He was a wise man who invented beer ~ Plato

Whether it’s a chilled glass of draught at the end of a long and frustrating workday, or a pint with brunch on a lazy Sunday afternoon, or even a cold can while watching a roaring soccer game with friends at home, beer has the unique distinction of being a complex and versatile drink. It's barely even alcohol, some say.

George F Reisch goes so far as to say that beer is a more complex drink than whiskey and wine. “It has a more complicated brewing process as compared with wine, where the flavour comes from grapes, or whiskey, where the ageing process is responsible for the taste. You can excuse a bad wine, saying it was a ‘bad year’, but with beers, there has to be a standard,” says the brewmaster and zythologist (student and connoisseur of beer).

Because of its moderate alcohol content, it’s a great social beverage, says Reisch. “Even stay-at-home moms drink it without worrying about being drunk during the day. In 14th century Europe, beer was the preferred drink because the water was contaminated. It literally is the beverage that keeps you alive.”

No culture for beerMost people drink for the buzz that alcohol gives you, and beer is much slower in that regard, says beer enthusiast Robert Canwell, an American who settled in India seven years ago. That’s why strong beers are so popular in India. “But beer isn’t meant to be had just to get high. It’s a fun drink for just about any occasion, and the vast range of beers available can give the drinker a variety of experiences,” he says.

He adds: “There are just so many types of beer. Not just the lagers that India has been drinking. If anyone says they don’t like beer, I don’t buy it. Only after you’ve tried the hundreds of varieties of beers — ales, pale ales, golden ales, sweet beers, stouts, fruit beers, lagers, flavoured beers, etc — and then you say you don’t like beer, I’ll believe it. Personally, I like beer because I like fine things.” In Europe, beer is treated on a par with wine: Almost all over Europe, there are tasting sessions where enthusiasts swirl the glass and sniff the beer before tentatively taking a sip, much like one would do with a wine or a Scotch. Compared to that, in India, beer isn’t taken seriously. “This is because we haven’t had a proper beer to respect yet,” says Firdosh Batliwala of The Pint Room in Bandra, Mumbai’s first beer café.

Whiskey-flavoured beerThe world over, the choice for beer enthusiasts becomes more varied every day. Brewers are becoming more innovative when it comes to crafting new flavours in beer. “They realised that people like having beer with a shot of whiskey. So now, they’re using whiskey casks to make beers, giving it a whiskey-like flavour,” says Reisch. “A brewer sitting at a bar probably noticed that some people like their beer with a slice of passion fruit. So now, you have beers with 25% passion fruit, and other fruits, in them,” he says.

He adds that he even cooks with beer — boiling pasta in beer may be a little expensive, but the slight bitterness it lends to a dish can turn it around completely. “In India too, the attitude to beer is changing. With more types of beer coming into the market, people are looking at the beverage differently,” says Batliwala.

The beer communityThe Pint Room stocks 38 different global beer brands, of which seven are from Belgium alone. These include varieties of lagers, ales, stout, and flavoured beers. However, a pint of beer can cost anywhere between Rs400 and Rs1,000. This is mostly because of import duties at almost 120%, and a 30% tax levied by the state of Maharashtra.

Still, beer as a drink is never going to catch on in India if a glass of it is priced at Rs300, says Canwell. “If only the rich have access to beer, it’s never going to persist as a product,” he says. “And beer is supposed to be everybody’s drink.”

When he first moved to India in 2005 and was living in Mussourie, he travelled to Ponta Saheb where he chanced upon a German brewery. “The brewmaster there was a chemist, and had never been asked for a tour from anyone aside from the management.

But seeing how interested I was, he obliged. He even gave me useful contacts if I ever wanted to start a brewery, and gave me a few ingredients. I’m sure he wasn’t allowed to, but he did anyway,” says Canwell. “That’s the thing about beer: We’re a real ‘community’ and every beer drinker is equal.”