In a brewery where beer is being tapped, a very big role is played by the dispensing equipment. It is not only about tapping beer but also about the aesthetics- and interiors of the brewery, not to mention maintaining these dispensing lines and taps in a hygienic and efficient manner, Krome dispense, a Jalandhar based company, has a large part of the beer dispensing market’s tapping and kegging needs.

Operational since 1988, Krome Dispense is a part of Pacific Merchants, a family owned business, which originally traded in plumbing, pipe fittings and other speciality products for similar needs. They later specialised in one business-that of Beverage Dispensing Products. Over the next ten years, Pacific started manufacturing these products rather than just trading in them. They got manufacturing support from the Viking brand that has been producing bathroom speciality products and valves for Indian market for fifty years now.

Today, with state of the art manufacturing facility that uses CNC machines, polishing machines, plating plant and certified working systems, Pacific Merchants is in the market for brewery dispensing products. Their market is, to a large part, in the US and UK, and about 10% in India, says their spokesperson, Mohit Arora. The brand Krome Dispense is what most micro breweries in India have used in their outlets for tapping, and kegging as well (as kegs that can be used for transporting beer for private purposes), are from their stables.

Says Arora, “At Krome dispense, we specialise and focus on dispensing solutions for craft as well as commercial breweries. We also ensure branding etc, and also customise speciality tap handles for beer companies so they
can put their logo, colours and design on it.”

Being an Indian company, Krome Dispense could be one of the few companies to be selling brewery equipment to the US and Canada, which happen to be their major markets. Krome Dispense sells dispensing equipment across 120 countries globally.

“We have our own office in Atlanta, Georgia and other places in US market, and also a number of distributers in US and Canada. To meet this huge market, we manufacture about 15000 beer towers in a year,” Mohit adds.

In India, Krome’s products are installed in almost 75% of the microbreweries and pubs. Prominent among them are Harry’s, White Owl in Mumbai and Thank God Its Friday across the country. Almost all better known breweries, Arora says, use their dispensers. “We have several designs and offer in different finishes, like copper, brushed copper and brushed stainless steel. It depends on different bar or brewery interiors, we can match products for all different décors,” he adds.

Krome also offers other small fittings and small accessories that help in beer dispensing set ups – like beer tubing, beer connectors and small plastic fittings.

To ensure the beer quality, the maintenance of these products is critical, and Krome supports with cleaning and hygiene solutions as well.”We offer cleaning chemicals and cleaning accessories to help breweries to keep the dispensers clean, “Arora informs,” We also sell portable dispensing units for parties- small home units. In states where you can take 5 litres beer home from craft breweries, these are very widely used.

In fact we also offer Mini taps on top of the home keg for dispensing the beer. Some customers also take the CO2 addition, using which you can induce more CO2 at the time of dispensing, so the beer doesn’t go flat.”

With the craft brewery scene so positive in India, what future does Arora see?

“Since we already have almost 70% of the Indian beer market, our client list will only grow with the number of breweries growing,” he says.”We are very professional. Our technical team takes care of the service support while
our products are world class. Our USP is the competitive prices since we don’t import anything, so no duties are levied. Since we don’t pay import duties, our price is the biggest advantage. We are manufacturing here, our cost is very competitive, that’s the reason we have 75% of the market share.”