Is Ankur Jain super-brave or just crazily foolhardy? He has leapt where angels might fear to tread, into the brutally competitive beer business. But the proof of the beverage is in the drinking and Jain’s Bira 91 has cornered 15 per cent of the premium beer segment — not bad for a 15-month-old infant start-up.

Beer’s a tough business anywhere in the world. Globally it’s about muscular corporations battling it out in pubs, clubs and the retail shelves. In India, the beer industry is dominated by one company, Kingfisher, that has found its way into the glasses of 51 per cent of beer drinkers from Kashmir to Kanyakumari.

Jain’s hoping to forge ahead mainly on his marketing smarts and the promise of better quality than the competition. He’s using innovative tactics and is still getting the beer brewed in Belgium at a craft distillery that he refuses to name.

“The moment you sip it, your tongue gets to taste a very refreshing beer with a hint of sweetness and citrus. The surprise element is that it’s very low on bitterness, the trademark taste of beer,” says Jain, the founder and CEO of Bira 91.

But Jain has even greater global ambitions. He has already gone international with Bira 91 and splurged to gain visibility as the sponsor beer for the prestigious Tribeca Film Festival. Going one step further he has rented an office on New York’s Fifth Avenue and will position a team there in a month or two. And from June, Bira 91 will be available in pubs, restaurants and retail stores including Whole Foods Market, a premium US supermarket chain.

Jain stresses that Bira’s the first craft beer from India to be sold in New York and says: “The Tribeca Festival was a launch pad for us. We’ve signed up with 100 restaurants and 150 retail shops there.” Jain says the company sold 20,000 cases during the Tribeca Festival.

Clean shaven and with short hair, 35-year-old Jain is 5ft-9in and heavily built. He blames the excess weight on his stint in the beer industry. “I used to be 70kg. Now I’m close to 85kg and friends joke that 91 on the bottle is my weight,” he says laughing heartily. He has a distinct American twang that came after spending many years in the US.

Jain describes Bira 91 as a craft beer “imagined” in India but manufactured and imported from Belgium. The beer’s two variants, White and Blonde, are currently available in seven cities (Delhi, Mumbai, Chandigrah, Goa, Calcutta, Pune and Bangalore) with around 50,000 cases being sold every month.

“The recipe’s designed in India. White has a strong citrus taste that comes from kinnow and it’s put in deliberately to make it fruity with low bitterness and it works well for the Indian palate. Young consumers will like the taste. Blonde has Indian hops from Himachal Pradesh and it adds to the bitterness,” Jain says. Bira 91 has 4.9 per cent alcohol content.

Jain has also priced the beer smartly to exploit gaps in the market and the prices of his competitors like Kingfisher Ultra and Heineken. While a 330ml bottle of Bira 91 White costs Rs 100, Blonde is tagged at Rs 80. And 500ml cans will be on the market by June. While Bira 91 Blonde has been positioned to compete with Kingfisher Ultra, Bira 91 White’s taking aim at Heineken.

Jain’s looking at adding two more variants in the near future. “We’re working on a low calorie light beer and a strong beer. Hopefully we will launch by October,” says Jain.

As Bira 91 spreads out across the country, Jain has also focused on getting it brewed here. He has hired a brew factory in Indore and local manufacturing will kick off very soon. “Our brewmaster from Belgium is  already here with his team. The taste will remain the same and we won’t compromise on the exotic ingredients,” says Jain.

The fact is that Bira 91’s sales have picked up quickly since its launch in February 2015. In Delhi, Bira 91 was selling 10,000 cases within four months of its launch. And by this March as the company moved to more cities, sales climbed to 50,000 cases per month.

Jain has already figured out the route ahead in the foreseeable future. He aims to be in all major Indian cities over the next three years and, in that time frame, he’s looking to sell about 300,0000 cases monthly.

Marketing — along with taste — will be crucial to build up such numbers. And marketing beer can be extremely expensive. Also, it’s particularly tough to launch new brands because the rules prohibit liquor advertising. Amazingly, Bira 91’s come a long way down the road without spending on direct advertising. “We’ve no marketing campaign plans, word-of-mouth has worked for us,” says Jain.

Vikram Achanta, founder and CEO, Tulleeho, a drinks training and consulting firm is upbeat about Bira 91’s success. “Most large beer companies like Carlsberg and United Breweries have focused on the strong beer segment but not much on introducing new styles and flavours. Ankur has recognised that the Indian consumer was thirsty for new beer styles,” he says.

One reason why Jain can afford to bravely foray into international markets is that he has impressed a number of very savvy investors who’ve backed him with hard cash. He has raised around $6 million from Sequoia Capital. And other smart players have also jumped on board like Rohit Bansal and Kunal Bahl of Snapdeal and Ashish Dhawan of ChrysCapital. Besides that there’s also Deepinder Goyal of Zomato. Jain himself invested around $600,000, which was part of the cash he made by selling his US healthcare business.

For investors like Sequoia this is the first foray into the liquor industry. “Bira 91’s a cool ‘Indian’ brand and is a great product with a dynamic team managing an innovative supply chain,” says Abhay Pandey, managing director, Sequoia Capital.

Goyal of Zomato echoes that view. “It’s the only beer brand that has a finger on the pulse of the young Indian consumer,” he says.

Jain believes it’s not just the beer, but the story that comes with the bottle. “When you think of craft beer, you think of a guy with a long beard mixing exotic ingredients. We want to add a great degree of humour. We don’t take ourselves too seriously. The bottle shows that,” he says.

The name Bira has, in fact, been chosen specifically for its Indian sound. “Bira’s more tongue-in-cheek. We chose it from a hundred-odd names,” says Jain. The letter B in the logo is reversed. This, says Jain is to, “show a spirit of rebellion against the conventional. And 91 refers to India’s telephonic country code,” he adds.

Jain was probably destined to be an entrepreneur. He was born and brought-up in Delhi and moved to Chicago to study computer science at the Illinois Institute of Technology. He joined Motorola briefly in 2002 but quit within a few months. “I always wanted to do something of my own,” he says.

Jain then started a healthcare firm, Reliant MD, in New York. The firm specialised in offering medical records solutions. But Jain’s attention was already moving in other directions. “My office was near the Brooklyn Brewery. I used to be there during the happy hours over weekends,” Jain remembers.

For the budding beer entrepreneur that’s when the journey into the alcohol business began. “I was not a beer drinker before I moved to New York, but Brooklyn made me one. And I became fanatic about craft beer and wanted to explore the market,” Jain says.

Jain sold his health firm in 2007 and returned to India with the aim of launching a beer here. But he spent time getting to understand the complex Indian beer industry and what was right for Indian palates. He also took a three-month road trip across Belgium and Germany to identify beer brands that would suit Indians. “I made countless visits to pubs and restaurants and met quite a few brewmasters,” he says.

Finally, in 2008, he formed Cerana Beverages with a focus on importing beers. “Initially I invested a million dollars and tied up with six breweries in Belgium and Germany,” he says.

By 2013, Jain was ready to take a big step forward and start his own craft beer. “I had a fair understanding of the beer industry and felt that it was time to launch our own craft beer,” he says.

For the first three months, Bira 91 was only available on draft (in casks) in pubs and restaurants. “In less than three months, we got a tremendous response and were positioned number one in the draft beer segment in Delhi. We launched bottled beer soon after in retail stores, pubs and restaurants,” Jain says. And as Bira 91 grew, Jain quit the import business. “I like to focus on one thing at one time,” he says.

Achanta reckons that Bira 91 has happened at the right time. “Indians are willing to experiment with beers and looking for a wider choice,” he says.

But though Jain’s still only reached a handful of Indian cities, he has already decided that he can simultaneously make it internationally. “This year we want to establish ourselves in New York. By 2017, we want to take Bira 91 to five other US markets.”

Jain’s very clear that the brand’s humour-laced image is key to its identity. He says: “Our identity’s very urban. We don’t take ourselves very seriously and the brand has a great degree of humour. That makes us unique in India and abroad.”