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In the late 1820s Edward Dyer moved from England to set up the first brewery in India at Kasauli (later incorporated as Dyer Breweries in 1855) in the Himalaya mountains, near Shimla , producing Asia's first beer called '' Lion ''. The brewery was soon shifted to nearby Solan (close to the British summer capital Shimla), as there was an abundant supply of fresh springwater there. The Kasauli brewery site was converted to a distillery which Mohan Meakin Ltd. still operates. Dyer set up more breweries at Shimla , Murree , Rawalpindi and Mandalay . Another entrepreneur, H G Meakin, moved to India and bought the old Shimla and Solan Breweries from Edward Dyer and added more at Ranikhet, Dalhousie, Chakrata, Darjeeling and Kirkee. In 1937, when Burma was separated from India, the company was restructured with its Indian assets as Dyer Meakin Breweries, a public company on the London Stock Exchange . Following independence, in 1949 N.N. Mohan took over management of the company and the name was changed to Mohan Meakin Ltd. The company continues to produce beer across India to this day and ''Lion'' is still available in northern India. Today however, no brewer in India makes ''India Pale Ale''. All Indian beers are either Lagers (5 % alcohol — such as Australia n lager) or strong lagers (8 % alcohol - such as the popular ''MAX'' super strong beer). International Breweries Pvt. Ltd. have recently announced an intention to work with Mohan Meakin to produce and launch an India Pale Ale called ''Indian IPA'' from India's first brewery at Solan. Kingfisher, Kings and Bello are popular Indian beer brands. In various parts of north-eastern India, traditional rice beer is quite popular. Several festivals feature this nutritious, quite intoxicating, drink as part of the celebrations. The rice is fermented in vats that are sometimes buried underground. It is quite popular, and not only with humans. Elephants are known to attack villages, with the primary agenda of raiding these vats and having a good time generally. |
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