Doolally Pune – The 1st Brewhouse

Friday evening plans were being discussed. Initially, the choices were between a friend’s place or Kiva’s/some other place. We eventually decided to check out Doolally Pune, home to the city’s first microbrewery. The name is derived from “Deolali”, an army cantonment near Nashik.

I’d been meaning to visit the place ever since I ‘met’ one of the co-founders (Suketu Talekar) on Twitter 2-3 months ago. At the time, I’d tweeted about getting some Belgian beers from Bangalore. He replied saying I must visit Doolally to check out the real thing. Added to this was the fact that it was located at The Corinthians Boutique Hotel in the NIBM/Kondhwa area, “our” side of town.

So Doolally it was and we set forth around 8 pm. The place is a treat for the eyes, with it’s brand new shining steel vats behind glass doors. There’s lots of wood work, well spaced seating both indoor and outdoor, and an extremely relaxed air about the place. There was a live band playing as well, though less said about it, the better.

It was a pleasure to finally meet Suketu in person and he instantly made us all feel at home. He had some other guests to attend to as well, but recommended the Dark Lager as he left, which pretty much made up my mind.

Apparently, the place has Happy Hours from 6.30 pm to 9 pm. The steward said we were just in time (8.59 pm) to opt for it. We readily agreed to try each of the beers on offer; 5 beers (Premium, Wheat, Rye, Cider and Dark Lager) for 6 people, the Dark Lager getting a second nod. Only later did we realise that free samples were on offer! The steward conveniently omitted to tell us about this.

A big difference at Doolally is upfront payment instead of paying the bill at the end. I guess this is also one way of keeping people sober. 😛 They have a quaint system of charging in terms of Dimes (Rs. 100) and Nickels (Rs. 10). These are actual coins by the way, so we started off with five fine brews and ordered some starters too.

The beers were absolutely marvellous. We all had a swig from each of the glasses, allowing us to decide on what was to be our chosen “poison” for the remainder of the evening. As there were six of us, the choices opted for fell neatly between Adam’s Folly (Apple Cider), The Weiss Man (Wheat beer) and Bob Barley (Dunkel/Dark Lager) and we ordered a pitcher of each.

While the beer flowed freely, I must say the quantity of food per serving left a lot to be desired. In fact, some of the stuff seemed enough for just a single person, let alone six hungry souls. Apparently, the food aspect is managed by the Corinthians guys, not Doolally.

All this time, the band was playing some ear splitting music and the vocalist was getting to be a strain on my eardrums. I jokingly mentioned to Suketu that even I sang better, to which he replied that if I could put together a band, I was in! So what say, guys?

It was fun to read the in-house newspaper, the “Doolally Dispatch”, as well as the pithy comments on the coasters (will upload pics later) as well as the posters on the walls.

It was a fun evening. We must have downed nine pitchers among us by the time we left around midnight. I was there a couple of days later for the Sunday Brunch. At Rs. 650/- for unlimited food and beer, it’s a much better option, and there are no stares of disbelief when looking at the food (or lack thereof) on one’s plate.

It is an ideal place to laze around on a Sunday afternoon. Freshly brewed beer on tap while soaking in the relaxed ambience of the place. One thing is pukka for sure. There are going to be a LOT of meetups at Doolally for a long time to come!

Doolally
The Corinthians Boutique Hotel
Nyati County, NIBM Annexe, Kondhwa, Pune
Tel: 26952226