Kingfisher Premium Lager Beer
http://unitedbreweries.com/our-brands/premium
Brewed by United Breweries Group
Style: Pale Lager
Bangalore, India
First established in 1857, Kingfisher Premium Lager is an Indian beer brewed by the United Breweries Group, Bangalore. It is India’s No. 1 selling beer, as it says so on the bottle “India’s Premium Lager”, to be found everywhere in the country, and it is also sold throughout the world in, I am guessing, mostly Indian restaurants, as I have never seen it before in a bar or an off license.
United Breweries Group is a major Indian conglomerate company with its core business centered on beverages, aviation (Kingfisher Airlines!), chemicals and fertilizers, and investments in various other sectors. They even have a F1 team, Force India, and also have a football team, Kingfisher East Bengal F.C, in the Indian League, based in Kolkata.
The UB Group was founded by, Thomas Leishman, a Scotsman, in 1857. Initially the group was focused on beer and the brewing industry, and were behind the coming together of 5 breweries in South India under the name of United Breweries in 1915. The beers were extremely popular with British troops stationed in India at that time.
In 1947, the company was bought out by Mr. Vittal Mallya, the first Indian director of the group.
During the 1950s and 60s, the company expanded greatly by acquiring other breweries and also to extend its portfolio into wines and spirits. The Group also moved into agro-based industries and medicines, forming a long-term relationship with the German company, Hoechst AG, to create an Indian pharmaceutical company, Aventis Pharma, an Indian subsidiary of the global pharma giant Sanofi-Aventis.
The company markets beer under the Kingfisher brand, and owns various other brands of alcoholic beverages. It is India’s largest producer of beer. UB also financed a takeover of the spirits business of the rival Shaw-Wallace company, giving it a majority share of India’s spirits business.
Nowadays the Heineken Group holds just over 40% equity shares in United Breweries Ltd.
As for Kingfisher, there are quite a few different beers brewed by the company, from Kingfisher Strong, “Ultra”, a red and a regular lager, amongst a rake of others.
The Kingfisher beer has won “several international awards for its quality and taste”, including “Asia’s best strong lager” in the World Beer Awards in 2013.
Review: 330 ml green bottle of Kingfisher Premium Lager Beer: ABV: 4.8% vol
Like the logo of the beer, a nice and striking picture of a Kingfisher.
On pour get a decent sized white frothy head, and a golden amber coloured beer, some small carbonation going on. Some lacing on the glass. Overall, not a bad looker.
Typical lager smell, with a very particular hint of sweet malts, barley and corn, slightly metallic as well.
Taste is ….bit citrusy and very, very hoppy, not smooth anyway.
Ok not bad, got some tastes…… the malts, the corn, the citrus, and the barley, and the beer has some character, but might need to drink again for further assessment. To be honest It was not what I was expecting. I was getting ready for another generic tasting lager but this is slightly different, and it kind of threw me to be honest! The beer has a bitter taste to it that’s a bit sweet.
Wholesome taste, and for a lager not exactly sessionable, but it certainly had a bit of a kick to it. Overall, an interesting beer and one I would like to revisit again. Must try and get it the next time I am having an Indian curry! (cheesy, I know!)
It was founded in 1878 by Robert Leicht. Leicht was a progressive entrepreneur, open to technical innovations, so much so that the brewery very soon had electric light, an artificial ice cooling machine, a cable car, an atomized bottling plant and much more, and in 1897 was the first German beer to be delivered motorized, with a truck from Gottlieb Daimler. At one stage the company had the largest bottling plant in the world!
The ‘Black Forest Dark beer’ coming in a nice enough dark bottle with a fiip top.
Sweet malty taste. Very smooth, but overall not a whole lot of flavours or tastes though.
The city also has a rich cultural tradition with many high-quality museums and art galleries, but for someone who is into more modern pursuits, the city holds one of the largest and most popular dance music festivals in the world, a techno “street parade” around August every year that attracts about a million ravers and the like dancing alongside the lake Zurich. 
A large Irish pub not too far off from the train station. Was my first stop of the day, and ventured in to the quiet bar with a small midday crowd. 
Was in this bar before, so it can get very busy and lively on a weekend night. It is a fun place to be for sure, but the prices of the beers are something to behold. Not going to be doing a large drinking session in a bar like this unless you are very flush with the cash! But this is Zurich one of the most expensive cities in Europe so its par for the course here. 
The Strauss bar is a small dive bar located on the crossing of the Langstrasse. Looked like an interesting place so I ventured in. 
I ordered a pint of Hürlimann. I actually thought the bar was called Hürlimann since they had it in big lettering over the front of the bar’s entrance, but no it is in fact a local lager. The first thing I noticed was the huge price differential compared to the Smithwicks I had just up at Kennedy’s Irish Pub. The beer I ordered was virtually half the price!
Final pub before I got the train home. Decided to head to this bar as I was told it is infact the oldest bar in the city. Located in the Old Town with its nice cobbled streets. 
Has the usual look of the chain, wooden interior, nice and comfy setting, English beer on tap, British food on the menu, darts to play, the Premiership on the box, and an English style setting. 
Playing in green, white and red, Red Star are a small club based in Zurich, playing in the 1. Liga Classic, the fourth tier of the Swiss football league system. Founded in 1905 by Charles Seiler and Alfred Merk. The idea for the name they found in a newspaper article of that time, which reported on the steamship line “Red Star Line”, and nothing to do with communist ideology or socialist principles, they were in fact originally attached to the local Catholic youth club, later becoming an independent club. 
Even though the game was nil all, it was pretty entertaining. Both teams had chances to score, and the level of quality on show wasn’t too bad. 
Grasshoppers were founded on the 1st of September 1886 by Tom E. Griffith, an English student, who set up a team made up mostly of a group of students who were originally from Manchester and were studying in Zurich at the time.
In the 1950’s they won two more league titles and two more cups, but the 1956 win in the Swiss Championship was to be their last silverware for quite a while, 15 years in fact, winning nothing in the ’60s. The long wait was over in 1971 when they beat FC Basel in the last game of the championship, in extra time, to clinch their 16th title. The 17th came in 1978. 
The 90’s were good times too, winning the league five times in the decade which wasn’t a bad achievement, and the cup twice. But just the two titles the decade after, in the 2000/01 and 2002/03 season, 2003 proving to be their last Championship. Apart from a Cup win in 2013 , which ended a ten year trophy drought, the club has gone through a mostly barren period with little to show in many recent years of football.
The Letzigrund stadium is some stadium though, wide and expansive, at night with the floodlights on it is a sight to see. An athletics stadium first and foremost but owned by the city of Zurich (buying it off FC Zurich who were in debt at the time), with the popular IAAF Diamond League taking place here every year, it also has held some pretty big music concerts down through the years (both the old and updated version of the stadium) from U2, Bon Jovi, Madonna, Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Rihanna, Beyoncé, the Rolling Stones right up to today with Ed Sheeran playing booked to play this summer 2018. The current capacity is 25,000, for football events, 30,000, for athletics and 50,000, for concerts
That goal did eventually come, in the 68th minute when J. Suárez scored a nice goal, scoring from a loose ball just outside the box slotting it home with the goalkeeper no chance. A very well taken goal. By this stage Grasshoppers were piling on the pressure, and they got a second when M. Basic scored from a penalty after Pusic was taken down in the box.