Friendship Brews

Name : Narayan Manepally and Paul Chowdhury
Profile : Founders, Beerworks Restaurants and Microbrewery that produces Geist Beer
Vision : “Entrepreneurship is not always about a great idea; it is about the sheer resilience to remain
standing until a lightning struck you”

Narayan “Nari” Manepally and Paul Chowdhury met each other for the first time in their fourth standard in Bangalore’s St. Joseph’s School when Paul was asked to sit next to Nari as a “punishment” by the class teacher. It took a year of the punishment for the two little boys to find a lifelong friendship. The year was 1975; their fathers had come to Bangalore to start their lives all over again after adversity had struck them — though very differently. Nari’s father, caught in company politics, had just quit working for a large engineering firm and relocated to Bangalore. Paul’s father, on the other hand, was the target of the Naxal movement that was driving industry away from West Bengal and had decided to move south with his German wife and three children.

The punishment was far more effective than the teacher could have foreseen. Nari and Paul went on to raise many spirits by setting up the microbrewery that produces Geist beer.

Image: Mallikarjun Katkol for Forbes India

Narayan Manepally and Paul Chowdhury, founders of Beerworks Restaurants and Microbrewery that produces Geist Beer

In Bangalore, Nari and Paul grew up together and did all the usual boy things together. “Once the two of us were playing with a broken radio and in the process, we short-circuited a naked printed circuit board. There was this mini explosion and green smoke came out, and we ran for our lives shouting ‘radio activity, radio activity’. Then, of course, was this one time when Paul shot a toy gun into my ear with a gas cartridge in it — I could not hear for a few days and could not report the matter at home either. I promised never to play with him ever again but showed up at his house after three days.” School over, the two went different ways. Nari went to study civil engineering and Paul studied mechanical. After engineering, Nari did an MBA at Virginia Tech and got hired by Intel. Paul meanwhile finished his Masters at the University of Massachusetts and signed up with Motorola in San Jose.

Nari Manepally worked on creating digital video interfaces for Intel’s new processor, the 386 SX and eventually moved to Portland, Oregon, to create a video conferencing solution based on ISDN — Andy Grove had liked the idea and Nari was now part of a 600-member team. But by 2003, he had the tug to return to India. He told himself that returning was the bigger thing, what he would do career-wise, he would figure out. And he packed bags.

“When my ageing father saw my children, he became 20 years younger in one moment. That was worth all the risk I was taking.” He got involved with the family’s engineering business of automotive filters. One day, he decided to sell the business. “It wasn’t easy. To me it was a business; to them it was their life.” But Nari was convinced it was the right time to do it.

By 2002, Paul was getting fed up at Motorola. So, one day, he quit and joined the start-up bandwagon, but got bought out by a Korean company. Paul felt empty and decided to return to India where he spent a year and a half building his dream house with his own hands. He carried his father’s genes; the old man used to build industrial punches with his own two hands.

Nari and Paul did not know that they were both back in Bangalore until one day when their alma mater, St. Joseph’s, got them together at an old boys’ reunion.

“While I was at Intel, one Friday in Portland, my friend Jeff and I went out for lunch and as we were walking back, we saw a store that sold everything you needed to set up a home brewery. $65 later, we walked out with a ‘do-it-yourself’ kit and set it up in my garage. My wife thought it was an idiotic thing to do. We made some beer and invited friends over. As a backup we did keep some store bought beer of course. But no one touched that stuff; our beer was a hit,” says Nari.

So, when Nari suggested setting up a micro-brewery in the garage in Bangalore, it wasn’t difficult for Paul to sign up. They would once again be able to be in the lab, dealing with the yeast, the brewing, fermenting, and the idea of getting people to drink their potion.

Geist was born. The first thing they learnt is that they could not get a license to manufacture beer in India. The excise laws in most states had not heard about a microbrewery and there was no provision to grant such a license! When the two explained the concept of micro-brewing, alarmed officials held out, “This is illegal — you cannot make your own beer and serve it!” Someone took them to a minister who was more understanding. He asked for a “donation” of Rs. 4 crore for a college he owned. Dealing with the yeast and the malt and the machinery was one thing and the business of business quite another.

“Entrepreneurship is not always about a great idea; it is about the sheer resilience to remain standing until a lightning struck you,” says Paul.

No, they did not pay the 4 crore. They took the yeast and got on a plane. They decided to get their beer “manufactured” in Belgium, then they imported it to India, paid a horrendous amount of customs duty, and sold it. You could not make the stuff in India but the law never said you could not import it! Five years since the first bottle was uncorked, Nari and Paul have stuck it out as only two school kids can. They are working to make Geist symbolise the spirit of micro-brewing in India. The stout bottle in fact has become a status symbol after being served at Nandan Nilekani’s 50th birthday bash a few years ago. It is the new Geek-Drink. As I say goodbye to the “boy-man” duo, I have one last question: What is the end game? “We want to be the Apple of the beer business. We want a cult status,” says Paul. Cheers!