Chandramohan Nallur does not conform to the stereotype of the hard-drinking Malayali male. Nallur is a teetotaller, but over the last week the Warsaw-based entrepreneur has become the toast of the Malayali diaspora for an unlikely achievement: launching a beer named Malayali in, of all places, Poland, and getting it off to a flying start. Malayali Beer came into being thanks to a confluence of factors, says Nallur. These include Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine — and Nallur’s deep interest in the alcohol business.
Nallur, who spent his formative years in Palakkad and majored in business administration in Spain, says he learnt a lot about sales and people management from the time he spent bartending at, and managing, an Irish bar off Barcelona’s buzzy Las Ramblas boulevard.
“I got to meet all kinds of people — from tourists to CEOs — while at O’Hara’s as a student. That was fantastic exposure to the larger, wider world,” says Nallur. The 38-year-old, who has stinted with telecom companies in Europe, including in Poland, also ran a hospitality business in Barcelona which, he says, had to be wound up during Catalonia’s bid for independence from Spain in 2017.
Early last year, within days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Nallur, who currently consults for businesses in Eastern Europe and India and also serves as the director of business relations at the Indo-Polish Chamber of Commerce and Industry (IPCCI), found himself exploring options for a consignment of 20 tons of rice flakes.
The consignment, imported into Poland by an Uttar Pradesh headquartered company and aimed at the African community in Europe, was stuck in Hamburg due to the war, with the prevailing exchange rates making its sale unfeasible.
Nallur first thought of converting a part of it into pet food, but finally, inspired by the likes of fellow Malayali Vivek Pillai, who brews Komban Beer in the UK from Palakkad’s Matta rice, he decided to try his hand at making a rice beer.
Nallur is not the first Indian (or Malayali) in Poland to brew beer, though. That honour belongs to Lijo Phillip, whose Kalikut 1498 craft beer is “inspired by the vibrant flavours of Calicut and Vasco da Gama's legendary spice trail to India.”
Unlike its neighbours, Germany and the Czech Republic, Poland doesn’t make great beer and the Polish market is largely ruled by multinationals such as Heineken. “But rice beer has a nice niche there. I knew that if the beer turned out to be good, I wouldn’t have a problem selling it. So, I got in touch with Sargheve Sukumaran, a friend who knew about beer and would eventually also partner me in the business,” says Nallur.
The duo sought out the likes of Philip for advice and spoke to distilleries about the possibility of making a beer from rice flakes and European hops before purchasing a significant amount of the latter from the importer. The plan was to make a white-label product that could be served in restaurants across Poland. In the middle of last year, a month or so after the beer, a crisp, light lager, was introduced on restaurant menus, Nallur got encouraging feedback. The restaurants they supplied to actually wanted them to brand the beer.
“They told us that the beer was selling out fast, and wanted us to brand it as an Indian beer,” says Nallur, who wasn’t too keen on the idea. He was apprehensive of the beer being clubbed with other Indian beers such as Cobra or Kingfisher, the consumption of which was only, and mostly, restricted to Indian restaurants. Nallur wanted a name that was not a cliche. Eventually he came up with ‘Malayali’.
“Not many people are aware of this little state in southern India. It’s an exotic name. And being a Malayali is an emotion,” says Nallur. He says he felt that intensely during his participation in Operation Ganga, the government’s evacuation operation that brought back stranded Indian nationals from Ukraine in March last year. “The Malayali diaspora did a great job providing humanitarian assistance to Indians crossing over at the Polish-Ukrainian border, and I felt really proud of that.”
So, ‘Malayali’ it was.
The beer was launched in November last year, with its logo riffing off on Kathakali headgear and the Raybans worn by Malayalam actor Mohanlal from the hit 1990s film Spadikam. The label also featured memorable lines from Malayalam film hits. “The font we used for the brand name is very similar to the font used by Chivas Regal, because we did a bit of research and found out that Chivas is a big hit among Malayalis across the world,” says Nallur.
The intended audience — the Malayali diaspora — has been lapping the beer up. It has featured at both Polish and Indian weddings, and there are orders coming in from across the border in Germany, says Nallur.
Late last year, Nallur and Sukumaran signed a licensing deal with a prominent Indian foods-focused online retailer in Poland, which also supplies beer to a large number of restaurants in the country. The duo is now preparing for a busy summer.
“We started out with 2,000 litres and are now looking at brewing over 25,000 litres every two months,” says Nallur who is cognisant of the fact that sales may dip when the novelty dies. “At the moment, we are going with the flow, but we are also keenly listening to feedback. Malayalis love our beer, but many of them suggested that we should also have a stronger version,” says Nallur. “So, that’s the next step. In the next couple of months, we will be rolling out Malayali Strong and Extra Strong.”
Discover the latest Business News, Sensex, and Nifty updates. Obtain Personal Finance insights, tax queries, and expert opinions on Moneycontrol or download the Moneycontrol App to stay updated!
