Meet Lynette Pires: The Masterbrewer Behind Flying Fox Brewing
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Great beer doesn't come from a recipe. It comes from a point of view.
Lynette Pires has spent over a decade developing hers. As Masterbrewer at Flying Fox Brewing, she is the person behind every beer in the portfolio. Not just technically, but creatively. Every ingredient choice, every fermentation call, every flavour that ends up in your glass traces back to how she thinks about brewing.
And the way she thinks about brewing is unlike most people in the industry.
Curiosity Before Craft
Lynette didn't come to brewing through beer. She came through fermentation.
Her early career was spent in biotechnology, working in upstream fermentation and analytical biochemistry at Biocon in Bengaluru. It was precise, methodical work: understanding how living organisms transform under different conditions, how small variables produce dramatically different outcomes. When she eventually moved into brewing, she brought that scientific instinct with her.
The questions she had been asking in a research lab turned out to be exactly the right ones to ask in a brewhouse. The tools were different. The curiosity was the same.
That combination of scientific grounding and creative ambition is what makes her approach distinctive. She doesn't guess. She understands why something works, which gives her the confidence to push it somewhere new.
What the Brewery Taught Her
Lynette's early brewing years in Bengaluru, across Spiritec Beer World, Byg Brewski Brewing Company, and Black Eye Beer Works, taught her the fundamentals in the most direct way possible: by doing.
She developed a particular depth of knowledge in yeast. It's an area most drinkers never consider, but yeast is one of the most influential variables in how a beer tastes. The same base recipe run through two different yeast strains produces two completely different beers. Understanding yeast behaviour gave Lynette a level of creative control that shaped everything she brewed afterwards.
Her years at AB InBev India as Head Craft Brewer added a different kind of discipline. Working at that scale sharpens your instincts about what actually matters in a recipe. She came out of that experience knowing exactly what kind of brewer she wanted to be, and what she wanted to make next.
The Philosophy Behind the Beer
If you want to understand Lynette's brewing philosophy, start with one question she keeps returning to: what happens if?
What happens if a local Indian ingredient meets a traditional European brewing style? What happens if a familiar recipe gets approached from a completely different angle? These aren't hypothetical questions. They are the starting point for actual beers.
For Lynette, experimentation isn't a risk. It's the process. Her scientific background means she can make educated creative bets rather than blind ones. But the willingness to ask the question in the first place, to look at an ingredient and wonder what it could become rather than what it already is, that comes from somewhere deeper than training.
It comes from genuinely loving the craft.
Why Local Ingredients Matter to Her
The decision to build Flying Fox's identity around local Indian ingredients started as a brewing conversation, not a marketing one.
Kokum. Gondhuraj lime. Palm jaggery. Mosambi. These are ingredients Lynette knows intimately, whose flavour profiles she understands, and whose potential inside a fermentation vessel she had been thinking about long before Flying Fox existed. For her, the question was never whether they belonged in beer. The question was how to use them in a way that was genuinely flavour-first.
How to make the kokum taste like kokum, not just a generic sour note. How to let the gondhuraj lime's aromatic character come through cleanly rather than disappear into fermentation. Getting that right takes the same precision she applies to everything else, and occasionally means throwing a batch away and starting again.
The Gose with the Flow series is where that thinking is most visible: three sour ales built around Gondhuraj Lime, Pineapple, and Kokum. Tart, sessionable, and unlike anything else in the market. Not because the concept is unusual, but because the execution is careful.
Precision and Creativity: Not Opposites
One of the things that makes Lynette interesting as a brewer is that she doesn't see science and creativity as opposites.
For her, technical mastery is what makes creativity possible. Knowing your fermentation chemistry means you can make ingredient decisions at exactly the right moment. Understanding your yeast means you can push it with intention rather than hope. The science is the tool. The creativity is what you build with it.
Her go-to styles reflect that balance. Crisp, hoppy lagers and easygoing pale ales: styles that reward technical precision above everything else. There is nowhere to hide in a clean lager. Every decision shows up in the glass. Choosing to love those styles is, in its own way, a statement about how seriously she takes the craft.
The Women Brewers Collective
In 2021, Lynette founded the Women Brewers Collective.
It began with five female brewers from across India who wanted to collaborate, share knowledge, and support each other. Today the Collective has twenty-eight members. Every year they come together to brew a special collaborative beer, launched on International Women's Day.
In 2025, the Collective launched Grow Her, a learning and development programme for members focused on building real skills and creating genuine career pathways for women in brewing.
Lynette built the Women Brewers Collective because she looked at the industry she loved and decided it could be better. That instinct, to see what is missing and do something about it rather than wait, is the same one that drives her in the brewery every day.
Recognition: Brewer World's Best Brewer India 2023
In 2023, Brewer World named Lynette Pires Best Brewer India.
It was recognition of a brewer who combines deep technical knowledge with genuine creative ambition, and a brewing philosophy that is entirely her own. For Flying Fox, it confirmed what the beers already suggested: that the person making them is one of the best in the country at what she does.
Still Asking Questions
There is a version of a brewing career that looks like mastery and stops there. You reach a level of excellence, you produce consistently great beer, and that becomes the whole point.
That has never been Lynette's version.
For her, the most interesting moment in any brew day is the one where something is still uncertain. Where an ingredient is being tried in a new way, or a recipe is still an iteration away from being exactly right. The uncertainty isn't something to resolve as quickly as possible. It's where the most interesting work happens.
Every Flying Fox beer begins in that place: with a question that doesn't have an obvious answer yet, and a brewer who refuses to reach for the obvious one.
That's Lynette. And that's what's in your glass.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Lynette Pires?
Lynette Pires is the Masterbrewer at Flying Fox Brewing, winner of Brewer World's Best Brewer India 2023, and founder of the Women Brewers Collective. She has crafted every beer in the Flying Fox portfolio and has over a decade of experience across India's craft brewing industry.
What is Lynette Pires' brewing philosophy?
Lynette's brewing philosophy is built on curiosity, technical precision, and experimentation. She believes that deep knowledge of fermentation science is what gives a brewer the freedom to push creatively, and that the most interesting brewing happens when you refuse to settle for the obvious answer.
How did Lynette Pires get into brewing?
Lynette began her career in fermentation science at Biocon before moving into brewing in Bengaluru. She went on to serve as Head Brewer at Byg Brewski, Yeast Specialist at Black Eye Beer Works, and Head Craft Brewer at AB InBev India before joining Flying Fox as Masterbrewer in 2025.
What is the Women Brewers Collective?
The Women Brewers Collective is a community of female brewers across India founded by Lynette Pires in 2021. It started with five members and now has twenty-eight. Members collaborate each year to brew a special beer launched on International Women's Day. In 2025, the Collective launched Grow Her, a dedicated learning and development programme for members.
Why does Lynette use local Indian ingredients at Flying Fox?
Because they produce flavours that are distinctly Indian and impossible to replicate elsewhere. For Lynette, using ingredients like kokum and gondhuraj lime is a brewing decision before anything else: these ingredients make the beer better and give Flying Fox a flavour identity that belongs entirely to this country.
What are Lynette Pires' favourite beer styles?
Lynette's go-to styles are crisp, hoppy lagers and easygoing pale ales. At Flying Fox, the Kitsune Lager and 46th Dimension IPA sit closest to her personal brewing instincts.