Kirin Beer and R&D Focus – A Summary
- Kirin’s beer sales doubled in 2025, with new launches like Kirin Ichiban White Beer and Kirin Good Ale exceeding sales targets by over 100%.
- Kirin is shifting its global strategy to prioritise Asia, Oceania and North America, focusing on locally tailored products and stronger regional partnerships.
- A new Technology Innovation Centre will open in April 2026 to create new techniques that enhance consumer enjoyment of alcoholic beverages.
- The firm is also increasing R&D investment and aims to boost its R&D capabilities and AI infrastructure, acknowledging it must catch up with domestic and global competitors in health science and beverage research.
Kirin has had a good year in beer: 2025 saw its beer sales grow two-fold year-on-year, with new launches such as Kirin Ichiban White Beer and Kirin Good Ale outpacing initial sales targets by over 100%.
This optimistic growth has been seen not only in conventional beer but also new non-alcoholic beer products such as Kirin Authentic Brew Non-Alcohol Lager Zero which also outpaced sales targets by 10%.
All of this has driven the company to revamp its focus on innovation and marketing for its beer business, with a strong focus on the international market.
“Kirin will position Asia, Oceania, as well as North America as the highest-priority areas for our overseas business focus,” Kirin beer arm Kirin Brewery stated via a formal statement.
“The focus will be on developing products tailored to each market and strengthening collaboration with local partners, as Kirin works to become an increasingly preferred choice for our overseas consumers [in addition to] local Japanese ones.”
The firm will be establishing a new Technology Innovation Centre in April 2026, with one of its main challenges being the creation of techniques for consumers to ‘broaden their enjoyment of alcohol’.
One new technology in this area which is already in progress is Kirin’s proprietary AI FJWLA (short for: Flavour Judgement for Whole Liking Analysis), a system that works to comprehensively identify key components influencing consumer perception of palatability.
It will initially work using data obtained via consumer surveys, and combine this with Kirin’s long-time beer-brewing knowledge to achieve the ‘ideal flavour’ for target consumers.
FJWLA will be introduced into Kirin beer products released from March 2026 to accelerate the sophistication and efficiency of flavour development.
Kirin’s R&D Focus
FJWLA was one of five technologies in the spotlight at the recent Kirin R&D Day in Tokyo, the firm also highlighted plans to increase its focus on R&D investment in the coming year.
“We at Kirin have seen that R&D [has been crucial in solving] issues for consumers and also served as the core driving force behind the development of each of our business domains in the past decade,” Kirin President and COO Takeshi Minakata said.
“For example, in the beer business, we have integrated our long-standing brewing expertise with sugar-free and dealcoholisation technologies to fulfil consumer needs to both enjoy tasty beers while also caring for their health.”
Minakata highlighted several of the firm’s groundbreaking products such as its KIRIN ICHIBAN Zero Sugar which was the first of its kind in Japan, as well as the Ultra beer series launched by its Australian operating company Lion that utilises low-carb technology in its production.
“For the sustainable growth of the group, I believe continuous investment in R&D is indispensable,” he added.
“We believe our R&D levels in alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, as well as in health science, is still not yet sufficient when compared to other domestic competitors or global health sciences companies right now, so moving forward, we will enhance R&D investments and new research pipelines to nurture star researchers as well as enhance our facilities and AI capabilities.”
