Oh Beer! Why Bengaluru may be staring at a beer shortage

Bengaluru’s woes seem to be unending. Many tipplers will have to quench their thirst with another liquor as Karnataka’s capital might soon be staring at a beer crisis.

Sweltering temperatures, along with the Indian Premier League (IPL) season, have increased beer consumption in the city. Bengaluru, which is already reeling from acute water scarcity, could now face a ‘beer shortage’.

Let’s take a closer look.

Bengaluru is ‘high’ on beer

As mercury soars, chilled beer is a good source to beat the heat. In fact, beer sales in Bengaluru have jumped amid scorching temperatures.

According to the excise department’s data, Karnataka recorded 61 per cent of total beer sales of April 2023 in just the first two weeks of the same month this year, Times of India (TOI) reported.

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“We had sold 38.6 lakh boxes of beer last April, and this year we already sold 23.5 lakh boxes in the first two weeks of the month,” a department official told the newspaper.

Another official told TOI that besides the heat, the Lok Sabha elections also drove up beer sales in the state.

The uptick in beer sales has also been attributed to IPL matches as many restobars offer special discounts when Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) is playing.

“This year, there has been an overall increase of 20 per cent in the sale of beer due to the soaring temperature and IPL matches. Many consumers of spirits have also moved to beer this time around,” Chethan Hegde, Bengaluru Chapter head, the National Restaurants Association of India (NRAI), told The Hindu.

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Beer supplies hit in Bengaluru

As the demand for beer in India’s Silicon Valley has surged, pubs and breweries in the city are finding it hard to keep up.

With sales rising in recent months, breweries had to continuously produce the beverage to meet the overwhelming demand.

But now, they are struggling, which has left retailers unable to restock their inventories.

As per The New Indian Express (TNIE) report, several pubs and breweries in the IT hub are planning to halt their weekend offers like buy 2 get 1 and buy 1 get 1 on pitchers amid a supply crunch.

Manufacturers say the fruit season and long weekends when people often meet and have beer are also factors for the spike in demand for the chilled beverage.

A representative from a major brewery in Marathahalli told TNIE, “Typically during the summer season, we introduce fruit-flavoured beer, with sales heavily reliant on fruits such as mangoes and pineapples. This year, sales of fruit beer dipped due to suboptimal mangoes, prompting people to opt for regular beer.”

He said an estimated 30,000 litres of beer have already been sold this year, compared to about 9,000 litres in 2023.

Speaking to TNIE, the operational head of another brewery on Residency Road said that amid high temperatures, it is difficult to maintain cool fermentation temperatures and sufficiently cool the wort — a liquid solution of extracted grains used to make beer.

“We haven’t encountered such weather consequences, so it is taking time to adapt to new measures that can offer a temporary solution,” she said.

Bengaluru’s microbreweries

Bengaluru loves beer. It has more than 70 breweries and is known as India’s ‘beer capital’.

Bengaluru witnessed the mushrooming of microbreweries over a decade back with The Biere Club, which introduced new styles of beer in the city, as per The New Minute (TNM) report.

Some even credit Bengaluru’s traffic woes for the city’s beer culture.

According to beer consultant Akash Hirebet, “Craft beer and microbreweries becoming a neighborhood thing is partly due to the legendary Bangalore traffic, which made commutes so difficult and time-consuming that people wanted to go somewhere within 15-20 minutes of where they stay,” TNM reported.

After spending long hours at work, youngsters are looking to de-stress in a casual environment, which seems to be offered by Bengaluru’s craft breweries. “Beer has become a young person’s drink. It is not stuffy like wine,” Devesh Agarwal, who founded The Wine Connoisseurs wine group, told Condé Nast Traveller last year.

Speaking to TNM in 2021, Sibi Venkataraju, a co-founder of Toit, the city’s one of the best-known microbreweries, said, “Microbreweries and Bangalore was a match made in heaven. It was just something that had to happen”.

As mercury goes off the charts and ruins Bengaluru’s “pleasant” weather, beer lovers might have to compromise and switch to another beverage for some time.

With inputs from agencies