Asahi Brewery, Nishinomiya; 朝日の酒造場、西宮

A spark of gold flows
Radiant crossing grass and fog
Pooling in the dew


Asahi Breweries

     As part of my tours with the Spokane-Nishinomiya Sister City Society 50th Anniversary trip, I visited the Asahi Brewery in in Nishinomiya City.  As was usually the case when our group went to various locations, we were treated like VIP's.  In fact, the Brewery was closed several days each week to conserve electricity.  (Implemented following the Fukashima Reactor crisis.)  On the day of our tour the brewery was closed.  They not only opened the brewery for us, but had a number of employees on hand to show us around, prepare us food, and of course... serve us beer!

Asahi Beer

      Asahi Beer was founded in 1889.  It is the leading soft drink and beer company in Japan, though I believe it is the second largest exporter of beer from Japan. (I think Sapporo is #1?).  The beer we have all come to associate with Asahi, 'Asahi Super Dry' was first produced in 1987.  Which is surprising that the madly popular Super Dry Lager was introduced in the late 80's.
     Asahi Beer has 19 breweries; 9 located in Japan, 5 in China, 3 in Europe and one in Vancouver BC.  I believe that the Chinese breweries are Tsing Tao (~Ching Tao) breweries purchased by Asahi.  All the Asahi Beer consumed in America comes from BC...  (which I think is funny... But hey, I guess it still has the 'IMPORTED' stamp on it...)

 Conservation
    
      Asahi Breweries were very proud of their tradition of conservation and recycling.  In a video I will post when I have better band-width you will see an employee wearing a blue uniform.  The uniform is made of 100% recycled materials from their factories.  I thought the production lines and mechanized efficiency was really cool to watch.  The amount of product sent out was really impressive.

 Lunch

     Lunch was prepared for us at no charge in their on site cafeteria and bar.  Several people were on hand to make sure that our beer glasses did not go dry.  We had a few speeches from the Mayor of Nishinomiya as well as from Spokane and were introduced to the Factories General Manager.  It was quite the production!  However, the best part by FAR was the demonstration on how to pour the perfect beer.

-And for your enjoyment... The video....
              -If the video is sideways... I'm sorry!

I find haiku for these types of posts to be particularly difficult...  Do I try to custom make one about a factory?  Have one that is completely off topic?  Ah, the pressure of Zen.

References;


     -The Asahi Brewery Tour Guidebook
     -Wikipedia (of course!)
     -Factory Tours of Japan. (Go for a tour next time you're in Nishinomiya)




All photo's, original works, and comments are my personal property. Please be respectful of the effort I've taken. Your comments are welcome, be polite: No throwing pebbles in my pool of zen.