Beer is the last thing Japan needs to be worrying about right now. However beer, like car manufacturing bears economic importance. Total shipments of beer in March 2011 fell 10.9%. Breweries like Asahi, Kirin, & Kiuchi (Hitachino) have had to deal with power outages, material shortages, & brewery damage. Kiuchi actually stopped brewing altogether for a while in order to produce water for the victims. They have slowly started to brew again.
Overall, 10.9% decline pushes total production down to 33.34 million cases. Consumer confidence is down too. Consumption is down after the quake. As is a worry of radiation. Kiuchi Brewing has performed it’s own independent research and found negligible radiation findings. <MainichiDailyNews>
