Explore India’s beer story, one city at a time

A few months ago, on a rooftop in Koregaon Park in Pune, Sameer Patwardhan, co-founder of Kothrud-based Kimaya Brewing, hosted an Indian Pale Ale tasting session for a group of about 10 where he introduced a Cold IPA, which is brewed with lager yeasts rather than ale and at colder temperatures. Along the way, Patwardhan took pains to debunk myths about IPA, including the belief that IPAs were first brewed for India (Australia, in case you want to know). His tasting session in February was held just before the Deep Dive Beer Fest, the three-day craft beer festival held at regular intervals by Great State Aleworks (GSA) at the Great State Dive in the city. Whether you prefer the old-fashioned NEIPA (or New England IPA style that relies on hops for aroma and is more juicy than bitter, which remains my favourite) or are happy to experiment with Cold IPAs and kokum-flavoured beers, there’s no doubt that India’s craft beer entrepreneurs have created a new set of drinkers where none existed about 15 years ago.

When it comes to craft beer, Maharashtra leads the pack both in terms of having a passionate set of “brewpreneurs” as well as the user-friendly government policies. It’s among the few states that permit kegging (where microbreweries can send their beer in kegs to other bars) and takeaways in growlers (plastic or aluminium one-litre bottles). The state government recently introduced laws that permit beer from its microbreweries to be exported abroad. Nakul Bhonsle, founder of Pune’s GSA who conceptualised Deep Dive, explains that although craft beer volumes in Pune are a fraction of Bengaluru, the ecosystem has been fuelled by conducive policies and a host of beer festivals for both the industry as well as consumers. Deep Dive, which had technical and brand sessions for brewers as well as pub owners, was followed by the two-day Poona Brew Out, a much larger festival, with sessions open to the public.

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The beer scene in India has evolved considerably since 2006 when Suketu Talekar and Prateek Chaturvedi set up Doolally Craft Beers in Pune, one of the earliest microbreweries, inspired by Singapore’s Brewerkz. It had required years of work to get Maharashtra’s liquor licensing policy rewritten to allow the setting up of microbreweries. At that time, it seemed like an impossible plan—but Talekar and Chaturvedi were in the right place for it, and named their brand appropriately. Back in the days of the Raj, the British set up a mental asylum in the bucolic town of Deolali, near Nashik, corrupting the name to Doolally, and eventually using the term ‘going Doolally’ for someone who was mentally ill. Doolally’s founders were far from ‘doolally’ though—the laws they got drafted in Maharashtra formed a template for Haryana’s policy, which beat them to the opening. 

Howzzat at Gurugram’s Galaxy Hotel now lays the claim to being India’s first microbrewery. Gurugram, unfortunately, didn’t make the most of its first brewer advantage and the craft beer scene has languished. It’s a telling indictment that the best fresh beer available in Gurugram is from the taprooms of giants like Brew Dog and Bira 91. India’s OG draught beer capital, Bengaluru was quick to seize the mantle of India’s microbrewery capital. With Bengaluru also India’s Silicon Valley, some of the leading microbreweries were set up by those escaping tech—from Toit’s Sibi Venkataraju to Geist’s Narayan Manepally and Windmills’ Ajay Nagarajan. Microbreweries and their close cousins, taprooms, have not looked back and now account for 80-90% share of the country’s craft beer industry, according to a survey my company did for a client in 2022. We estimated the craft beer industry at being around ₹ 1000 crore then.

Although the lion’s share of microbreweries is in Bengaluru, Gurugram, Hyderabad and Pune, what’s interesting is their spread to smaller towns. I’ve drunk very quaffable beer at Ironhill in Visakhapatnam and Puducherry’s Catamaran. A few months ago, I visited Shillong and discovered that Yeastern Civilisation, the first microbrewery here, serves a very nice Belgian Wit with excellent pork and rice.

Apart from microbreweries being an extremely profitable business, with India’s larger ones clocking up to ₹ 100 crore in annual sales (40% of which is revenue from beer), what is also driving the growth is the fact that craft beer has got the attention of a rare breed of entrepreneurs who are geeks at heart, and committed to perfecting brewing. Many like Gautam Gandhi from Delhi’s Fort City and Navin Mittal of Mumbai’s Gateway Brewing started out as prolific home brewers.

Navin Mittal, who founded Gateway Brewing Co in Mumbai in 2011, explains that craft beer means different things to the consumer and the brewer. For the consumer, craft beer has come to mean “fresh beer”, not bottled or brewed miles away and trucked to the bar. For the brewer, “craft is about the passion for flavours, tastes and textures that you can create in beer”. Ajay Nagarajan, an engineer turned entrepreneur who set up of Windmills Craftworks in Bengaluru in 2011, says craft vs bottled is “the difference between freshly squeezed orange juice and that from a pack”.

This is why craft beer isn’t retailed much in India, apart from the onerous and costly procedure of registering a fresh label for every new beer one brews. Anish Varshnei of Goa’s Maka Di says, “Our cost of production is 3-4 times that of commercial beer, but we’re taxed at the same rate as they are. It’s almost as if we’re being penalised for wanting to make good beer.” In India, beer is not taxed by its strength or ABV (alcohol by volume), a prime reason for strong lagers accounting for 70% of the overall beer market. By all conventional logic, if beer was taxed by strength, we’d see a move towards healthier consumption with the emphasis not on strength but on taste and flavour.

GOING LOCAL

Later that evening at Deep Dive, alongside the Woodside Inn NEIPA and the Oi Brewing Organic Stout, I drank a Cashew Sour brewed by Great State Aleworks, unusually tart and made from cashew feni. I could easily drink it for a while, or as they say in beer parlance, it’s “sessionable”. It’s a beer that points to the rising trend of using local ingredients. Mango is a popular ingredient for ale, and in the west of India, kokum too. The use of local ingredients is a great way to introduce an unfamiliar beer style to a consumer through a familiar flavour. I also have a Millet Ale from Apiary Brewing, which uses local grains such as millet. The use of bajra and local varieties of rice is also on the rise. At Terra Mayaa in Guwahati, they make a lovely, fragrant Joha Kazi Lager, joha being a local strain of rice and kazi a local lemon.

Drinking responsibly is important—and a few young brewers are also using the proceeds of their sales responsibly. At Delhi’s excellent Fort City Brewing, I tasted an unfamiliar White IPA, christened Moon Face. Brewed by Karina Aggarwal, a beer lover whose recent battle with cancer prompted her to collaborate with Fort City to create this brew, the proceeds from its sales goes to Delhi’s Hope Foundation to support women who need cancer care. It’s an indication that craft beer is becoming a collaborative, community endeavour in India with the expanding brewing community eager and passionate to learn from one another and explore new styles, ingredients and flavours. An easing of the laws that restrict them in different states could help further unshackle and elevate this fascinating piece of India’s alcobev system.

Know your IPA

NEIPA or New England IPA: Also called the hazy IPA, it’s the most common style of IPA and is more juicy than bitter. Perfect to introduce a non-beer drinker to craft beer.

West Coast IPA: A bitter, stronger beer than NEIPA

White IPA: A hybrid of a Belgian Wit Beer and an IPA

Cold IPA: Brewed with lager yeasts and at colder temperatures

Vikram Achanta is founder and CEO of Tulleeho, a drinks training and consulting company, and co-founder of 30BestBarsIndia.

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