New Delhi, Sept. 17: Danish brewer Carlsberg plans a pan-India launch of it dark beer Okocim Palone. The brand, which is popular in east Europe, will be brewed at its Himachal Pradesh facility.

Sources said the brewer was also expected to launch its flagship brand Carlsberg in the country next year. The company could not be reached for a comment.

The company has undertaken a soft launch of the dark beer variant with its local joint venture partner, South Asia Breweries. Carlsberg and its Sri Lankan partner Lion Group are the two major stakeholders in South Asia Breweries. Palone is a dark, full beer from Poland and has a 5.5 per cent alcohol content.

Carlsberg recently acquired Himneel Breweries in Himachal Pradesh from the Industrial Finance Corporation of India and Dena Bank for around Rs 36 crore. It is also setting up two breweries at Alwar in Rajasthan and Aurangabad in Maharashtra at an investment of Rs 85 core.

After Okocim Palone and Carlsberg, the Himachal Pradesh brewery will make a number of other brands from the company stable.

Carlsberg, which looked at several acquisition targets, mostly stayed away from buying out operational plants.

Himneel Breweries has a capacity of 150,000 hectolitres that can be scaled up at a later stage. The brewery in Rajasthan will have an initial capacity of 450,000 hectolitres and is expected to start operations early next year.

India’s beer consumption crossed the threshold per capita consumption of one litre per person per year in 2006-07. Annual sales crossed 136 million cases.

A number of international beer brands such as Anheuser-Busch’s Budweiser, SABMiller’s Fosters, Asia-Pacific Breweries’ Tiger, Molson Coors’s Coors and InBev’s Stella Artois have entered the Indian market in the recent past.

However, United Breweries’ Kingfisher tops the list, accounting for 47 per cent share of the market followed by SABMiller at 36 per cent.