Page 3 - Kirin Holdings Case Study

Malt dictates a beer’s flavour, so Kirin goes to great lengths to choose
only the best from Japan, North America, Europe, and Australia.

“We were using the most luxuriant part of the beer not the

rest that’s a big deal and expensive too of course there was

talk about how to price it. Some of us wanted it priced like a

standard beer, others disagreed, everyone had an opinion

which was only natural. In the end we decided on a standard

price, we would just have to sell a lot of units. If you can

make your customers happy then you are always going to

sell more, that was our conviction with this beer when we

released it. We just went for it.” Yoshinori Isozaki, CEO & President,
Kirin Holdings (2)

In 1984 the Kirin Group had entered the U.S. market then in

1997, the U.S. Anheuser-Busch, began brewing Kirin Lager,
Kirin Light and Kirin Ichiban at its Los Angeles brewery

under the strict supervision of a Kirin brew master.

In 1988, Kirin entered Taiwan and in 2010, Kirin partnered

with Weihenstephan Brewery - the world’s oldest brewery -

to brew KIRIN ICHIBAN in Germany. Kirin Holdings

subsequently, set up subsidiaries in various other countries

including Australia, China, the Philippines, and Myanmar.