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Bira 91 is an Indian craft beer brand manufactured by B9 Beverages Pvt. Ltd., launched in 2015. The company’s first brewery unit was located in Flanders region of Belgium where a craft distillery was used to contract manufacture the beer with ingredients from France, Belgium, Himalayas and Bavarian Farms and the beer was imported to India. After initial success, the company thereafter began manufacturing the beer in India with the same ingredients. Made from wheat, barley and hops, the beer is available in draft, 330ml, 650ml bottles and 500ml cans.[2][3]

History
B9 Beverages Pvt Ltd was founded by Ankur Jain, an entrepreneur who moved from India to the United States in 1998. Jain completed his degree in Computer Science from Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago. He briefly worked with Motorola before starting his first venture in Healthcare Revenue Management in New York which was later sold to an undisclosed healthcare provider network in 2007.[4]

Jain moved back to India and started his first beer venture in 2008; which was importing traditional craft beers from Europe and US to India. B9 Beverages launched Bira 91 beer in early 2015.[5]

Variants

A bottle of Bira beer
The company has five beers in its portfolio – Bira 91 White (a low bitterness wheat beer with alcohol content of 4%),[5] Bira 91 Blonde (an extra hoppy craft lager),[5] Bira 91 Light (a low calorie lunchtime lager),[6] Bira 91 Strong (a high intensity wheat beer with a higher percentage of alcohol content at 7%),[6] and The Bira 91 Indian Pale Ale (the first IPA brewed and bottled in India).[7]

Light and Strong were introduced in June 2017 and IPA was introduced in October 2017.[6][7]

Bira 91 White is a cloudy wheat beer with low bitterness and high aromas like citrus and coriander; while Bira 91 Blonde is a clear lager made from barley and saaz hops; Bira 91 White measures 13 while Bira 91 Blonde comes 21 on the IBU scale (International Bitterness Unit). Both the variants have strength of 4.9% Alcohol by Volume.[8]