December 30, 2025

SENDAI: Kirin Beer Sendai Brewery

When you are travelling with a bunch of people who are into CH3CH2OH; as always, the first agenda after breakfast… will be looking for CH3CH2OH… drinks and drinking. LOL.

For full itinerary, check out JAPAN TRIP 2024: 11d10n in Yamagata, Sendai, Aizu Wakamatsu and Tokyo

Kirin Beer Sendai Brewery

A place where you can get in depth education about what makes Kirin Beer so umai or so delicious. We signed up this KIRIN ICHIBAN Brewery Tour that is priced at ¥ 500 per person; we were taught about the secret of the premium flavours of KIRIN ICHIBAN and experienced it through our five senses.

Kirin Beer Sendai Brewery is located not too far away from Sendai City Centre. To come here, take train from Sendai Station to Tagajo Station on JR Senseki Line. There is free shuttle bus at Platform 3, at the south exit of Tarajo Station. This free shuttle bus will take you to the Kirin Ichiban Brewery Sendai Factory at scheduled time. The journey is about 22 minutes on train and about another 10 minutes on the bus to Kirin Beer Sendai Brewery.

Make sure you make a reservation by phone or online (Website: https://www.kirin.co.jp/experience/factory/sendai/) before visiting. A reservation is a must for the tour.

If you are in travelling in Tokyo area, the nearest Kirin Beer Brewery would be Kirin Yokohama Beer Village in Namamugi, Yokohama. Just travel on Keikyu Main Line from Yokohama Station to Namamugi Station. Kirin Beer Village is about 10 minutes’ walk from the station. You may take the train on Keikyu Main Line from Yokohama Station to Namamugi Station. Kirin Beer Village is about 10 minutes’ walk from the station.

As soon as we reached the facility, we headed to the reception counter to do our check in and purchase the ticket for the KIRIN ICHIBAN Premium Flavour Realization Tour. At ¥ 500 per person. The tour takes time about 80 minutes, including the tasting of KIRIN ICHIBAN at the end of the tour.

Our tour was conducted in Japanese but we were all given the guided book in English language, so that we were able to understand what was happening. We were then leaded to a theatre show, where it was the starting of the tour, with an animated video of Kirin Ichiban’s history.

Next, to the station where we got to see, touch and smell the malt and hops, and we even got to taste the malt! Also, we got the chance to taste the wort to make the comparison between the second pressed worts and the first press wort. Kirin Ichiban is 100% malt first press beer, using first press of wort which gives golden vibrant colour; tastewise, it has finer texture, umami and sweet flavour. I must say this tour offers a real cool experience where people get to taste the beer’s ingredient from raw to end product!

Gigantic fermentation tank

Here is the Storage Room.

After the educational tour, it was the beer tasting time! A moment everyone most anticipated. LOL. During the 25 minutes’ tasting time, we got to enjoy three different types of KIRIN ICHIBAN and Ichiban Shibori.

生ビール (draft beer) fresh out from its factory, it was a true happiness LOL. Sweet and fresh and umami!

With our cute guide explaining about the Ichiban Shibori

After tasting, time for some souvenirs shopping. There is a souvenir shop next to the tasting corner, offering all the Kirin goods.

We wanted do more photo taking at this cute beer telephone booth, but there was the scheduled shutter bus time ahead, and we had a next destination to catch.