Monday, May 7, 2007

Which Beer?

Driving through a busy Juhu intersection the other night in a rickshaw I leant forward to instruct the driver to go left in my best Hindi and I was blinded by the new Foster's billboard taking command of the night sky. Foster's is available in most of the restaurants and bars around Mumbai and unfortunately in some of the bars we've been to it's the only beer on offer.
As responsible Australian drinkers we avoid Foster's where ever we can and dive into the local brews. Kingfisher has the lead at present as it has the advantage of the Premium (up to 5%) and Strong (up to 8%) variants.
Local price for a carton of 12 tallies from the local bottle shop is around RS750 or $20 Aussie. Actually this is the haggled price, it normally starts a few hundred rupee higher but becomes cheaper once the fresh, new bank notes shown to the shop keep go back in the pocket..
Beer like everything else that is from a "nice" venue starts to get expensive. A stubbie of Kingfisher is RS150 and it's up from there Fosters RS175, Corona RS250, Peroni RS300.
There is a small piece of theatre performed each time a beer is served. The bar staff will present you with your beer of choice, unopened, like a fine wine. You then have the opportunity to test the chill in the bottle with the back of your hand, once you're satisfied the beer is cold enough a wave of the hand, Royal style, is given and the bottle is ceremoniously opened for your enjoyment.

It's hard to say which beer is the best but on a hot, humid, Bombay day the best beer more often than not, is the cool beer that's in your hand.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

all that opening ceremony sounds like heaven to me, the way it should be... although i think the best beer is in bear's belly.
hope you got a stubby cooler mate.
bsr

Pradeep Menon said...

I'm curious... you avoid Foster's?? Why's that? It's KF all the way for me though!

Cheers!