One Year In: The Story Behind Australia's First Indian Inspired Craft Brewery

Some Ideas Never Leave You

I have been saying it for years.

To friends. To family. To anyone who would sit still long enough to listen.

"One day I am going to start a brewery. One day I am going to sell my own beer."

They smiled. They nodded. They moved on to the next conversation.

I do not blame them. It was just talk. I had not done anything yet.

But the idea never left me. Not once...

The Craft Beer Shop That Started It All

It started before COVID.

There was a small craft beer shop in Point Cook (Vic) I used to go to. Nothing glamorous. No massive signs outside. No loud music. Just a quiet little place that felt like a cafe -- except instead of coffee, they poured craft beer. Local beer. Freshly made. Beer that someone had actually thought about and made with care...

I loved it there.

So naturally I started dragging people with me.

Friends. Family. Colleagues. Anyone I could convince. We would sit down, order a round, and I would lean across the table and say -- you see what they have done here? One day I am going to build something like this.

They heard it so many times they started smiling before I even finished the sentence.

You know that smile. The one that says yes mate, you have told me this before.

But sitting there one afternoon, a second thought arrived. One that would not leave.

Think about the last time you sat down at an Indian restaurant. The smell of the kitchen. The noise. The feeling of sitting around a table with family and everything feeling right. Now look at the drinks menu.

Every beer on it is imported.

Big international brands. Generic labels. Nothing local. Nothing craft. Nothing that actually belonged at that table.

It has always been that way.

Nobody had ever changed it.

I could not stop thinking about that gap.

The Idea That Sat Waiting

Two years ago my work situation changed.

I had just closed a four year passion project. Something I had poured everything into. And when it ended, for the first time in a long time, I had space. Real space. Not just in my calendar but in my head.

And in that space, this idea came rushing back.

So I sat down and looked at it properly.

Then I spent another 12 months doing absolutely nothing.

I know. Twelve months. That is embarrassing to write.

But here is the honest truth. It was not laziness. And the idea had not gone cold.

I had just come off four years of building something I deeply cared about. I knew what it felt like when a passion project ends. I did not want to jump into something new just because I was fired up in the moment. I needed to know this was real. Not a reaction. Not a distraction. Something I genuinely could not walk away from.

So I sat with it. On purpose.

Three months. Six months. Twelve months.

Every single month the idea was still there.

Louder, actually.

But sitting right next to that excitement was a quieter voice. The one that kept asking -- who are you to do this? You have never worked in beverages. You have never launched a physical product. You do not know how licensing works. You do not know how commercial brewing works. You do not know how any of this works.

That voice was not wrong.

It was just not reason enough to stop.

I Asked For a Sign

I have always believed in signs.

And after going around in circles for too long, I looked up one night and said -- I am tired of waiting. If this is meant to happen, show me something.

I created a TikTok account. An Instagram. A Facebook page. All under the name Punjabi Brewery. Posted about ten times across each platform. Rough content. Nothing polished. Just throwing the idea out into the world to see if anyone cared.

Then I completely forgot about it.

Two months went by. I did not open any of those apps. Life just continued. The accounts sat there doing nothing and I had mentally moved on.

Then one morning I picked up my phone and opened TikTok.

I could not believe what I was looking at.

One of my posts had gone viral. Over 50K views. Thousands of likes. Hundreds of DMs and comments all asking the same question - where can I buy this?

I sat there staring at my screen for a long time.

I had asked for a sign a few months earlier.

There it was.

That account eventually grew to 20K followers. Posts pulling over 500K likes combined. Hundreds of messages from complete strangers, genuinely excited about a beer that did not even exist yet.

Then TikTok shut the whole account down.

Alcohol promotion. Against their terms. Everything gone overnight.

That stung. I will not pretend it did not.

But here is what it also did.

It proved the idea was real. Real people. Real excitement. Real demand. I had not imagined this gap in the market. Complete strangers had just told me directly that it was there.

I read the platform terms, opened new compliant accounts, and made a decision.

No more waiting.

Scared Action

Here is something I want to be upfront about.

I am not from the beverage industry.

No brewing background. No industry contacts. No idea how excise worked, how liquor licensing worked, or how you actually get a beer from a recipe into a can and onto a shelf.

For a long time that felt like a reason to wait.

Then I got tired of using it as an excuse.

Instead of waiting until I knew everything, I went and found the people who already did.

I spoke to more than 10 brewery owners across Australia. People who had already done what I was trying to do. I asked them everything. What they wished they knew. What the real costs looked like. What they would do differently.

Every single one of them took the time to talk to me. That still means a lot and I will forever be grateful to these awesome souls. 

Then I hired the people I needed around me. A licensing consultant. A contract brewer. A designer and AI to help me design the brand at a deep level.

I did not wait to feel confident. I moved while I was still scared.

Scared action. That is what I called it.

Not confident action. Not certain action. Action taken while the doubt was still sitting right there next to me. One phone call at a time. One decision at a time. Moving forward and figuring it out as I went.

That changed everything.

Building the Brand

The first name I had was Pind and Pint.

I sat with it for a while.

It did not feel like mine. Then I tried a few more names...Nothing connected! 

A name has to feel true. It has to feel like something you would stand behind for the next twenty years without blinking. Punjabi Brewery was that. The moment I said it out loud I stopped looking for anything else.

Then the real work began.

And I will be straight with you - launching a beer brand in Australia is hard in ways that are difficult to explain until you are inside it.

Every step has a process. Every process has a form. Every form has a waiting period. And then another form.

We registered the company. We spent 6-8 months building our own recipe from scratch because putting our name on someone else's beer was never an option. What goes into the can had to be ours. That took time, testing, and a lot of patience.

We worked through liquor licensing. Community impact statements. Risk assessments. Government reviews. A licensed consultant. Months of back and forth with regulators.

There were moments I questioned everything. Moments where the gap between the idea in my head and the reality in front of me felt enormous.

But we kept going. We did every single thing properly. No shortcuts. That cost us time.

We would do it the same way again.

Punjabi Gold

Punjabi Gold is our flagship beer.

A premium lager. 4.5% ABV. Clean, crisp, and easy to drink.

Made for long lunches, loud family dinners, and every moment in between. It is the Indian craft beer that should have always been on the menu at your favourite restaurant. The one that belongs at that table. The one that was always missing.

This is not an imported brand. This is not someone else's recipe with our label on it.

This is ours. Built from scratch. Brewed in Australia. Inspired by India.

#ApniBeer - Our Beer 

The Licence Is Approved

Now for some good news.

I have been waiting for this for more than a year.

Last week our liquor licence was approved.

I will say that again because it still does not feel real.

Our liquor licence is approved.

That means we can now move into production. And here is where things stand right now.

Recipe locked. Production locked. Can and carton design done. Warehouse almost locked.

We are close. Really close.

The next step is starting production and getting the cans and cartons to print. That is probably another two months of work. But we are not starting from zero anymore. We are finishing.

Australia's first Indian inspired craft brewery is no longer an idea I tell people about over a beer.

Punjabi Gold is coming. Sept 2026.

One Last Thing

I spent years sitting in that brewpub telling anyone who would listen that one day I would do this.

One year ago I finally believed I could.

If you are sitting on your own idea right now, waiting to feel ready -- I just want you to know one thing.

The readiness does not come first.

The action does.

Jag