TOKYO, Jan 22 — The head of Japanese beer giant Kirin Brewery Co. has fired a warning shot over the bows of the company’s biggest rival in the increasingly fierce battle for the growing market for alcohol-free beer.

Kirin president Koichi Matsuzawa has complained publicly that the design for the label of a new alcohol-free beer produced by Asahi Breweries is too similar to the company’s mainstay Super Dry product.

“Its outward appearance resembles Super Dry so much that it could lead people to buy it by mistake,” Matsuzawa said at a press conference on January 11.

Asahi announced the previous day that it would release the new beer — called Dry Zero (picture) — in February.

The cans for the new beer will be silver with back writing, while the bottled version will have a similar, square label and another around the neck. The Japanese word for “non-alcohol” appears on the labels, but Kirin believes the Asahi logo across the centre of the design will make people associate the new drink with Super Dry.

Asahi has dismissed the complaint and says the two products are different.

Sales of non-alcoholic beer first began to take off in Japan in 2008 and sales figures for 2011 are likely to total around 29 million cases, each case holding 24 250-mililiter bottles. That is a 12-fold leap from sales in 2008, the industry said.

Kirin was the first of Japan’s “Big Four” brewers to see the opportunities in the non-alcoholic beer sector and released Kirin Free in April 2009.

The company initially set an annual sales target of 630,000 cases of 20 633-mililiter bottles. By October, that estimate had been hiked to 3.5 million cases.

Suntory Liquors Ltd. released a new alcohol-free beer in October, with sales of its Nonaru Kibun so brisk that it raised its sales target for the three months it was first on the market to one million cases — 70 per cent higher than its initial expectations.

The reason for the unexpected popularity of alcohol-free beer in a nation that famously enjoys a drink are numerous, including a recent crackdown by police on drunk driving and more people saying they do not enjoy the effects of alcohol but still want to be able to socialise.

The brewers are also keen to expand their products’ profiles overseas, with Kirin launching Kirin Free in the United States on a trial basis in October. — AFP/Relaxnews