A new beer brand hit the India market every week in 2017, despite an unhealthy cocktail of sales bans, shrinking store networks, and stagnant demand in a warm, tropical country with promising demographics and increasing affluence. As many as 52 new beer brands and their variants were introduced last calendar year, more than double in 2016, according to data available with The Beer Cafe, the country’s largest beer chain. A year ago, nearly 25 brands were launched. While the top brewers — Heineken-controlled United Breweries and Carlsberg — introduced half a dozen new brands, several domestic and imported draft beer brands were introduced, mostly at pubs and restaurants, to ride on the surge of micro-breweries that rose to more than 80 compared to half a dozen five years ago.