“Just so you know, we do not have that one or that one.”
Two of Brewbot’s five listed beers are unavailable. To be fair, each stop on the evening’s craft beer crawl through Andheri West, in west Mumbai, reveals a similar shortage of the housemade products.
“Hm, okay. I’ll try the Draft Punk IPA then… do you know the alcohol on that?”
No beers listed in Brewbot’s menu include the ABV, and the server doesn’t know, either. To be fair, none of the beers listed in menus at nearby outlets for Independence Brewing Company and Doolally Taproom include the ABV, either. Apparently that’s not a point of concern for any involved party, and I don’t care enough to press anybody on it, either. (Brewbot also credits the United States in its Draft Punk listing as the origin of India Pale Ale, but there’s no point in being that guy.)
Drinking craft in hyper-nascent markets like Mumbai, India, or, Siem Reap, Cambodia, is always an experience. In such places quality can sometimes be of lesser importance than the raw availability of something, anything different. Every beer tonight is drinkable and none are memorable; RateBeer and Western “Beer Twitter” likely wouldn’t be particularly kind, but who gives a shit. Half the taps are dry? So what.
Rants and ratings and witticisms are the last thing on my mind as my companion and I squeeze into the only two open seats at jam-packed Independence Brewing Co; there’s so much energy and enthusiasm in the place. The beer sits somewhere on the middle-left side of the learning curve, but again, who cares.
It’s a blast working through a tasting paddle that includes a wheat ale infused with Alphonso mangoes grown in India (Pulp Fiction), a red sour ale brewed with local mulberries (Mulberry Pie), and an oak-aged nitro best bitter. There’s a similarly raucous scene just around the corner at Doolally Taproom, where our evening ends after huge glasses of the last two beers still available on tap.
Places like Brewbot, Independence, Doolally, and others across Mumbai are helping build something special. The foundational pieces are there, even if the construction has a ways to go. Growing pains, however, have a certain beauty and thrill of their own.
