White Owl looking to spread its wings outside Mumbai

They take pride in calling themselves a pint-sized company. Heard of Shadow, Halcyon, Torpedo, Spark, Diablo, Paolina and Ace? Taken a sip? They are variants of beer from the White Owl Brewery.  The homegrown craftbeer company's craft beer, currently available on tap and in bottles at over 300 prominent restaurants, bars and retail stores across Mumbai, Pune and Goa is now planning to spread themselves not just across the country but also in overseas markets

Excerpts from a chat with Javed Murad, founder and managing director at The White Owl:

Your brand is very much in sync with our PM’s Make in India plans. Tell us a little about your brand.
At White Owl, we take great pride in being a pint-sized company. We may be small but we care immensely about everything that we do, which is why we relate especially well with our young, urban consumer. In a world dominated by brands that are becoming increasingly complex and larger than life, we endeavour to create something that isn’t just special but also familiar and easily within their reach. We know that our consumers live in fast-paced environments; their life is hectic and it’s all about the hustle.

Funnily enough, it’s the same for us too. As a small company, we are as vulnerable. But what unites us all is knowing that nothing ends a hard day better than cracking open a chilled beer with friends, exchanging stories and laughing about it. Our brand strives to be not just that amazing beer you crack open but also that friend you want to have it with.

With so many beer brands, already available in the country do we need more? Tell us a little about the variety you offer?
Yes we do need more. The beer space in India may have many brands already but it is lopsided. On the one hand, our consumer has a large number of options for typical low-cost, mass-produced beer that will always form the bulk of every market. In stark contrast, there are almost no options available in the premium beer segment – where quality and craft supersede cost. In my opinion, this phenomenon completely mismatches the trajectory of our young, growing, urban population that has begun to earn well, has its finger on the pulse at all times and is continuously making finer, more evolved consumption choices.

For example, why does one have so many amazing options when it comes to premium chocolate, cheese, tea, coffee and juices, but not when it comes to premium beer? This is exactly the gap that White Owl is addressing and we remain incredibly excited to have anchored ourselves to beer in India.

Our portfolio exposes the young Indian consumer to the vast world of beer that co-exists all over the world with the mass-produced lagers that we have historically associated homogenously with the entire beer category. As such, we offer up to 8 styles of craft beer at any given time featuring an eclectic selection of old-world and new-age brewing styles. Some are light bodied brews, including: Spark, our refreshing Belgian Wit with summery orange-citrus notes; Diablo, our crisp Irish Red Ale with hints of caramel; and Ace, our bubbly Apple Cider Ale, with a bold sweet-apple finish. Others are slightly more complex, including: Shadow, our dark, coffee-roast English Porter and Torpedo, our American Pale Ale that is known to pack a punch.

What is the USP of your brand? What is the price point?
Most importantly, each variety of White Owl Beer is handcrafted using the finest of natural ingredients from around the world and – much unlike its mass-produced counterparts – is completely free of artificial colours and preservatives. All of this at an incredible value where Indian consumers can now avail of top-quality, premium beer at only a fractional premium to incumbent brands.

For example, in retail, 330 ML pints of Spark and Diablo are priced at Rs 65 and Rs 80, respectively in Goa, and at Rs 100 and Rs 110 in Bengaluru, which as you know is an especially compelling proposition.

Tell us a little bit about the rounds of funding you have received and what’s in store on similar lines, in the near future?
We bound by very strict confidentiality agreements on all topics related to our finances and financials; however, I am able to disclose that we are currently in the final stages of a growth capital injection that will take total funds raised to date by White Owl to over USD 4 million.

You have recently added Goa to you radar when do we see you in the rest of the country? Tell us about your expansion plans?
Our expansion plans include new geographies and new product formats for our established, award-winning craft beer portfolio. We currently distribute our beer – either On Tap or in Bottles – to over 300 points of sales across Mumbai, Pune, and Goa, and are adding numerous additional markets this year, beginning with Bengaluru in March. As of now, we only bottle Spark, our Belgian Wit, and Diablo, our Irish Red Ale; however, we plan to bottle additional styles from our portfolio in the months to come. We are also expanding our On Tap business to new markets, and are firming up our international expansion in parallel with our ongoing national expansion. All in all, it’s a very busy time for us and we are incredibly excited for the year ahead.

Are you expanding your gastro-pub chain too?
Our brewpub was launched with the singular purpose of creating an incredible portfolio of locally handcrafted beer and sampling it across a wide demographic of consumers. Now that we have received not just acceptance but an overwhelming love for our brews (well beyond what we could ever have imagined), we are focusing all our efforts on expanding the reach of our packaged craft beer – in bottles, cans and kegs – to restaurants, bars and retails stores across India and abroad.

What are your marketing plans?
Our best marketing tool is word of mouth, which comes from more and more people trying our beer and subsequently telling their friends and colleagues about it. There is nothing more powerful. Consequently, we tend to avoid influencers and commercial forms of marketing and invest disproportionately in events, point of sale promotions and engagements where we are able to interact directly with our consumers, pitch ourselves holistically and collect real-time feedback to integrate into our offerings quickly.

What kind of growth have you clocked?
The economies of beer in India are atypical when compared to the rest of the world. For instance, taxes – that form the bulk of a consumer’s buying price – differ drastically from state to state. In certain situations, these taxes are frontloaded onto the manufacturer, which increases working capital requirements significantly. In others, they are borne by the supply chain. Which makes this question a complex one to answer. That said, at our size, it’s all about striving hard to meet unfilled demand and we expect our strong growth trajectory to continue for the foreseeable future.

Any interesting packaging that you are planning?White Owl has always been a design-forward company and having fun with packaging remains at the forefront of what we are constantly excited about. In 2015, we were the first company in India to launch our craft beer in Keggers – portable 5-Liter mini-kegs that boast a sharp aesthetic appeal. At all of our partner restaurants and bars, our craft beer is served in branded mason jars that have become incredibly popular; so much so, that we are planning to retail them later this year.

For our bottles, our 2017-2018 design was crisp and minimal where we used transparent paper labels and raw un-laminated cartons – neither of which is common in India. In contrast,for 2018-2019, our bottle labels will be more vibrant, produced on traditional paper, and mimic the design for our aluminium cans (that will be launched shortly too). In other words, one can continue to expect continuous experimentation from us – not just with packaging but for all related White Owl merchandise as well – driven by our amazing design team in Barcelona that we have worked with, hand-in- hand, ever since our inception.