Guwahati: Bonding over a couple of cans of beer is nothing new and when two brothers— Van and Sumit Sharma — bonded to start a beer brewing company in Boston in March 2020 and named it Rupee Beer Company, their primary motive was to address the lack of availability of Indian beers in the United States market.
They even incorporated the Hindi script of Rupee in the beer cans to give a ‘desi’ vibe to the Indians living in America.
Today they are not only popular among the Indian restaurants in the United States but are also making inroads to a wider audience.
But making inroads into India’s pale ale (IPA) market was not going to be that easy because there are very few Asians who have chosen the path of opening a brewery in the United States.
IPA was originally an export beer shipped to India, which was under the control of the British East India Company until 1858. The pale ales of the early 18th century were lightly hopped and quite different from today’s pale ales.
According to the Washington Post, IPA has long been the dominant craft beer style in the United States, guzzling a 46 per cent share of dollar sales in the craft segment.
But the Sharma brothers were clear that they wanted to add Indian flavour to their Rupee-branded beer and they used basmati rice instead of the usual barley that is used in the IPA.
The brothers started selling the beers in Maine-area Indian restaurants in 2021. So when people tasted it they found it much lighter and less potent lager than the IPAs.
According to the Washington Post India pale ale has virtually nothing to do with the culture and tastes of its namesake: It was a colonial British export meant for troops stationed in the jewel of their South Asian empire. For that matter, the IPAs that have recently conquered the New World — both the bitter hop-forward West Coast versions that ignited the craft beer revolution and the hazier, juicier New England style that has risen to power — taste nothing like those original ales that Brits shipped to the subcontinent.
The Rupee beer has only 5.6 per cent alcohol by volume; whereas many American IPAs check in at seven per cent and above. Moreover, the Rupee beer is much sweeter because of the usage of Basmati rice.
In many ways, Rupee beer’s mere existence is a stand against the Western beer establishment.
According to an audit conducted by the Brewers Association, which represents craft breweries in the United States, only two per cent of craft breweries are owned by people of Asian descent.
Rupee is not only a presence infusing Indian culture into American beer, but it’s also a beacon for South Asian emigrants who want to see themselves in the products they consume.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2024/01/25/rupee-beer-indian-ipa