SOME GREAT BEER BRANDS - EVERY BEER LOVER SHOULD KNOW

Whether you are just beginning to explore the world of beer or you are a seasoned beer snob, these are brews that you should know. In compiling this list I’ve tried to put together a list of beer that are 1) solid representatives of their respective styles 2) seem to have a decent market saturation so you will have a chance of finding them 3) generally cover the spectrum of beer styles.

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale
In no particular order, I begin with Pale Ale. Sierra Nevada's Pale Ale is a great example of the American interpretation of this classic English brew. It is amber colored and has a nice balanced flavor. It is hopped with distinctive Cascade hops.
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Fuller's ESB - Bitter
Fuller’s ESB is my selection for the huge family of bitters. The name might stand for Extra Special Bitter though no one really agrees on what ESB means. This beer is dark with rich malt flavoring. Light hops and low alcohol makes this a good session beer.
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Samuel Smith's Taddy Porter - Porter
Samuel Smith’s Taddy Porter might be as close to the original porter that you can get in the beer world. Taddy has a rich dark color and a medium body.
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Pilsner Urquell - Bohemian Pilsner
Bohemian Pilsner can only really be represented by the one beer – Pilsner Urquel, the original. Despite changes in brewing and lagering methods over the years, this is more or less the same beer that came out of the Plzen casks on October 5, 1842 and harkened a new era in brewing.
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Guiness - Dry Stout
Guinness is my choice for dry stout. This famous beer is perhaps one of the best known beers in the world. With a small dose of beer soured by lactic acid bacteria in each batch, Guinness might not be the prototypical dry stout but it is so ubiquitous it is hard to deny it a spot on my list. Other perhaps more correct choices for this style would be Murphy’s or Beamish Stout.
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Warsteiner - German Pils
For my German pils entry I suggest Warsteiner. With pronounced hops and a lighter malt profile than even Bohemian Pilsner, German pils will be the most familiar beer on this list to those that normally drink megabrewery beers like Coors or Bud.
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Haywards 5000
Haywards 5000 is India's largest selling strong beer brand, which perfectly combines strength with quality credentials that meet the high expectations of today’s demanding consumers.
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Goose Island IPA - India Pale Ale
India Pale Ale is a brew whose history is as interesting as the beer itself. Recently it has become a favorite of that odd breed – the American hop-head. Goose Island's India Pale Ale is an ode to the hop cone. To get an idea of the way this brew probably originally tasted, find a McEwans’ India Pale Ale. McEwans was producing IPA all the way back when this style was earning its name.
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Hoegaarden - Belguim White
Hoegaarden is at the fore of a revival of the Belgium white, an unusual wheat beer. This is one of the best examples of the mix of spicy yeast and cloudy white that marks a Belgium white.
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Chimay Trappist Ales
The Trappist ales, a rich malty style noted for being crafted by monks, is Chimay. You will find that there are a few different varieties available from the Chimay brewery but any of them will do nicely.
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INDIAN BEER TASTING - THE TASTE OF INDIA

The situation of beer in India is really much like the "single-genre" film world. All we got is Pilsners! Just imagine someone who has to sit down and painstakingly taste these similar varieties and come back with their tasting notes – each different and unique.

Lets take the case of Kingfisher, Fosters, London Pilsner, Royal Challenge and the latest on the block Cobra. All belong to the mild segment.

Colour: All the beers are in the straw to golden colour range. Fosters and Cobra are slightly darker than the others. LP, Kingfisher and RC are slightly paler, more yellow and straw-like in colour comparatively speaking. But this is only just slightly and only if you've got superior eyesight.

Carbonation & Head Formation: The Kingfisher and the RC do a good job as "fizzies." The Cobra is good enough to be third noticeably the bubble size (like the Fosters) is slightly bigger than the others. The heads of the Fosters and London Pilsner especially the latter prove great at the disappearing act. The carbonation too appears to be in the following descending order Kingfisher, RC, Cobra, Fosters and London Pilsner.

Mouth feel: Very little really to differentiate. However Fosters and Cobra have slightly heavier bodies. Again this is to a very minute degree.

Aroma: The London Pilsner lets out a pungent, sharp yeasty aroma. The Kingfisher has a hoppy and almost piney sort of an aroma. Also you might sense the warmth of the alcohol in the aroma. The Cobra aroma is a lot less intense and at the same time its balanced. You don't need to cringe while drawing a deep breath over a glass of Cobra. Hints of fruitiness also emanate. Fosters has an almost sour aroma with strong hints of yeast.

Flavour: All the beers seem to balance maltiness with the bitterness of the hops. London Pilsener is watery bland for the first second or two and then its slightly sour (like vinegar) and then lots of hoppy flavour. The Kingfisher has a mild maltiness with sour/estery notes in between (sour notes are in the beginning only). There are hints of a piney/wooden flavour. Then follows a long, hoppy, bitter but pleasant finish. Cobra is more full flavoured than the other beers. It does exercise your taste buds. You may also sense smoky notes in the middle. The bitterness grows slowly and finishes with hints of bittersweet fruits (pear perhaps). The finish is typically long. Lastly the Fosters left me baffled. Its quite full flavoured not so much as the Cobra but more than the Kingfisher. A fine balance between the malts and the hops. But there are hints of burnt toast and a medicine like sourness.

Please feel free to add your personal experience here……………….

UB, SABMILLER IN FROTHY BATTLE OVER TOP SPOT

United Breweries (UB) and SABMiller, the country’s biggest beer companies, are engaged in a frothy battle over market leadership of their respective brands. UB claims its Kingfisher Strong has consolidated its position as the largest selling beer brand, having sold 95 lakh cases in the first quarter of the current fiscal, while SABMiller says its Haywards 5000 has reclaimed leadership in the same period.

According to SABMiller, its Haywards 5000 sold 88 lakh cases in the first quarter of this year, against Kingfisher Strong’s 87 lakh cases. When contacted, SABMiller’s director (corporate affairs) Sundeep Kumar said: “Haywards 5000 has outsold Kingfisher Strong by one lakh cases.” But UB’s executive V-P (sales & marketing) Shekhar Ramamurthy begs to differ.

“We have been ahead of Haywards 5000 for several quarters now. We believe we had a substantial lead over them in FY07. In Q1, we are ahead by over a million cases,” he told ET. In FY07, Kingfisher Strong reported a volume depletion of 26 million cases, which the company said was well ahead of Haywards 5000. SABMiller did not divulge standalone volume figures for Haywards 5000 during FY07 but said its entire portfolio of strong beers sold about 35 million cases.

Kingfisher had replaced Haywards 5000 as the country’s biggest beer brand last year, ending the latter’s decade-long run at the top. SABMiller-controlled Shaw Wallace Breweries had been dominating the strong beer market since the mid-1990s. In fact, UB was forced to extend its flagship premium lager Kingfisher into the strong segment as domestic consumption reported significant migration towards strong beer.

While a SABMiller official admitted Kingfisher Strong overtook Haywards 5000 last year, he added that Haywards had regained the top spot in this quarter. Besides Haywards 5000, the other strong beer brand in SABMiller’s portfolio is Knock Out. It also has some regional labels in its kitty. Besides Kingfisher Strong, other strong beers in UB’s basket include Bullet, Zingaro and Kalyani Black Label Strong.

Strong beers now account for 68% of Indian beer consumption, which is a complete reversal of the market dynamics in the mid-1990s. Strong beer has an alcohol content of 6% or more. India’s beer volumes are estimated at 132-136 million cases. In recent months, the beer market has been frothing with action, with a spate of global majors, such as Heineken, Carlsberg, Budweiser and Beck’s, fine-tuning their India strategies. According to industry estimates, beer sales grew 27% in 2006-07.

BEER POSITIONING AND DIFFERENTIATION

The perceptual map above indicates the positioning strategies of the various brands operating in the Indian beer market. The brands as can be seen are fighting on different positioning platforms. However, in many cases there are overlaps and any lack in the effectiveness of the brand’s communication strategy serves only to further enhance the negative effect of these overlaps. The question marks (???) show possible new positioning strategies, though financial viability of these is not reflected by the map.

In this map, the perceived distance (dissimilarity) between Foster’s and Kalyani is the largest. Further, Zingaro and Thunderbolt are perceived to be the closest pair among this set of brands. The clusters of beers such as Knockout, Kalyani and Haywards help to identify (sub)categories of beers that may be different from the way that the company defines its competitors.

In looking at the vectors, moving in a northeast direction from the origin, beers increase in their popularity with men. Haywards is the most popular with men. The horizontal axis (in the east direction) is most closely associated with attributes "premium," "dining out," and "special occasions", areas which have no brands operating in the Indian market and are possible areas of new brand launch positioning. In the west direction, the horizontal axis is most closely associated with the attributes "on a budget" and "good value." Thus, the horizontal axis (the west to east direction) indicates an underlying dimension of "budget-premium," along which customers seem to characterize their perceptions of the differences between these beers.

Source: http://www.foolonahill.com/mbabeer.html

HISTORY OF BEER IN INDIA

Modern brewing began for India in the early days of the British Empire — the mid-1700s. The demand for beer in the hot Indian climate by the British administrators and the troops was so great that it led to the creation of a completely new style of beer by George Hodgson in his London brewery — India Pale Ale also known as IPA. IPA is a strong, highly hopped ale designed to survive the five month ocean voyage to India without spoiling. India Pale Ale was shipped with every voyage for over a century and became very popular in Britain and North America.

In the late 1820s Edward Dyer moved from England to set up the first brewery in India at Kasauli (later incorporated as Dyer Breweries in 1855) in the Himalaya mountains, near Shimla, producing 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 springwater 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 1960's, when due to East European influence, most brewers in India switched from brewing Ales to brewing Lagers.

Today no brewer in India makes India Pale Ale. All Indian beers are either lagers (5 % alcohol — such as Australian lager) or strong lagers (8 % alcohol - such as the popular MAX super strong beer). International Breweries Pvt. Ltd. have recently announced an intention to work with Mohan Meakin to produce and launch an India Pale Ale called Indian IPA from India's first brewery at Solan. Kingfisher, Kings and Belo are popular Indian beer brands.

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 raiding these vats and having a good time generally. Following one such raid in north-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."

GUINNESS - FACT SHEET

Guinness is the No. 1 stout in the world, famous for its dark colour and white head. Guinness Extra Stout, otherwise known as Guinness Original, is the closest variant to the Guinness Porter originally brewed by Arthur Guinness. Launched in 1820 it has been almost completely replaced by Guinness Draught and now only represents less than 5% of all Guinness sold worldwide.
The largest variant of the stout across the world is Guinness Draught, which was introduced in 1959. Thanks to the innovation of the widget Guinness Draught is now available in cans and bottles and as Extra Cold.

The stout's top markets are GB, Ireland, US, Canada, Australia, France, Italy and Germany.
Guinness is brewed in over 50 countries worldwide, and sold in more than 150. Diageo claims that 10m glasses are consumed every day around the world.

Associated links: www.guinness.com

GUINNESS ROLL OUT IN INDIA

Diageo is looking to up the presence of its Guinness stout beer in India. The company, which began a limited roll-out of the beer in Delhi and Bombay earlier this year, has confirmed that a national roll-out can be expected within the next few months.

Diageo plans to introduce Guinness in Bangalore in the near future followed by a roll-out across the whole country. The focus would primarily be on locations where people are already familiar with stout, such as high-end restaurants and five-star hotels.

ARE THERE ANY COCKTAILS FOR BEER?

Which kind of food goes best with Beer and are there any cocktails available for Beer? Can somebody tell me?

RISING HOPS & MALT PRICES IN INDIA WORRY BEER COMPANIES

The making of beer is turning out to be costlier as the domestic industry grapples with steep increases in the prices of raw materialslike hops and malt.

Most of the Indian brewers which imports hops, have absorbed the cost instead of passing them on to the customers. A major fire at a hops storage facility in the US late last year and poor crop in the Czech Republic, one of the biggest producers, had more than doubled the price of hops at its peak.

The price has, over the last one year, increased from 16-22 euros a kg from a low of 9 euros.

Most of the beer is made from hops, malted barley, water and yeast. Hops are added to beer to give it a bitter taste, aroma and flavour.

The shortage of malt has also lead to increase in prices to around Rs. 17000 a tonne from Rs. 9000. The shortage is also because of increase in beer consumption, which grew 30 percent last year. While the malt capacity has not grown, the beer consumption has grown 30 percent.

For some of the key brewers in India, during the first nine months of the fiscal year F06-F07, cost of production has grown by 55 percent.

CHILLED BEER ON WHEELS

The Delhi State Civil Supplies Corporation is requisitioning refrigerators on wheels to serve chilled beer. Is it a good idea??

With the hot summers approaching fast, the DSCSC has decided to requisition refrigerators on wheels to store and chill beer. These wheeled refrigerators would be kept outside the shop during the day and wheeled inside the shop at the time of closure in the evening.

The sale of beer increases 2-3 times in the summer. As the shops have limited space and most of them already have fixed refrigerators, the requisition of refrigerators on wheels will make sure that customers get chilled beer at any time of the day. The Delhi government owned corporation has around 100 liquor shops in various parts of the city and the refrigeration facility for beer would double with the new facility and help increase the sales and excise revenue for the government.

The DSCSC expects to generate Rs 372 crore by the end of this month. In the last financial year, it had grossed Rs 344 crore. The profit this year is estimated to be Rs 6.25 crore as compared to last year's Rs 5.63 crores. On two days preceding Holi, the corporation grossed Rs 10 crore, a new record in the sale of liquor.