Japan: Combined domestic shipments of beer and "happoshu" low-malt beer of Japan's five major brewers dropped 5.9% in August from a year earlier to 557,677,000 litres, the Brewers Association of Japan and its sister low-malt liquor association said on September 10. The association attributed the decline, among other things, to an exceptionally hot summer giving way to typhoons in late August. Beer and happoshu shipments by Kirin Brewery Co., Asahi Breweries Ltd., Sapporo Breweries Ltd., Suntory Ltd., and Orion Breweries Ltd. totaled 44.05 million cases. In the January-August period, shipments of beer and low-malt brewed alcohol fell 4.1 pct year-on-year to 4.08 mln kiloliters, they said.

The volume of beer shipped in August fell 4.8 pct year-on-year to 361,608 kiloliters, following 10.4 pct rise in July. The July rise, attributed to the hot summer, was the first double-digit increase since January 1998. In the January-August period, beer shipments fell 1.4 pct year-on-year to about 2.53 mln kiloliters

Shipments of low-malt liquor in August fell 7.7 pct year-on-year to 196,069 kiloliters. In the January-August period, shipments of low-malt liquor fell 8.0 pct year-on-year to 1.55 mln kiloliters. Japanese breweries began selling a low-malt beverage known as "happoshu" in 1994, in an effort to halt a slide in beer sales. Happoshu used to cost substantially less than beer because it was taxed at a lower rate, and sales rose steadily until last year, when the government raised the tax on low-malt brews.

In February, Sapporo Breweries, which belongs to Sapporo Holdings Ltd, released a beer-like drink, but which is neither beer nor happoshu, in response to the higher taxation. The shipments of this product are not counted in the data above. The top five breweries in are Kirin Brewery Co Ltd, Asahi Breweries Ltd, Sapporo Breweries Ltd, Suntory Ltd and Orion Beer Co Ltd.

10 September, 2004