THE GREAT INDIAN BEER RUSH

摘要

Indians love their booze, but beer, it seems, leaves them cold. The country ranks tops globally in consumption of whisky, but it's somewhere near the bottom in beer drinking. So why is just about everyone in the brewing industry scrambling to get a piece of the market? Despite the obvious preference Indians have for distilled spirits, beermakers worldwide think there's great potential for selling their brews in the country. A hot climate, an even hotter economy, and an enormous youth population look like an unbeatable combination in the eyes of Britain's SABMiller and Scottish & Newcastle, Heineken of the Netherlands, and Denmark's Carlsberg. Facing flat sales in many Western markets, all have set up India operations in recent years, either on their own or in tieups.