This coming weekend, as Bengalureans ring out the previous 12 months and ring within the new, hundreds of sweating pitchers of this metropolis’ favorite tipple will likely be joyfully quaffed by its citizenry. Whereas subtle palates will debate the deserves of a Espresso & Chocolate Stout versus a Basmati Blonde, others will lean on the crisp, comforting predictability of the world-famous native lager. Regardless, every will likely be taking part in a century-old metropolis custom.
Beer is not any stranger to India – the Vedas point out a beer-like drink known as sura, and tribal societies have brewed, for millennia, some type of rice beer. European-style beer, nevertheless, got here to India solely within the 18th century, imported from England to moist the grateful throats of East India Firm (EIC) staff wilting in a tropical local weather most unsuitable for brewing it.
It was the Bow Brewery, in London’s East Finish, that first cornered the Indian market within the 1780s. Its shrewd proprietor, George Hodgson, leveraged his small brewery’s proximity to the EIC docks, other than extending a beneficiant line of credit score to the EIC’s ship captains. Hodgson’s brewery was well-known for a darkish, working-class beer known as porter, however his fortunes actually turned when he added a lighter beer – October beer – to his choices. The six-month-long, sea-tossed journey to a hotter clime labored on October beer in methods nobody had anticipated – by the point it reached Indian shores, it had matured right into a drink that EIC officers took to with relish. That was the genesis of the beer we all know right this moment as IPA – India Pale Ale.
Hodgson’s son (as sons will) modified the Bow Brewery’s enterprise practices when he took over, slicing off credit score to the EIC. It didn’t go down properly – the EIC turned to Allsopp’s brewery in Burton-on-Trent, a beer-brewing area that was affected by the Napoleonic blockades of the European markets, for a customized model of October beer. Maybe it was the water of the river Trent that made the distinction, or the truth that it was extra ‘hoppy’ and had a better alcohol content material, however by 1821, Allsopp’s IPA had develop into the toast of the EIC’s high brass in India.
Round 1830, the primary Indian brewery got here up in Kasauli in Himachal Pradesh.Arrange by – maintain your breath – Edward Abraham Dyer, the daddy of the notorious Colonel Dyer, ‘the butcher of Jallianwala Bagh’, it produced Asia’s first beer model, Lion, nonetheless in manufacturing and the signature beer of Sri Lanka right this moment. (Enjoyable reality: Dyer Breweries, included in 1885, has been Mohan Meakin Breweries since 1967.) By 1882, there have been 12 breweries in British India, together with two in south India.
In 1915, Scotsman Thomas Leishman mixed 5 south Indian breweries – the Fortress Brewery (based 1857), Nilgiri Breweries (1857), Bangalore Brewing Firm (1885), British Brewing Corp (1903) and BBB Brewery Firm Ltd (1913) – to kind United Breweries (now UB). Draught bullocks pulled hogsheads of freshly-brewed lager (now you recognize why it’s known as draught beer!) to pubs that had naturally sprung up across the brewery, within the erstwhile British cantonment.
In 1946, a 22-year-old whiz-kid from Karnataka known as Vittal Mallya started shopping for up UB inventory. The very subsequent 12 months, he turned UB’s first Indian director, and shortly after, its chairman. In 1950, UB got here residence for good to Bengaluru.
At present, one of many metropolis’s best-known micro-breweries provides a ragi-based ale they name ‘Namma Beeru’ – our beer. The state’s Kuruba neighborhood might have some beef with that. To them, Namma Beeru would in all probability call to mind their beloved deity, Lord Beereshwara, to whom a temple stands proper by the Mallya Hospital on the Vittal Mallya Highway, a stone’s throw away from the place town’s most well-known brewery as soon as stood.
(Roopa Pai is a author who has carried on a longtime love affair together with her hometown Bangalore)