Reasons Why Bengaluru is The Beer Capital of India

B For beer, and B for Bengaluru. The vibrant city of Bengaluru is well known for its pub culture. Bengaluru’s various watering holes proudly provide an excellent time to their patrons. It was in Bengaluru where the liquor baron Vijay Mallya set up the headquarter for India’s most prominent beer company, ‘The UB Group’, which is known for its famous Indian beer, ‘Kingfisher’. However, in the last decade or so, with the advent of Microbreweries in India, Bangalore has lived up to its standards of being a beer-loving city. It has outshined any other city to be the brewery capital of India.

Why is Bengaluru considered the brewery capital of India? Are there enough reasons to support this claim? To find out, I visited the city and its many breweries, spoke and discussed at length (over many glasses of fresh brew) to figure out why Bengaluru is the preferred city for enjoying freshly brewed beers.

Maximum number of breweries

With more than 70 microbreweries spread across B-town, Bengaluru pips other cities by a considerable margin in terms of various options for freshly brewed beers. Each part of the city has enough breweries for Bangaloreans to find an excellent place for their evening beers without having to manoeuvre the infamous Bangalore traffic.

This is one of the critical reasons why Bangaloreans can enjoy beers at ease, not far away from their homes, and avoid long travels across the city just for a few glasses of beer. Newer restaurants, too, are inclined to have freshly brewed beer on the menu to cater to the demands, either by setting up their brewery unit or by sourcing it from other brewing companies who happily supply their beers for multiple restaurants to serve to their guests. It was at a terrace bar called ‘Casa Piccosa’ in Electronic City, where I could enjoy a Toit beer, thus making it easy for me to enjoy the fresh beers without making a long trip to Indiranagar (Where Toit Microbrewery is situated). Availability, therefore, plays a significant role in making the city love its beers, fresh from the tap.

Quality of beers

Variety of Beers

The reason is not hard to figure out, as the beer-loving city of Bangalore fuels itself on fresh brews from the top breweries in the town; there is demand for newer styles and flavours of beers. Think of the traditional styles, like a ’Pilsner’, ‘Indian Pale Ale’ (IPA), ‘Dark Stouts’, ‘Hefeweizen’, Marzen etc., available at most of the prominent breweries in town. You can find excellent quality beers made of Malted barley and wheat; however, don’t be surprised if you fall in love with the ‘Basmati Blonde’ you get at ‘Toit’ (One of the well-known breweries of Bangalore) or ‘Coconut Brown ale’, or an ‘Oatmeal stout’, at the Windmills Craftworks at Whitefield.

Each brewery is experimental when it comes to newer, sometimes whackier flavours. Famous breweries, such as ‘Big Brewsky’, ‘Iron hill’, ‘Geist’, ‘Bier Garten’, ‘Uru Brewpark’, ‘Communiti’, and almost all the breweries producing delicious beers keep coming up with seasonal beers to keep the beer appetite of their patrons Whet (wet) for newer flavours at all times.

The price is another factor which aids in building the beer-drinking culture in Bengaluru. Firstly, I must mention that the beer samplers are priced at either 250 (For 7-8 beers) or 50 Rs per glass, which carries around 150 ml per sample. A 500 ml glass of beer at most breweries would cost anywhere between 250- 350 rupees, a great price to enjoy the quality of beers you get in Bangalore. Especially at classy and happening micro-breweries that the city possesses, often with a great view, interiors, and music to accompany them.

It’s the vibe!

Lastly, the vibe of the microbreweries makes all the difference. With a multi-cultural and happening crowd at most breweries across the city, the vibe of drinking beer in Bengaluru has its charm. A lot of the breweries get the IT Crowd (Bengaluru is known as the Silicon Valley of India) or young working professionals, who do not mind a drink early in the evening, right after their office, or even when they let their hair loose, and party to thumping music late at night (till 1 PM as per Bengaluru excise norms), at places like ‘Biergarten’, and ‘Bier Library’ in Koramangala. There are plenty of options in the city for live music, DJs offering different music every night, rooftop breweries offering a great view, and the romantic weather of Bengaluru providing just the right ambience for beer lovers to enjoy their favourite brews. Even for weekend brunches, the microbreweries are packed, and a lazy afternoon is well appreciated with pitchers of beer to bask in the glory.

Certain breweries are the favourite of the city. However, the list is long. Every beer lover recommends at least 5-6 different spots for freshly brewed beers, often specific to the beer style at specific microbreweries. With the increased awareness and the matured palate of the patrons, the number of breweries opening up in each part of the city, and most certainly, the evergreen charm of enjoying a beer in the beer capital of India, Bengaluru’s beer scene is bound to grow in the coming years. It will not just help the Bangaloreans enjoy their daily hectic working life with quality beers at the end of it., It also aids visitors like me to enjoy the quality beers we get in the city, no matter which part of Bengaluru you are in.

Cheers!

Sidharth Bhan Gupta, Founder of 361 Degrees Hospitality, is a Hospitality / Food and Beverage / Restaurant Consultant, Travelling across India on a Cultural and Culinary Exploration.