I’m now officially 3 years into my beer marketing journey in B’lore. Access to brewery ops, procurement, sales, restaurant ops, leadership & other teams means I learn a TON of stuff every day! This is my way of sharing what I’ve learnt about the world of beer - a

All beer is ‘brewed beer’. The term cannot be used exclusively for craft beer. That commercial lager that you drink from a bottle? Brewed. That delicious new milkshake IPA from your neighborhood microbrewery that you drink in a mug? Also brewed.

The colour of the beer is *not* an accurate indication of alcohol content OR style. For eg. all dark beers are not strong and all dark beers are not stouts.

If you want to know about alcohol strength for a particular style, look for the Alcohol by Volume (ABV) measurement. If you want to know about bitterness, look for the International Bitterness Unit (IBU) measurement.

Breweries that produce craft beer are not necessarily always microbreweries. Using the two interchangeably is incorrect so if you’re not sure, just use the term ‘brewery’.

Definitions of microbrewery could vary, but in K’taka to the best of my knowledge, microbreweries are allowed to produce a specific amount of beer on their premises and have permission to sell this beer for consumption on tap *only within their premises*

Other types of breweries exist in e.g distribution breweries. Distribution breweries can choose to make craft beer, too. They package their beer in some form like kegs, bottles etc for sale either to end-customers or other F&B businesses

License costs & taxation costs, as well as operating procedures & obviously scale, vary according to brewery type.

[In K’taka] A club, pub, hotel or restaurant who wants to serve beer (both commercial and craft) from a keg needs to hold a Retail Vend of Beer (RVB) license.

[In K’taka] If you’re hosting an event (like a wedding etc) in a location that doesn’t have a RVB license, you can apply for something known as an occasional or day license to serve beer (commercial or craft) on tap for a certain period of time.

Beer falls into two categories: ales or lagers. The *primary* difference between the two is the yeast used - ales are made with top-fermenting strains of yeast at warmer temperatures and lagers are made with bottom-fermenting strains of yeast at colder temperatures.

While there are only two *categories*, there are multiple styles. Examples of styles can be wheat, IPA, stout and TONS more. Hefeweizen is ONE kind of wheat beer, just like witbier is another.

You can have commercially-produced lagers and ales just like you have craft versions. There isn’t an official and accurate definition of craft beer that exists for me or anyone to quote here. At best, I’ll say it’s influenced by ingredient choices + scale + recipes + ethos.

When your beer glass is being filled up, please don’t ask for the froth to be scooped out. Why? Because ‘beer head’ is a sign of a good beer - it helps release aroma and tends to make the drink visually pleasing. Ideally, there should be 1” - 1.5” of froth topping your glass!