A short history of beer brewing in India since colonial times

Beer by sea

In the eighteenth century British officers, soldiers and traders in India drank beer shipped from England. The voyage around the Cape took months and much of it arrived stale or spoilt. London and later Burton brewers built a trade supplying pale ales to India, which is where the name India pale ale comes from. The legends around that trade are mostly exaggerated. Our guide to English IPA covers the beer itself.

Shipping beer that far was expensive and unreliable. The obvious answer was to brew it in India.

Breweries in the hills

The early breweries went up in the Himalayan foothills rather than the plains. The reasons were practical: cooler temperatures for fermentation, clean spring water and large British garrisons nearby. A brewery set up at Kasauli in the 1820s by Edward Dyer is often described as the first in India. The business later moved to nearby Solan and is the root of the company now known as Mohan Meakin. Murree, in what is now Pakistan, followed in 1860.

Through the nineteenth century more breweries opened in hill towns such as Shimla, Mussoorie and Ooty, supplying the army and the colonial clubs. Barley and hops were brought in or grown locally where possible. The beer was mostly British in style: pale ales and porters.

The south and the rise of lager

In the south, several small breweries in Bangalore and the surrounding region merged in 1915 to form United Breweries. After independence the company came under Indian ownership and grew into the largest brewer in the country. Kingfisher, launched in 1978, became the beer most Indians and most visitors associate with India.

Over the twentieth century tastes moved from British ales to pale lager, as they did across much of the world. Lager suited the heat, refrigeration made cold storage possible and mass production favoured a clean, consistent product. Indian brewers adapted with rice and maize adjuncts, which lighten the body and use grains grown at home. Our guide to rice and maize adjuncts explains why.

Strong beer and the state system

Two features of the Indian market took shape after independence. The first is strong beer, broadly beer above 5% ABV, which became a large share of what Indians buy. Part of the reason is value: more alcohol for the price of a bottle.

The second is the state-by-state system. Alcohol is a state subject under the Constitution, so each state sets its own excise duty, licensing, pricing and in some cases prohibition. Gujarat has kept prohibition since it was formed. Other states have introduced and lifted it at different times. A beer can cost very different amounts on either side of a state border. Brewers must register labels and pay duty separately in every state they sell in.

The craft and brewpub wave

From around 2009 the first brewpubs and microbreweries opened, led by Pune and Gurugram, then Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad and others as states wrote licensing rules for them. Drinkers who had known only pale lager met hefeweizen, stout, IPA and Belgian wit, brewed and served fresh on site. Bengaluru in particular built a reputation as the brewpub capital of the country.

Since then bottled and canned craft brands have spread into retail in several states, though distribution remains hard work because of the state-wise rules. Our overview of craft beer in India picks up the story from here.

What history explains about your glass

The past shows up in the glass more than people expect. Indian drinkers' affection for strong lager traces back to price and excise. The light, crisp body of most Indian lager comes from adjunct brewing suited to heat and local grain. The breadth of styles on a brewpub menu is a recent arrival, barely fifteen years old.

Tasting with that history in mind changes what you notice. A hefeweizen in Bengaluru, a stout in Pune and an English bitter if you can find one are each the result of a particular route into India. Learning to taste them carefully and to describe what you find, is the natural next step.