Almost two months ago, Finweek editor Marc Ashton came up with the idea of doing a cover story on the sudden explosion of craft breweries across South Africa. I was fortunate enough to be given the chance to write the story. However, I had one condition. I didn’t want to write the story from my desk. I wanted to do the story justice by actually visiting as many micro-breweries as possible in order to do a proper, in-depth feature. Now most editors would have seen this as a mere ruse to drink as much beer as possible at the company’s expense. Fortunately, Marc is someone who always sees the good in people and had no idea what I was up to. The result was that I got to travel to Cape Town where I met with Darling Brew, Jack Black Beer, Boston Breweries, Triggerfish Brewing and Devil’s Peak Brewing Company. In between many, many fine beers I manged to interview the brains behind these businesses and why craft brewing is taking off in SA.
On my return to Gauteng I also interviewed Steve Gilroy of Gilroy brewpub in Muldersdrift, Brendan Watcham of Copperlake Brewing, Andre de Beer of The Cockpit Brewhouse and a host of others whom I met at the Jozi Craft Beer Fest. I also visited Clarens where I met Stephan Meyer, owner of the Clarens Brewery, probably the finest example of a working brewpub that I came across. While some have expressed surprise at our choice to run a cover story on beer, a reading of the story will show that there’s a strong entrepreneurial element to it. While any craft brewer will tell you that passion is the main reason that they brew, almost all of them are either already turning that passion into profit or harbour ambitions of doing so.
Finally, if you haven’t yet sampled a craft beer, do yourself a favour and organise a day trip to one of the boutique beer producers sprouting up around the country. To borrow a phrase from Steve Gilroy, South Africans don’t have a beer culture. They have a light lager culture. The time has come to change that.
Follow Garth Theunissen on Twitter at @Garthpunk
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- A sampling of beer from The Cockpit Brewhouse’s
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- The tap room at Darling Brew
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- The tap room at Darling Brew
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- The Darling Brew offering
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- Darling Brew’s Bone Crusher logo, a Belgian wit beer, is inspired by the brown hyena
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- Kevin Wood serves another happy customer at Darling Brew
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- Kevin and Philippa Wood
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- The road to Darling
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- Mosaic on the wall of The Cockpit Brewhouse
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- Devil’s Peak The King’s Blockhouse IPA
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- André Cilliers of the Sneeuberg Brewery in Nieu Bethesda
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- Johnny Weiss Gold, a Weiss beer named after legendary German-American swimmer Johnny Weissmuller
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- The Devil’s Peak brewing company logo
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- Jack Black, named after a legendary pre-prohibition US brewer by the name of John Jack Black
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- Darling Brew’s latest offering, Silver Back, inspired by the Honey Badger
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- A bottle of Triggerfish Titan
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- Chris Barnard of Boston Breweries
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- The Brew Pub at Clarence Brewery
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- Inside the mash tun
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- The brewing works at Clarence Brewery
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- Old malt sacks adorn the walls of Clarence Brewery
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- The Clarence Brewery
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- Weyermann’s malt selection
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- The mash tun at Clarence Brewery
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- Clarence Brewery on the brew
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- Hops gives beer its characteristic aroma
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- André de Beer and his assistant brewer at The Cockpit Brewhouse
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- A couple of cold ones at The Cockpit Brewhouse
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- Finweek – The Craft Beer edition
its time SAB share the beer market with upcoming breweries..i feel ths market is somehow monopolized