Hyderabad, May 8: Andhra Pradesh is dry this summer. A dispute between manufacturers and suppliers of beer has left bars and liquor shops without any stocks of beer, the state’s most popular summer drink.

The three prominent breweries in the state ? UB Group, Shaw Wallace and Artos ?have stopped production since March to try and force the monopoly procurer, AP Breweries Corporation, to shell out an additional Rs 60 for each case of beer. Since then, UB has scaled its demand down to a hike of Rs 35. But for the corporation, Rs 10 is the limit.

?For the last few weeks, I haven’t been able to find a single bottle of my favourite Kingfisher lager in Hyderabad,? says Yazdani, an IT worker, who has been forced to travel either to the border districts or to Bangalore during the weekends for a swig.

?In April, I paid up to Rs 90 at the local bars for a bottle. Now it isn’t available at any price.?

A spokesman said that at the beginning of March, the corporation had a stock of 33 lakh cases of beer.

?But in April, when the demand was higher on account of two festivals,-Ugadi and Sriramnavami, we were left with only 3 lakh cases in our stocks.?

The dispute had begun back in September 2004, when UB chairman Vijay Mallya declared there was a need to hike the wholesale rates, which had remained unchanged for almost seven years in the state.

In January, he told state government officials: ?We have been swallowing almost 40 per cent of the input cost. We cannot hold out any more.?

After the last round of talks between the corporation and the manufacturers ended in a stalemate on April 30, the state government began negotiating with outstation breweries, such as Foster and Mohan Meakins.

But the corporation’s managing director, Madhusudan Rao, admitted: ?This will not solve the problem, for these breweries cannot match the supplies of the big three.?

Besides, these brands have few takers in rural Andhra, particularly the coasts, where Hayward-5000 and UB top the popularity charts.

The second round of talks on May 3 have also not yielded any result. Moreover, now all other distilleries have joined the production strike.

?We are having a tough time explaining the shortage to customers,? said D. Venkateswar Rao, president of the AP Wine Dealers Association.

?With 10 major business conferences lined up in May, as well as political conventions by the Telugu Desam Party and the Congress, there could be a demand for about 26 lakh cases. We might ask our clients to shift their meetings and conventions to Bangalore or Chennai.?