Bira 91 acquires the beer café to build a beer focused D2C platform in India

India’s most popular craft beer maker Bira 91 has reportedly acquired India’s largest alcobev chain The Beer Café, in an all stock deal. Now the pub chain The Beer Café is a fully owned subsidiary of Bira 91 and the investors in Beer Café and the promoters Rahul and Bineeta Singh will own shares in Bira 91.

The acquisition has come during the festival season in the country when more people are stepping out of their homes for socializing and dining purposes. In the present scenario, dining is seeing a double-digit growth, after the pandemic forced restaurants and bars to shut down.

While the homegrown beer maker Bira 91 will get a retail presence through the Beer Café’s 33 outlets through this deal, the pub chain will get the beer company’s support in innovations and supply.

Moreover, the acquisition will help Bira 91 to build a direct-to-consumer platform with focus on beer besides fostering the growth of beer culture in India.

As per reports, The Beer Café management team, led by the founder and chief executive Rahul Singh, will continue to lead its operations and will also be in charge of Bira 91’s restaurant division. In an interview with Reuters, Singh said, “we will be making some new private-label beers at Bira Breweries”. It is important to mention that large-format, craft beer-focused stores will be run under the name of Bira 91.

Started in 2015, Bira 91 today competes with international brands such as Carlsberg as well as Heineken and United Breweries. The company runs in over 500 towns and 15 countries and has investors including Sequoia Capital, Belgium’s Sofina and Japan’s Kirin Holding.

On the other hand, The Beer Café started its operations in 2012 with its first outlet in Gurugram. Today it sells 50 brands across 33 outlets in 15 Indian cities, and will continue to serve beer from different global brands even after the acquisition.