Roar Of The Lion

First Simba launched in Chhattisgarh. Then it conquered Assam. Kerry Harwin traces how one homegrown beer brand is upending the narrative on craft beer in India

“What,” I ask Prabhtej Singh Bhatia, “is wrong with Indian oranges?”

The co-founder and CEO of Sona Beverages Pvt Ltd, the company that produces Simba beer, responds to my question with a look of puzzlement. But Simba’s advertising for its Wit beer leans heavily on the imported orange peel with which the brew is infused. And the more I read, the more I fixate on the logic behind bringing European oranges to Chhattisgarh to make beer.

Bhatia laughs, the sound rich with the buttery smooth redolence of a man accustomed to being taken more seriously than his 27 years might demand. “Indian oranges are wonderful,” he tells me. “The problem is consistency.” Irregular ripeness and peels of inconsistent thickness, he explains, throw off the precise process of making high-quality craft beer.

I’ve just been escorted into an ornately decorated room of indeterminate purpose. After the private sedan that delivered me parked under the portico alongside half a dozen others, a BMW 5-Series among them, I was led to this room, where a pair of golden Louis XVI chairs with griffin arms and lion paw legs sit beside enormous pastel papier-mâché tulips and cast-iron and marble candelabras bereft of their candles. Bhatia enters, shakes my hand and sits under a mirror inscribed with an English translation of Tagore’s “Chitto Jetha Bhayshunyo”. This is the residence of Raipur’s Bhatia clan.

This also isn’t the way I thought I would see Chhattisgarh.

The state is probably best known for its natural resource extraction and armed clashes between security forces and Maoist groups. My most likely Chhattisgarh assignment involves jungle camps and tribal villages. Instead, I’ve found myself in a miniaturised five-star hotel, all marble and square edges, as Bhatia begins to tell me how he ended up making India’s first stout beer.