Guzzle history with a beer walk

Guzzle history with a beer walk
The Times of India

Bangalore: There’s more to a pitcher of beer than that refreshingly cool taste. Why, at times, it can even fizz up a jolly good tale!

For that matter, Arun Pai, the main storyteller, isn’t a mere raconteur who spins a good yarn, he also gets you walking through Bangalore.

Pai and his associates began the Bangalore Walks project (www.bangalorewalks.com) last year to help Bangaloreans “rediscover’’ hidden nuggets about the city. With three walks — ‘Victorian Bangalore,’ ‘End of Empire,’ and ‘Green Heritage’ (about Lalbagh) — in their kitty, these entrepreneur-sutradhars have now unveiled another facet of the city’s culture — the history of its pubs and the beer drunk in them.

The Bangalore Beer Walk, which they conduct along with Tulleeho.com, “isn’t just about booze or drinking,’’ insists Pai. It is a concept that fits right into what the Bangalore Walks logo aims at:
‘History.Culture.Discovery.’

So, the beer walk (held on Sundays 6.30 pm-9.30 pm) will tell interested citizens,visitors, tourists and history buffs why Bangalore is ‘pub city,’ what beer has to do with the biotech boom the city is currently experiencing and even which place in the city first served Indians beer.

These are facts that Pai and his colleagues spent hours researching. “It is not about going on a drinking binge. It is about telling people that Bangalore and India revolutionised beer making,’’ he stresses.

Since the beer walks began two-three months ago, everyone from company CEOs to history students and well, beer lovers, have signed up in droves. “We actually offer unlimited beer on this walk. So far, no one has taken it up,’’ he adds.

The Bangalore Walks project has roped in people not normally found on Page 3, like Ronnie Johnson, the ‘Bangalorewallah’ who has been determinedly chronicling Bangalore’s vanishing bungalows, or Sam Neginhal, a retired forest department official. For that matter, historians such as former chief editor of state Gazetteer Suryanath Kamat applaud the project. “It is making citizens aware of the city’s rich culture and heritage,’’ he says. And Bangalorephile/writer, Suresh Moona, who through Aarambh — An Association for Reviving Awareness about The Monuments of Bangalore — has held history tours of Bangalore for years, is glad that someone else has taken up the challenge of making history come alive.

RATES FOR THE WALKS

•Victorian Bangalore (Sunday — 7 to 10 am Rs 495 per head.

• Green Heritage Walks (Saturday/Sunday- 7 to 10 am Rs 495 per head.

• End of Empire (Saturday 7 to 10 am Rs 495 per head.

• Bangalore Beer Walk (Sunday-6.30 to 9.30 pm Rs 995 per head. www.bangalorewalks.com. Ph: 98455 23660.