1 lakh litres of craft beer to go down the drain!

Chaitanya Khanapure, a computer engineer, was having a decade-long run in Mumbai’s swelling realm of tech innovation, but a need for a switchover kept gnawing at him. When he quit to study and brew beer for a living two years ago, it was to concocting his own unique flavours of ale and hit the sweet spot that locally brewed craft beer had managed to open up in 2018—a far cry from 2009, when he tasted this artisanal brew for the first time at Doolally, India’s first microbrewery in Pune.
From one craft brewery about 10 years ago, Maharashtra is now home to 20. Yet, the sense of uncertainty is overwhelming for Khanapure as he stares at barrels of the first batch of freshly-brewed beer from his brewery that he will soon have to pour down the drain. It had taken over a year to set up his brewery, handle bureaucracy and licensing permissions before he could fire up the fermenters and keg a breadth of German, Belgian and American craft brews in February. Then came the virus, and the restaurant that the brewery was depending on was closed, indefinitely.

At a moment when the state’s craft beer industry was poised for increased growth and a steady trickle of neighbourhood taprooms had become the lifeblood of the modern bar, they were forced to shut down brewhouses and abandon the beer in kegs and tanks.
Unlike larger brands that bottle their froth and sell through retail shops, these production-only craft breweries by law are allowed to sell only through restaurants and bars and rely on either their own taprooms or keg sales via distributors, an impossible model in the pandemic.
As the industry heads for a rocky spell and the workforce of 1,400 fear for their livelihood, what would horrify both brewers and beer connoisseurs is the massive one lakh litre of beer that will have to be thrown away.
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There’s almost 1 lakh litres of craft beer—roughly three lakh pints—that all the breweries are sitting on cumulatively with no way to sell,” said Nakul Bhonsle, president of Maharashtra Craft Brewers Association of India (mCBAI). Unlike whisky, wine and other aged alcohols that become more refined as they spend years resting in a barrel, craft beer loses its brightness and flavour in about a month.
Maharashtra’s craft brew industry had enjoyed a growth of 25% over the past three years, driven by millennials’ fascination with locally handcrafted brews that opened up new possibilities with local farmers in the use of regional fruits and grains. To foster domestic production, a manufacturing plant was set up in Ambernath in 2017 to produce kegs previously imported from Germany, China and the US. “The sector saw an overall investment of close to Rs 120 crore and contributions of over Rs 10 crore in excise revenue annually. In recent years we’ve also seen graduates from catering colleges move into the industry either as brewers or in marketing roles,” said Vipul Hirani, secretary of mCBAI.
A poll conducted by mCBAI in early April, took a sobering look at how Covid-19 had battered the state’s craft beer wave. While 92% of breweries responded that they might not be able to survive for more than two months, the remaining 8% feared that they may not be able to make it through for even a month, if social distancing measures continue.