Nestled in the glass and grime of India’s controversial millennium city is Galaxy, where a dry ice asteroid sculpture lit by twinkling stars stands three floors tall in the lobby. The year-old lifestyle hotel is located near 32nd Milestone, that original Gurgaon after hours destination which hosted the “world’s longest dance party” in 1999.
Now, Galaxy’s going for its own record.
Howzzat, a 2,500 sq. ft cricket-themed bar, will brew its own beer a few feet away from the glove-shaped seats, and 76-inch plasmas. So, as you chug your handcrafted pint, you can see the shiny made-in-China Brite Beer Tanks in which it was created.
Also See A graphic representation of Howzzat, India’s first brewpub, in Gurgaon.
India’s first brewpub—a pub that brews beer on its premises— opens in November.
IIM Bangalore graduate Suketu Talekar, 30, could have been the first. He got his LoI (letter of intent; a precursor to a licence) to start a brewpub way back in 2006.
Talekar and his partner, Prateek Chaturvedi, an IIM Calcutta graduate, joined the Singapore office of Procter and Gamble on the same day. After many discussions over top quality India Pale Ale, they quit their jobs and came back to Pune to start BrewCrafts Microbrewing Pvt. Ltd in 2006. Third partner and brewmaster Oliver Schauf relocated to India six months ago.
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“We started with the classical MBA approach of presentation. We had a slick business plan, Excel sheets that showed the entire structure of our company. We were convinced investors would be tripping over each other to invest in our company. Nobody gave us money,” says Talekar.
So crafty: (from left to right) Partners Oliver Schauf, Suketu Talekar and Prateek Chaturvedi will launch their microbrewery venture this year. Sandesh Bhandare / Mint
Back then, he says, the only experience they had with beer was drinking it. “Our hypothesis was that this country will accept a better beer. The only way it could be tested was if we made that beer.”
But venture capitalists, always in search of the next big technology start-up, were unwilling to help the beerheads test their frothy premise.
Finally, the partners took an SBI term loan, found a couple of angel investors and borrowed money from Talekar’s businessman father. The march of the microbreweries had begun.
But if we’re really going by firsts, 40-year-old Pune resident Balasaheb Jadhav is your man. By 2003, the employee of Coca-Cola India, a mechanical engineer with 14 years of manufacturing experience, was ready to be an entrepreneur. “I wanted to make a product that was difficult to manufacture and easy to sell.”
Beer seemed just the thing.