A couple of decades back in Japan, choosing a beer used to be so easy. There were three major breweries — Kirin, Sapporo and Asahi (in those days Suntory was barely making a dent in the market). Each of them produced a couple of different brews, but all of them were mass-market light fizzy lager. There was one 'premium' beer, Sapporo's Yebisu (catch phrase: chotto zeitaku = 'a little bit luxurious'). And if you looked carefully you might find Guiness, which was imported by Sapporo, but available mostly at bars.
But basically that was the age of Henry Ford's "You can have any colour you like as long as it's black". Spool forward to the present day, and it's a technicolour dream:
This is just part of the beer selection at Foodshow in Shibuya, The interesting thing is the layout: the top two rows are mostly craft brews (jibiiru); the next three are all from the Big 4 breweries; and bottom are the bottles, mostly Belgian. And it's the craft beers that are conveniently at eye-level, easiest to spot and grab.
Under that comes the Kirin and Suntory; then the Asahi, Sapporo and even some Orion, a thin lager brewed in far-off Okinawa. And under that, six different colours of Yebisu (also Sapporo) — including the latest limited-edition offering, Asuka Cruise (the blue can).
Decisions, decisions, decisions...
