Apart from the formidable aiyla, there is also chyang, a milky rice beer which tastes faintly like cider.

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The elephants are known to have a taste for rice beer brewed by tribal communities across north-east India.

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Assam's elephant expert Kushal Konwar Sharma, a lecturer, said these elephants frequently consume rice beer and cause devastation when they become intoxicated.

BBC: Elephants have been raiding villages in search of beer

Those include cola, juice, beer, rice, canned goods, soap and laundry detergent, baby products like disposable diapers - and computers.

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The Mile High Malt Scrub and Microbrew Massage starts with a scrub made by mixing grainy beer malt with a rice ale, brewed by the nearby Great Divide Brewery.

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Beer is served in big rice bowls, to be downed bandit style.

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Purists point to many giant breweries' use of "adjuncts, " a kind of "beer helper" of syrups and unmalted (meaning ungerminated) grains like rice and corn that, among other things, thins the brew's body and boosts its alcohol level on the cheap.

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The biggest losers will be inefficient local producers, such as one in Samara, in southern Russia, where the decrepit town brewery, featuring fermentation tanks with flaking linings, nasty smells and beer brewed to purists' horror from sugar and rice, has fought off all outside interest.

ECONOMIST: Russian beer