Lal Toofan

Brewed by Shaw Wallace (SABMiller)
Style: Pale Lager
Mumbai, India

Botella. Clear deep golden with a short lasting white head leaving a pretty fair lacing. Weak malty and grainy bit sweet aroma. Soft mouthfeel. The flavour is soft with a mild sweet matiness and little ripe fruits. A pale lager with more flavour than I suspected.

Bottle, 5.2%. ’Brewed with basmati rice’. At least they’re honest. Almond and paper aroma. Dark gold pour climbing with bathfoamy suds. Stale papery grain, pencilly conifer, obvious sweet ricey afters. No glaring off-notes, and no worse a beer than Budweiser, Corona or a cheap tinned Czech pils. Mo has verified that the name means, ’red storm’.

Not very drinkable beer. Unpleasant sweetness that comes from brewing with basmati rice. High carbonation, nice golden colour. "Little Wind" is too little.

Interestingly it translates to ’Little Wind’, just what you need with a curry and a beer. Clean & crisp colour & flavour, easy to drink without any heady after tones.

Draught at Mr Singh’s with Jacob, with a curry of course. Aroma has some grainy malts but mainly sweetish and herbal. Taste is similar, grassy notes kickin in, not bad with a curry.

Draught at Mr. Singh’s, Glasgow. Decent and fairly clean golden coloured lager. Some fruity notes. Light to medium bodied.

Keg (curry house, Cambridge) Light floral aroma, frothy ehad. Orange, sour maltiness Good for a hot curry but not for a drink!

I had this beer a couple years ago in Stockholm, Sweden. Coolest bottle I’ve ever seen. Not quite like the photo on this page, but the entire bottle was wrapped top to bottle with a plastic lable that had that crazy pattern. Really neat. Oh yeah, the beer was awful.