Somewhere along the way, Bira just stopped being itself.
An unorthodox, low-bitterness craft beer brand, Bira 91 started out in 2015 challenging everything that beer had stood for in India. Everything from its name to its logo screamed millennial, fun, and well-thought-out, and for a while there, beer didn’t seem like an industrial product. But, India’s first bottled craft beer brand isn’t very crafty anymore—hasn’t been for a while.
B9 Beverages-owned Bira brought craft beer to urban masses when there was close to no competition. Now, there are more than 45 brands (such as Chhattisgarh-based Simba, Mumbai-based White Owl and Gurugram-based White Rhino) in the same premium price range as Bira—Rs 100-150 ($1.4-2.2) for a 330 ml bottle.