Carlsberg Group

The beer of the beers comes from a Danish brewing company, the Carlsberg Group. Currently headed by Jørgen Buhl Rasmussen, the company was founded by J. C. Jacobsen in the year, 1847. Headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark, the Carlsberg Group’s official flagship and best-selling brand is the Carlsberg beer. The beer was named after Carl, the son of the founder. The company also brews various other popular brands of beers such as Tuborg, Kronenbourg, Baltika ; which is extremely famous in Russia, Somersby cider, Grim Bergen abbey beers in Belgium, followed by a large variety of nearly 500 local beers.

The Carlsberg Group carved its way to being what it is now by a series of mergers and acquisitions. In January 2001, the group ascertained the brewery assets of Orkla ASA, a Norwegian consortium, and merged with them. This made the Carlsberg Group, the 5th largest brewery group in the world. Having a firm grip on the Russian market, the group has a 40 percent market share, making it the leading beer seller in the country. Later, in the year 2009, the Carlsberg group reached the 4th rank. It also recruited about 45,000 people in the company.

The Carlsberg Group has an impressive timeline to post about since its founding by J. C. Jacobsen. Completing their first brew on the 10th of November, 1847, they began exporting their brew under the name, Carlsberg beer, in 1868. A brewery was commissioned in Blantyre, Malawi in 1968. This led to the beginning of foreign brewing. Within two years, the Carlsberg Group acquired Tuborg breweries, expanding their visage by 1970. They later merged with Tetley in 1992. In a move that could only be termed as excellent, the Carlsberg Group tied up with Heineken and bought Scottish and Newcastle, which was the largest brewer in the United Kingdom in the year 2008. Furthermore, in November 2014, the Olympic Brewery, the third largest brewery in Greece, was taken over by Carlsberg. This was a good increment to their operations in Greece which also made them the second largest market contender in the country.

The Carlsberg Group formed a foreign direct investment company in India by the name of Carlsberg India Pvt. Ltd., in order to brew and sell their beer here. They ended up buying the brands of Tuborg and Palone. Palone, a strong beer with an ABV (alcohol-by- volume) percentage of 7.5%, was a good choice given the fact that the Indian market has a large share of strong beers. It has been estimated that in 2008, nearly 17 million hectolitres of strong beer were a part of the market, making it a 72% market share.

Carlsberg has its breweries situated at Alwar in Rajasthan, Aurangabad in Maharashtra, Paonta Sahib in Himachal Pradesh, Kolkata in West Bengal, Patna in Bihar, Dharuhera in Haryana and Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh.

This literally gives the Carlsberg brewery a pan-Indian presence.

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