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I was only in India for about 6 weeks nearly a decade ago, but dang was that alcohol culture very different than what I am accustomed to.
There would often be 12 beers listed on the menu. I'd be lucky if they had 4 in stock. Typically they only had one type of beer.
There was one place that sort of advertised itself as a place with a bunch of beers. They advertised having something like 36 beers on tap. Most bars in the US will have a minimum of 20 beers on tap. 40 is more regular. A bar that advertises itself as a place with a bunch of beers on tap needs at least 100.
Alcohol generally cost about the same amount. What I mean by that is a cheap US domestic beer in the US was about the same dollar cost as a cheap Indian beer in India. I was in an expensive area in India, but I also live in an expensive area in the US. Just about everything else was around 1/6th of the cost. My Indian coworkers were understandably more reluctant to drink.
I liked drinking heavier beers at the time, we would definitely buy a bunch of Kingfischer Ultra to drink back and drink at the apartment. Light watered down beer is still the best for hot days.
In the US casual dancing is accompanied by either drugs or alcohol. Almost no exceptions. In India people seemed to enjoy dancing sober. After experiencing both I prefer the Indian culture on dancing. But I'm a person that likes dancing. India also had a wider array of 'easy moves' that everyone could do. In the US you are either a near-pro dancer, or you look dumb. The drugs and alcohol are required to be willing to look dumb I guess.
The benefit of drinking light beer all day is that it has a built in limiter on how drunk you can get. At 4-5% as long as you aren't literally trying to chug down the beer you will stay comfortably drunk/tipsy without too much risk of getting sick. Anything above 7% typically requires me to be very aware of my alcohol consumption or there is a high likelihood of getting sick at the end of the night.
At least for omniculture costal urbanite themed types of dancing. A cowboy themed dance hall is basically the same social environment for a very different crowd and line dancing is not very difficult (see also the popularity of the cha cha slide at weddings displacing the chicken dance).
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Alcohol is heavily taxed, so no wonder the prices seemed high to you. When Indians travel to the UK or the US, they invariably bring back as much duty free liquor as they can carry, since it's often half the price as at home.
To my relief, that meant drinking was reasonably affordable, and you can bet that I made good use of it!
We don't really have a beer culture here, but I have seen microbreweries that have significant variety, though I never bothered to count the menu.
I need a good percentage of liquor in my blood before I get dragged to the dance floor, but truth be told people still dance mostly when tipsy. I'd chalk that up to the idiosyncrasies of the places you've been.
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