Lilasons Brewhouse, Bhopal: A review

Sat, 10 Oct 2026
3 min read
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As Bhopal’s craft-beer scene finds its footing, House No. 230 – The Gourmet Kitchen & Bar / Lilasons Brewhouse has started to lay the groundwork for the culture, one brew at a time.

Not only does the venue house a lounge as well as a restaurant serving vegetarian food, it also boasts Madhya Pradesh’s first microbrewery.

I was privileged to be hosted by Suresh, its brewer, who walked me through their beer line-up and gave me a tour of the brewing set-up.

Lilasons has a pretty interesting selection on offer: watermelon and mango ales, Belgian and German wheat beers, an Irish red ale and an American lager.

They also had a Basmati lager on the menu but, unfortunately, they had run out of it when I visited.

This was a pity; I’ve had a Japanese rice lager before but not a Basmati rice one so I was excited to try something with ingredients closer to home, even though I’m not a fan of Pilsners or lagers.

Of course, I had to ask if they had IPAs – my favourite beer style – but Suresh said he hadn’t included it on the menu as the Bhopal community prefers sweeter, more floral beers over bitter ones.

I thought that made a lot of business sense; F&B outlets must cater to their community’s palate as the people closest to them are going to be the repeat customers that will ultimately be supporting their business.

In that vein, what I liked was the use of locally sourced additions and flavourings in the beers.

My three favourites: the mango and watermelon ales as well as the Belgian wheat, all of which are brewed using fruit or spices from India.

The fruit ales were deceptively strong. Fruit is added during both primary and secondary fermentation, so the tropical character emerges clearly while masking the taste of alcohol to some degree.

The Belgian wheat was another highlight. I felt it had a bit of an Asian touch to it given the spice blend used. The traditional coriander and orange peel aromas came out strongly and I think there may have been clove and pepper in the mix too.

The German wheat was the only beer I felt needed a bit more refinement. I struggled to pin down its flavour profile and I shared that feedback with Suresh, who took it in his stride.

We also got to talking about the history of the craft-beer movement in Singapore.

I shared how the third wave of the craft-beer movement in the Lion City (circa mid 2010s) was when local breweries began producing their own beers.

It took around a decade for the scene to mature to a point where local offerings could hold their own against international benchmarks.

Building a culture and effecting change takes time. Likewise, Bhopal and the wider region will take a while to develop its own scene and it’s great that Suresh is a pioneer of the scene in the state.

I also encouraged him to experiment further with distinctly Indian ingredients such as jaggery and coconut so as to distinguish Indian craft beers from their international counterparts.

So if you’re in Bhopal, do make time to drop by House No. 230 – The Gourmet Kitchen & Bar / Lilasons Brewhouse to check them out and support their craft 🍻

House No. 230 – The Gourmet Kitchen & Bar / Lilasons Brewhouse
230 Kerwa Dam Road
Opposite Bull Mother Farm, near N.L.I.U, National Law Institute University
Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh 462044
https://www.instagram.com/houseno.230/

QLRS: Full marks for freshman effort

Sun, 5 Nov 2017
1 min read
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My review of Philip Holden’s Heaven Has Eyes is now up on Quarterly Literary Review Singapore:

Full marks for freshman effort
Philip Holden hits the bull’s-eye with Heaven Has Eyes

Code-switching, or alternating between languages or language varieties, is never an easy feat.

But Philip Holden makes the practice look effortless with Heaven Has Eyes, his debut collection of short stories that centre on or revolve around Singapore.

Each of the 12 texts demonstrates Holden’s keen understanding of both the Singaporean condition and the linguistic oddities that characterise the nation-state.

Whether it is portraying characters that converse using a mix of English and Singlish, or shifting between English and the various Chinese language varieties in telling each of the stories, Holden is equally at ease.

“Aeroplane”, for one, utilises an intelligent interplay of English, Mandarin and Hokkien, conveying, through the symbol of flying, themes of migration, abandonment and exile.

It is done masterfully.

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QLRS: Dusty Gems

Mon, 11 Aug 2014
2 min read
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Since 2011, when I reviewed Tan Tarn How’s Six Plays, I’ve made it a point to review a Singaporean literary text for each Jul issue of the Quarterly Literary Review, Singapore (QLRS).

This year, I’ve reviewed Noon at Five O’Clock: The Collected Short Stories of Arthur Yap (Edited by Angus Whitehead).

Dusty Gems
Collection highlights little-known area of Arthur Yap’s work

Edited by Angus Whitehead, an assistant professor of English literature at the National Institute of Education in Singapore, Noon at Five O’Clock: The Collected Short Stories of Arthur Yap is a volume of eight short stories that comes on the back of The Collected Poems of Arthur Yap (NUS Press, 2013). Both volumes arrive eight years after Yap’s passing — a timely reminder of the 1983 Cultural Medallion winner’s contribution to Singapore’s arts scene in a milieu currently predisposed to lauding the “pioneer generation”.

While Yap’s poetry is synonymous with the Singapore literary canon, it is the mention of his short stories that pulls the reader up short: the average literature reader in my generation, and later, is probably unaware that Yap wrote fiction. Thus, kudos must go to Whitehead for his imagination and insight in tracking down and putting together this volume, so that the breadth of Yap’s talents can be fully appreciated by a wider audience.

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