Flavoured beers, shandies and radlers: production for brewers

What Indian rules call these drinks

FSSAI added flavoured beer to its Alcoholic Beverages Regulations in 2022: beer containing flavours permitted under the Food Products Standards and Food Additives Regulations, meeting every other beer requirement. Craft beer may also be aromatised with suitable food ingredients. The beer table still applies: pH 3.3 to 4.8, carbon dioxide 1.8 to 3.6 volumes, regular or mild above 0.5% and up to 5.0% ABV, strong above 5.0% and up to 8.0%.

Shandy and radler are not defined. Even in Germany, Öko-Test notes that the law does not fix a radler, though the usual meaning is beer and clear lemon soda at 50:50. In India a beer-plus-lemonade product could be read as flavoured beer or, from 1 January 2026, as an alcoholic ready-to-drink beverage, which covers drinks above 0.5% and up to 15% ABV made from an alcoholic base with juice or flavours. The class can change the label and the excise duty, so get FSSAI and the state excise office to confirm it in writing before artwork.

Real fruit, flavour houses or both

Real fruit added during fermentation gives depth but brings sugar, pectin and wild microbes. Every harvest also differs. Our guide to adding fruit to beer covers timing and rates. Extracts from a flavour house are dosed after fermentation and repeat batch after batch. Ask the supplier for a specification sheet with dose rate, carrier solvent, allergens and a statement of FSSAI compliance. Note whether the flavour is natural, nature-identical or artificial, because the label has to say so.

Spices and botanicals work best as a tincture or a short steep in the brite tank. Bench-blend three dose levels in one-litre samples and taste them cold before scaling up.

Blending after fermentation

The order we use:

1. Finish fermentation and diacetyl rest, then clarify the base beer.
2. Chill it in the brite tank to near 0 °C.
3. Deaerate any water in the lemonade or juice component.
4. Dose syrup, juice or extract in line or into the brite with recirculation.
5. Measure ABV, Brix, pH, CO2 and dissolved oxygen on the blend.
6. Trim carbonation last, inside the 1.8 to 3.6 volume band if you sell it as beer.

Strength follows volume. A 50:50 radler of 5.0% beer lands near 2.5% ABV. FSSAI allows only 0.3% either side of the declared figure, so meter the blend rather than dipping tanks.

Juice handling

Juice is the riskiest ingredient in the cellar. Buy from a supplier who states Brix, pH, acidity and storage conditions. Keep concentrate cold, use an opened pack within the supplier's limit and check Brix and pH on receipt. Juice brings yeast, mould and pectin, so plan a pectinase step if haze matters and never let an opened drum sit warm in an Indian summer.

Residual sugar means pasteurise

Lemonade, juice and fruit syrup add fermentable sugar to a beer that still holds live yeast. If anything survives, the pack referments: carbonation climbs, flavour turns and glass can burst. FSSAI already requires bottled and canned beer to be pasteurised or filter sterilised. For beer that carries residual fermentable sugar, Fermentis specifies at least 80 to 120 PU after packaging and says flash pasteurisation alone is not enough. Our guide to pasteurisation units covers the calculation.

Draught beer may be sold unpasteurised, but a sweet keg in a broken cold chain will referment within days of leaving the cold room. Either pasteurise the blend before kegging or keep shandies to bottles and cans.

Existing brewery or new set-up

If you already run a brewery or brewpub, you can make flavoured beers on your existing brite tanks. Add a dosing pump or flow meter, a refractometer and a tunnel pasteuriser, or a contract packer who pasteurises. Each new brand and pack usually needs label registration with the state excise office. Confirm with FSSAI that your licence covers the product and with excise how it will be classed and taxed; both vary by state and change.

If you are starting a new set-up, build in this order: brewhouse and fermenters, brite tanks with good CO2 control, a lab for ABV, Brix, pH and CO2, dosing, then packaging with a tunnel pasteuriser. Shandies need the pasteuriser from day one.

Most failures here are not recipe failures. They are blends that drift off label or packs that referment, which is why the release checks matter more than the flavour.