Mohan Meakin
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Asia's oldest brewer, Mohan Meakin Limited, traces its history back to the late 1820s, when Edward Dyer travelled from Britain to set up the first brewery in India at Kasauli. The Kasauli brewery launched Asia’s first beer “Lion” which was in great demand by the thirsty British administrators and troops stationed in India. The brewery was later incorporated as Dyer Breweries Limited in 1855. From the beginning, Lion was appreciated as a high quality beer and one famous poster featured a British Tommy declaring, "as good as back home!".
The Kasauli brewery was soon shifted to nearby Solan (close to the British summer capital Shimla), as there was an abundant supply of fresh springwater there. The brewery site was converted to a distillery which Mohan Meakin still operate. Dyer set up more breweries at Shimla, Murree, Rawalpindi, Mandalay, Quetta and acquired interests in the Oticumand (South India) and Ceylon (Nuwara Eliya) breweries. Lion beer was introduced to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) through the acquired Ceylon Brewery and is today Sri Lanka's best selling beer.
Another entrepreneur H.G. Meakin, came to India from Britain and bought the old Shimla and Solan Breweries from Dyer and added more at Ranikhet, Dalhousie, Chakrata, Darjeeling and Kirkee. After the first World War the two firms merged and formed Dyer Meakin & Company.
In 1935, when Burma was separated from India the company was restructured with its Indian assets under the name of Dyer Meakin Breweries Ltd. a public company listed on the London Stock Exchange. In 1949, N.N. Mohan took over the management of the company and bought up all of the shares. N.N. Mohan built new breweries at Lucknow and Khopoli near Bombay. To meet the increased demand for Mohan Meakin products, an industrial complex including a new brewery and distillery, was set up in 1960 in Ghaziabad, near Delhi. To mark the contribution of N.N. Mohan, the company's name was changed from Dyer Meakin Breweries to Mohan Meakin Breweries in 1967.
On the death of N.N. Mohan in 1969, his eldest son Colonel V.R. Mohan took over as managing director. He introduced a number of new products that are brand leaders today but died in 1973, soon after taking the helm. In the 1970s the manufacturing activities of the company were diversified into other fields including breakfast cereals, fruit juices and mineral water under the leadership of Brigadier Kapil Mohan (Col. V.R. Mohan's brother). Subsequently the word brewery was dropped from the company name in 1982 to remove the impression that the company was engaged only in beer making. New breweries were built during the seventies and eighties at Chandigarh, Madras and Kakinada near Hyderabad.
Today, Mohan Meakin's principal brands are Old Monk rum and Golden Eagle beer. Its other products include Diplomat Deluxe, Colonel's Special, Black Knight, Meakin 10,000, Summer Hall and Solan No 1 whiskies, London Dry and Big Ben gins, and Kaplanski vodka. Asia’s original beer, Lion, is still sold in northern India and remains the best selling beer in Sri Lanka through Ceylon Breweries.