On April 28, 1869, private Job Shepherd Waterhouse was climbing the Murree hill hoping to get some beer at the end of the six-mile hike. Unfortunately that was not to be. As he noted in his diary, “This Brewery is a very notable place, sending Beer to all parts of India. While we was at the Brewery the column came up to the Officer in Command. He tried to get each man one pint of Beer but he could not.” Waterhouse travelled to Murree nine years after Edward Dyer established the brewery with the express purpose of manufacturing beer for thirsty British troops on the subcontinent. In 1889, there were 25 breweries in India and The Murree Brewery had the largest share of production at 37.9 per cent, according to George Watt’s A Dictionary of the Economic Products of India (courtesy Ron Pattinson and his interesting blog Shut Up About Barclay Perkins). However the Murree brand has no place in India today.
Isphanyar Bhandara, its current chief executive officer, is keen to launch Murree in India and three years ago signed a deal with an Indian businessman Rahul Chandra. But the venture, which gave the rights to a Sikkim-based brewery owned by actor Danny Denzongpa, did not take off due to “bureaucratic hurdles and red tape”. In an interview in Islamabad, Bhandara said, “I am not in this for the money. All I want is to see Murree beer landing in India, that’s my dream. It had its roots in India and I want it to be sold there under its name.”
The beer is made from Australian barley and is better than Indian beer, he contends. He gets hops from Germany and has an Indian and German consultant. “I can say that our beer, without prejudice, is better than Kingfisher’s,” he grinned. He also cleared a popular misconception that the brewery was founded by his family. “It came into my family in 1947. My grandfather Peshotan Bhandara was a director when Mr. Radcliffe decided to draw the line. My grandparents stayed back but the Hindu partners decided to leave. It was a purchase of convenience and he bought over the British and Hindu stakeholders.”
The Brewery’s first manager, Mr. Dyer, was the father of Colonel Reginald Dyer, who ordered the massacre at Jallianwallah Bagh in 1919. The original brewery was burnt down during the riots in 1947 and the ruins remain to this day. The ruins remain to this day. From Ghora Galli on Murree, the brewery moved to its current location of Rawalpindi in 1889.
The history of Murree, which was promoted as a hill station by the British soon after the annexation of Punjab, is a fascinating account and the Brewery was the only industrial concern of any importance according to The Imperial Gazetteer . Till Prohibition in 1977, the company used to supply to the Pakistan army. In Murree during the Raj , a beautiful new book that draws on Private Waterhouse’s detailed diary, Prof. Dr. Farakh A. Khan writes that the brewery was the largest of its kind and supplied beer all over India. It was given an award for excellence as early as 1876 in an exhibition in Philadelphia and its beer sold for Rs. 5 per dozen in the 1880s.
Author Bapsi Sidhwa, Bhandara’s aunt, recalls the imposing mansion opposite the brewery, where she lived for a short while. “My father P.D. Bhandara acquired the Murree Brewery in 1947 and he took us from our home in Lahore to Rawalpindi to show us Brewery Lodge, opposite the brewery. As we walked through its rooms, furnished in the old British style my father told us it would be our home in Rawalpindi. Shortly thereafter the lodge was requisitioned by General Ayub Khan to be used by the Foreign Office. We moved to Vine Cottage opposite it, which was where one of the British brewers had lived, and this was our home in Pindi ever since.”
She remembers delightful visits to the brewery. “I was pampered by the staff and loved the smell of the fragrance of straw, barley and hops that pervaded the compound. To this day those memories bring me joy.” After her father died, her brother Minoo was called back from Oxford to take over at the young age of 21 and his son Isphanyar inherited the responsibility at 35.
There are many feathers in the Brewery’s cap. Apart from being one of the first breweries on the subcontinent, it was one of the first commercial ventures to be listed on the Calcutta Stock Exchange. The Brewery was once the biggest employer in the Punjab but now employs about 1800 people, Bhandara says. He is also proud of his single malts, blended whiskey and premium vodka. The only venture that flopped, he said, was Irish Cream since no one likes the concepts of liqueurs.
