Indian restaurants in the UK, which stock popular beers with an Indian connection, can now get ready for a more authentic fizz.A UK-based firm called MNK Beverages has launched a new ‘‘crisp and dark’’ beer called Mor, and has come up with an innovative marketing spiel to buff up its image in the already-saturated Indian beer category. Its tagline: ‘The only genuine Indian beer brewed in India’.Launched in February this year on a trial basis, MNK Beverages has imported 2,000 cases a month for circulation in London’s top Indian restaurants like Mela, SoHo Spice and Indian Ocean. Its USP? Unlike Cobra and Kingfisher, which are brewed in the UK, Mor is bottled in the western Indian port of Daman & Diu.‘‘We are probably the only brand in the UK which can claim to be a true Indian beer,’’ says Manish Kachwala, one of the three partners in MNK, and owner of Vie Lounge in Mumbai.Currently, beer brands sold in the 6,000-odd Indian restaurants in the UK are brewed there. Market leader Cobra, which once bottled at Bangalore-based Mysore Breweries in the 1980s, now produces four variants from low-cal to strong beer in the British town of Bedford. About 100,000 cases of beer reaches Indian restaurants and supermarkets, says Perses Bilimoria, regional director, Cobra Beer India Ltd.According to Shekhar Ramamurthy, UB Group’s executive VP, Kingfisher beer’s export label Maharaja has a contract arrangement with a brewery in Kent and is available in nearly all the Indian restaurants and supermarkets.But the rise in popularity of Indian cuisine is spawning a host of other little-known labels and are winding up in Indian restaurants in the UK, Canada and Australia. Apart from Mor, several other brands—like Tikka Gold and Bangla beer—carry the made-in-India tag.Blossom Industries, a 3-lakh cases a month brewery company owned by the Khemani Group, launched its label Bel Bird in the UK last year. ‘‘These days everyone wants to be a Cobra. I have at least six overseas inquiries a year,’’ says S. Subhash Babu, manager of Blossom, which subcontracts for Kingfisher and Mor. Bangalore-based Khoday group has too its launched its premium beer Hercules Lager in Canada.But even as the demand from restaurants is on the rise, the consumption figure is not adding up yet. Says Puroshottam S. Tyagi, chief brew master at Khoday, ‘‘We only send about 1,000 cases a month every two months to Canada and Australia.’’ Low orders, sources say, has also forced beer label Adi Adi, launched by an NRI telecom entrepreneur and sourced from a Bangalore brewery to go flat and close down.But Mor’s Kachwala is betting on the phenomenal growth of Indian restaurants. According to a Time report, Britain spend nearly $3.5 billion in Indian restaurants every year. Of course, it remains to be seen if the ‘brewed in India’ pitch goes down well with consumers.
