difference, not a nudge.
A note can appear on the signature list without appearing in the peer comparison: it recurs here, but similar breweries do the same thing.
Kirin Good Ale
Their beers place in the Top 31% of the catalogue on average, across 13 ranked beers. Consistent rather than spiky — no single standout carrying the rest.
Similar Breweries
hopIQ exclusiveBased on style overlap and flavor profile
About Kirin Brewery
The brewery traces its roots to the Spring Valley Brewery, which William Copeland opened in Yokohama in 1870. Its successor, the Japan Brewery Company, launched Kirin Beer in 1888, and a newly founded company took over the business in 1907. Kirin Lager is still the oldest brand in the range, while Ichiban Shibori, introduced in 1990, is brewed only from first-run wort. The company belongs to Kirin Holdings and brews at nine plants across Japan, from Chitose on Hokkaido to Fukuoka.
Other breweries from Japan