This Sunday, April 2nd, marks the 11th annual SouthYeasters Summer Fest. Once a year, the Cape’s homebrewers have a chance to showcase their beers to the public. And you, you lucky public you, get to taste them. Here’s what makes this the BEST BEER FESTIVAL IN THE WORLD!! *

(* The author has not visited every beer festival in the world and is making wild, unsubstantiated claims)

It’s great value for money

The entrance fee is R120 – pretty standard ticket fee for a beer fest these days I hear you cry. Ah but wait – once you pay to get in, you can taste ALL THE BEERS! (And by the way, that is in excess of 70 beers).

You can taste beers you won’t taste anywhere else

Speaking of beer, do you want to taste a red IPA, a black IPA, a rye IPA and a white IPA all under one tent? How about a cherry chocolate stout or a salted caramel wee heavy? Or perhaps a once off SMaSH beer brewed by Dewald Goosen and Scott Kelly of CBC… (yes, there are a couple of commercial breweries involved – more on that later). Homebrewers often think outside the box, are rarely shy with hops and are known to try anything once (and perhaps only once…)

It’s all about the beer

You know those beer festivals that serve cider and have wine stands and have live bands playing throughout the day/weekend? Well this is not one of those festivals. This is a beer festival. Beer beer beer. Beer. So if you like beer, the only reasons I can think of that you would not attend are a) you don’ live in or near to Cape Town or b) you’re in labour. (There will be soft drinks though. And a DJ for ambience. And food trucks and ice cream.)

Taking photos under a red tent is tricky. Black and white filters are your friend…

You get to be a beer judge

There are pretty awesome prizes on offer for the brewers and you, the people, get to choose who wins. This year the winner of the People’s Choice competition takes home an amazing prize – a ticket to the Craft Brewers Powwow, plus a whopping 50kg of SAB malt and 2kg of SAB hops!! So bring your best palate, taste as many beers as you can and place your marble in the cup of your favourite brewer. Then tell your friends you’re a beer judge.

Your kids can come along

For the first time, the festival is family friendly. There will be a dedicated kids area, with play equipment for little kids and a face painting station. No under 18s whatsoever will be allowed into the beer tent – that includes tiny babies and great big teenagers. Entrance is free for under 18s.

It’s run by volunteers and all beer is donated

The main reason that you should come and support is that the event is run entirely by volunteers and all monies made are put into the club and back into the kitty to organise next year’s festival. Supporting the fest means that the Southyeasters can continue doing things like running beer judging competitions, training new judges and generally helping to build a bigger beer culture in Cape Town. All beer on the day is donated by the brewers – and that includes beers on offer from our commercial cousins, including CBC, Honingklip and Newlands Spring. Big thanks as always for the support.

You can win tickets!

Yes indeed. I have two pairs of tickets to give away – one on Facebook and one on Twitter. To enter on Twitter, just complete and Tweet the following:

The thing I’m most excited about at the @SouthYeasters #SummerFest this Sunday is ________________________

Or you can head to Facebook, read the pinned post and like, comment, share, share, share!

Disclaimer: If you didn’t know, I help to run the Southyeasters Homebrewers Club and to organise the festival so my views are completely biased, totally unobjective and absolutely correct.

Massive thanks as always to Newlands Brewery for providing the venue. The festival couldn’t happen without them.