Beer in India - History

History

Beer began to be exported to India in the early days of the British Empire, including porter and India Pale Ale, also known as IPA. Although, alcohols are not unknown to India thousands of years ago. It is mentioned in some epics of India like The Mahabharatha, called "sura paniyam", which means a liquid that can potentially make the drinker unconscious.

The first brewery in India was set up in Kasauli, in the Himalaya mountains, near Shimla, in the late 1820s by the Englishman Edward Dyer. Dyer's brewery produced Asia's first beer, called Lion. The brewery was soon shifted to nearby Solan (close to the British summer capital Shimla), as there was an abundant supply of fresh spring water there. The Kasauli brewery site was converted to a distillery which Mohan Meakin Ltd. still operates. Dyer set up more breweries at Shimla, Murree, Rawalpindi and Mandalay.

Another entrepreneur, H G Meakin, moved to India and bought the old Shimla and Solan Breweries from Edward Dyer and added more at Ranikhet, Dalhousie, Chakrata, Darjeeling and Kirkee. In 1937, when Burma was separated from India, the company was restructured with its Indian assets as Dyer Meakin Breweries, a public company on the London Stock Exchange. Following independence, in 1949 N.N. Mohan took over management of the company and the name was changed to Mohan Meakin Ltd. The company continues to produce beer across India to this day and Lion is still available in northern India. Lion was changed from an IPA to a lager in the 1960s, when due to East European influence, most brewers in India switched from brewing Ales to brewing lagers. Today the only known brewer in India that makes an India Pale Ale is Windmills Craftworks in Bangalore. Recent law changes in some states and several new brewpubs has brought about a rebirth of ale brewing.

In various parts of north-eastern India, traditional rice beer is quite popular. Several festivals feature this nutritious, quite intoxicating, drink as part of the celebrations. The rice is fermented in vats that are sometimes buried underground. Elephants are known to attack villages, with the primary agenda of drinking from these vats. Following one such raid in eastern India, a police officer in Dumka was quoted in the press as saying: "Tribals who love rice beer brew the liquor at home. Elephants too are fond of this beer. Often it is found that, attracted by the strong smell of the liquor, wild elephants tear down the tribal houses where the brew is stored.