Across the world and in different cultures, beer has been one of the oldest and most popular beverages throughout history, with the earliest evidence of the fermented beverage dating back to 13,000 years ago in a cave in present-day Israel. In India, too, indigenous tribes and communities have been making variations of rice beer and beer-like beverages using different grains since the beginning of civilisation in the region.
The earliest mention of beer-like beverages in India appears in the ancient Greek ethnographer, explorer, and Indologist Megasthenes' Indika — a now-lost account of Mauryan-era Indian society and culture which only exists today in fragments quoted by later authors in their works. The Arthashastra — a 1st-century CE Sanskrit treatise on statecraft, politics, economics, and military strategy — also mentions two kinds of intoxicating beer-like fermented rice beverage called 'medaka' and 'prasanna'.
Although European-style beer was introduced to the Indian subcontinent relatively recently with imports of British pale ale and Burton ale during the colonial period, small-batch craft breweries and craft beers have become quite the rage in India's craft brewing circles in the last decade.
With peculiarly-named non-conformist brews like the People's Lager heirloom rice beer, Dikra raspberry beer, Eight Finger Eddie I.P.A., and Plastic Chair Double I.P.A. under their belt, Goa Brewing Co. has been a key player in this Indian Pale Ale renaissance.
Goa Brewing Co.'s latest brew takes the brewery's ethos of non-conformity and experimentation a step further. The OTHER Konkon Amazake is the world’s first sake-like beverage made entirely from Indica rice grown in Konkan region.
Domesticated in rice paddies around the Ganges river between 8,500 to 4,500 years ago, the non-sticky, long-grained Indica is one of the oldest domesticated rice cultivars in the world. In India, different regional tribes and communities have fermented the Indica to brew different kinds of rice beers like zutho, ara, lohpani and handia for thousands of years.
OTHER is a continuation of this tradition. The rice for the OTHER Konkan Amazake is polished to 50% — the same level Japanese brewers reserve for traditional Daiginjo Junmai sake. But unlike sake, OTHER is closer to a summer-style Nigori — a fresh, vibrant rice beer with just 8% alcohol, ideal for India’s warm climate.
A result of over four years of experimentation with over 30 varieties of rice and multiple strains of Koji or Aspergillus oryzae mold, OTHER is not just another craft beer — it's Goa Brewing Co.'s boldest statement yet, a major leap forward in their fermentation lab’s work with heirloom rice, Koji, and Indian agriculture.
To learn more about availability and updates, follow @drink_other on Instagram.
Follow Goa Brewing Co. here.
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