Conglomerate

Kirin Holdings Company, Limited

Tokyo, Japan

Dossier

Who they are

Japanese listed holding company, brewing since 1885. Its Australasian subsidiary Lion — wholly owned since the 2009 Oceania restructuring — is the company that acquired New Belgium, Bell's, Stone & Wood and Little Creatures; those are Lion's acquisitions, made under Kirin ownership, not Kirin's own. Kirin also holds a stake in Brooklyn Brewery.

The Umbrella

Breweries in the archive (8)

Comstock, Michigan, USA

Bell's Brewery

The legendary creators behind Two Hearted Ale and Oberon, now merged operationally with New Belgium under Kirin.

Conglomerate-ownedTwo Hearted Ale · 7.0%

Collingwood, VIC, Australia

Fixation Brewing Co.

A dedicated temple to aggressively hopped West Coast IPAs. Essential drinking in Collingwood for fans of fresh pine and resin.

Conglomerate-ownedFixation IPA · 6.4%

Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

Kirin Brewery Company

Ichiban Shibori uses only the first press of the wort and throws away the rest, which is an expensive way to make a mass-market lager. It is also why it tastes the way it does.

Conglomerate-ownedKirin Ichiban Shibori · 5.0%

Fort Collins, Colorado, USA

New Belgium Brewing

Colorado pioneers of wind-powered brewing and Fat Tire, now operating under Kirin's global craft division.

Conglomerate-ownedFat Tire · 5.2%

Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

Spring Valley Brewery

Kirin took the name of Japan's first commercial brewery and put it on a craft line 145 years later. The beer is real and so is the history, but they are not the same thing, and the archive keeps them…

Conglomerate-owned496

Byron Bay, NSW, Australia

Stone & Wood Brewing Co.

The birthplace of the modern Australian Pacific Ale. A stop in Byron Bay isn't complete without soaking up the coastal vibes and tasting the beer that defined a generation of craft drinkers.

Conglomerate-ownedPacific Ale · 4.4%

Auckland, New Zealand

Lion

Steinlager's green bottle became a national symbol on the back of a rugby win — the kind of marketing money genuinely cannot buy.

Conglomerate-ownedSteinlager · 5.0%

Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand

Emerson's Brewery

New Zealand craft beer effectively begins here, in Dunedin, with a deaf brewer who could not hear the boil and judged it by other means. Lion bought it in 2012, which is the arc almost every founding…

Conglomerate-ownedEmerson's Pilsner · 4.9%