Cavalier Brewing Co is set to expand its presence in India securing a contract to build a production brewery just south of Bangalore.

The Melbourne-based brewery already operates two brewpubs in Bangalore in partnership with fourth generation Indian hotel group Chancery Hotels.

Cavalier co-founder Steve Martin told Brews News that construction will soon commence on the new production brewery, set to have a capacity of 10 million litres per annum.

This latest partnership began just over two years ago after a chance meeting with Chancery Hotels at a Melbourne trade show. The alliance has won the Australian craft brewery a foothold in the Indian beer market that would otherwise be a challenge as beer exports to the country are slugged a 40 per cent duty.

As the proprietor of both brewpub venues, Chancery Hotels is responsible for all front-of-house operations and maintaining the brewery equipment. Cavalier has been tasked with managing all aspects of the brewing process from hiring, to operations, sourcing raw materials, recipe development and quality control.

Martin said that he is happy with the progress at both venues, telling Brews News that sales have doubled every month since opening. Both brewpubs have a capacity of approximately 156,000 litres per annum.

Having spent some time in Italy last year sourcing equipment for the production brewery build, Martin said that the new 30hL Italian brewhouse he has chosen is a truly “innovative” design.

“It’s different to anything else we’ve seen in Australia or even in America so far,” he explained.

“Traditionally brewhouses in the western world anyway – and China has copied it all – have been a four vessel set up whereby there is a mash tun, a lauter tun, a kettle and a whirlpool all positioned in a square and in the middle there is a platform in the shape of a square.

“The company we’re working with in Italy has turned this upside down and on its head… and put the lauter tun in the centre with four kettle combination mash tuns around it.

“This doubles the productivity of the brewhouse, they can make twice as much beer with the same volume compared to a traditional system.

“An engineer is just having a wet dream about the efficiency of this new design… it’s a huge point of innovation.”

Martin said one of the biggest challenges at the new site was securing water.

“We were worried that we wouldn’t be able to access or have enough water at the site.

“There’s obviously not a lot of accessible water in many of the townships.”

Construction is not yet underway but Martin said that he is confident that with contracts in place, the facility should be up and running by the end of the year.