Agra gets first microbrewery in Uttar Pradesh

LUCKNOW: Agra has become the first city in the state where one will be able to savour freshly brewed draught beer. The excise department is in the process of clearing five more applications for a microbrewery, one of which is for Lucknow and should be granting licences in the coming weeks.
The MB-5 licence granted to a restaurant in Agra for setting up of a microbrewery is the first such licence issued by the government under the newly amended UP Brewery Rules of 1961.The city was selected, say officials, due to the large flow of both foreign and domestic tourists in the city known for the Taj Mahal.
“There is a huge demand for freshly brewed beer because of which the state had brought this policy. States like Maharashtra, Karnataka and Telangana have had provisions for microbreweries for some time now and this will encourage both tourism and employment generation in the state,” said a senior official. He added that the government was processing five more applications and would grant more licences as and when they received more applications.
Permission to the restaurant in Agra has been granted on the condition that the UP Brewery Rules will be complied with. Violation of the rules attracts a penalty of Rs5,000 per day. The excise department said that it will become the first place to serve “non-pasteurised and fresh beer” to clients.
The UP Brewery Rules-2019, announced in June this year, has set an annual license fee for microbreweries to Rs2.5 lakh, up from Rs25,000 which was fixed in 1974. A guarantee fee of Rs1 lakh has also been fixed. The rules have fixed a limit of 600 litre which a microbrewery will be allowed to produce each day. Working on an average of 350 days a year when any establishment will work, an annual production limit of 2.1 lakh litres has been fixed.