Bottoms up! Beer sales hit the roof

Hyderabad: Chilled beer has turned out to be the preferred solace for tipplers in this scorching summer. The consumption of the ale has gone up to 80 per cent of the total liquor consumption in the State of Telangana.
A record 37 lakh cases of beer were sold in the month of April alone in Telangana State this year as against 30 lakh cases in the same month last year. A single case of beer contains 12 bottles and each bottle contains 650 ml. While Hyderabad has been ranked first in beer consumption this season, Ranga Reddy, Warangal and Karimnagar districts occupied the second, third and fourth positions respectively.
Generally, sale of beer accounted for 63 per cent of the total liquor sales in Telangana State with whisky, wine and other liquor the remaining 37 percent. Thanks to the unprecedented spurt in consumption, beer now accounts for 80 per cent of alcohol sale in the State. If the prevailing heat wave persists over the next four weeks, then officials expect sale of nearly 40 lakh cases of beer in May.
Breweries have been asked to stock up to meet the growing demand. All the 17 breweries have been asked to stock all manufactured beer in the depots maintained by Telangana Beverages Corporation Limited in the district headquarters. On its part, the government is considering the demand from breweries to increase the limit on production of beer this summer. It has set itself a target of nearly Rs 14,000 crore in revenue through sale of liquor for 2016-2017 as against Rs 12,500 crore last year. It intends to achieve this through selling 450 lakh cases of beer through licensed liquor outlets as against the sale of 335 lakh cases of beer last year.

Patan Afzal Babu