Recently I have been feeling a little glum about the whole South African beer scene. Although there are a few shining star breweries that are experimenting, and in general, beer quality has improved, the industry as a whole has seemed a bit stagnant of late.

There seem to be fewer new releases, not so many small scale events (pairings, quizzes, meet the brewer type stuff) and indeed not so many large scale events either. Someone pointed out to me the other day that Cape Town no longer has any beer festivals at all, and that surprised and saddened me in equal doses. Then Johan Auriacombe twisted my rubber arm and convinced me to fly up to Pretoria for the annual Capital Craft Beer Festival. Turns out it was just what I needed to get out of the slump.

It’s true!

I’m a little ashamed to admit that this was my first ever CCBF, despite it being the 10th year of the event. It falls right at the start of the school holidays and often coincides with our ‘get out of Cape Town for winter’ overseas trip. But this time I was still in SA and the fomo became too much for me to bear. It’s one of the best decisions I’ve made all year.

SA’s biggest beer fest

Capital Craft Beer Festival operates on a totally different level to other South African beer events. The closest in terms of scale would be Clarens, but the sheer volume of everything is just massive at CCBF: brewer stands (40), stages (3), live bands (16), food stalls (20), toilets (I didn’t count but I’d guess that it was upwards of 50 just for the women??), trees (many), dust (much) and of course, attendees (a whopping 10,000 in a single day).

Luckily, I had kind of invited myself to participate in the festival judging and so got to jump the already sizable queue forming shortly after 9:30am. I arrived on Cape Town time (20 minutes late) and so missed the briefing, but joined the 40-or-so other judges, all clad in matching shirts, just in time to get started. We worked in teams, each having 26 beers to taste and rate. The whole process was seamlessly organised by Wil and Sam from the Wort Hogs homebrewers club, although I did find that my teammates drank a little faster than my usual pre-lunch pace, meaning that by the time lunch rolled around, I was already pretty well oiled.

I knew I was never going to make it to every stand, and even if I did, I would never be able to taste every beer on show. Luckily, this is a tremendously well organised event and I managed to get hold of the beer menu a day ahead of the fest. Over breakfast I’d spent a bit of time with a highlighter pen and came equipped with a checklist for the day. For the slightly less nerdy, a giant version of the beer menu appears at the fest, meaning if you have a hankering for a certain beer style you know where to head.

Capital Craft Beer Festival to do list

Best beers of the day

My interests of course lay in beers I don’t usually drink: limited edition festival brews, beers from breweries that don’t distribute, and even a couple of beers from breweries I hadn’t heard of, including Labora Brewery in Centurion (their APA was pretty good).

When I get time, I will try to remember how many of the 273 beers I tasted on the day (actually that number includes the so-called “pink drinks” – non beer stuff like vodka ice tea, berry cider and premixed G&T – I don’t need to tally up to know that I sampled precisely zero pink drinks, unless you count Clockwork’s electrolyte-enhanced cherry sour, which I don’t). But for now, here are a few of my favourites, in no particular order:

• Brauhaus Afrika’s Farmer’s Lager – lovely malt-forward, crisp and clean way to start the day.
• Stumpnose Yeah Buoy IPA – clear, bitter West Coast IPA that was the judges’ favourite and won best beer in show (check out the full list of this year’s CCBF winners here)
• Devil’s Peak Stone Vol 3 – beautiful complex sour with just a hint of apricot
• Just Brewing Painkiller – A pina colada-inspired collab with Bruce Collins of the now defunct Stellenbosch Brewing Co.
• Richmond Hill Yellow Lemon Sun – a hoppy lager and worthy gold medalist in this year’s African Beer Cup

But my personal best in show was the Mexican Cousin Margarita Sour from Woodstock Brewery – so much so that I awoke at 2am with a mad thirst that only an epic beerfest can deliver, and a ridiculous craving for this tangy, extremely refreshing beer. I hope they make it again. If they do, go get some for breakfast.

I ended up spending all my time chatting and sipping and taking selfies, so I didn’t pay as much attention to the bands as I would have liked, although when I woke up in the night with that mad thirst, I was singing the title line to Mortal Man over and over in my head, proving that I did at least have one ear on Jeremy Loops’ set while chatting to my Gauteng beer family.

The Maslow Time Square – what a place to sleep off a beerfest

A night in luxury

I do not tend to sleep well after beer festivals, but this time I didn’t even mind waking up throughout the night as it reminded me what an amazing place I was spending my post-fest sleep. Yes, to round off what was already a pretty perfect weekend, I managed to score a stay in The Maslow Time Square, about 15 minutes from the festival venue.

I kind of wished everyone else had been staying there as well as it’s a hell of a place to have the post-fest after party. As well as 15 floors of glorious rooms, the hotel has a major event venue (they recently held the Backstreet Boys gig at the SunBet Arena, and George Ezra is appearing next month). It also has half a dozen restaurants scattered around the edge of the casino floor. In retrospect I probably should have eaten something when arriving back from the festival mid-evening, but instead I took a walk through the casino and retired to my room on the 12th floor.

Pastry selection at The Maslow Time Square

The Maslow Time Square is quite unusual in that it has three, four and five star gradings within the one hotel, so you can benefit from (almost) all the facilities of a five star hotel, but without having to pay the five-star price tag (there are separate breakfast areas though, meaning you get a fancier brekkie if you’re in one of the five-star rooms).

I devoured the breakfast the morning after the fest (and wished I’d lined my stomach a little better the day before, but I was too excited to eat much), filling up on parma ham, smoked salmon, all the breakfast meat you could ever want and what was probably a rather unnecessary amount of pastries (hats off to the pastry chef – those cakes were fluffy and delicious). And washed it all down with what felt like about 12 litres of juice (sadly no pint of Margarita Sour though).

A beer boost

I thoroughly earned the massive hangover I flew back to Cape Town with and despite feeling a little delicate, I smiled for most of the journey home. Capital Craft Beer Fest gave me the boost I needed, and judging by the  laughs and smiles (and hangovers) from the rest of SA’s beer industry, I’d say it did the same for everyone else.

It’s a uniquely South African festival, where 10,000 people join to drink beer (or pink drinks) and listen to fine local bands in a one-of-a-kind setting (Pretoria’s National Botanical Garden). Hats off to Johan and team for building something truly remarkable, for keeping it going for a decade, for weathering the Covid storm and for giving a much-needed boost to South Africa’s beer morale after what’s been a tough couple of years. And indeed to my own beery morale, which I am happy to say has been fully restored.

This might have been my first CCBF, but I’m damn sure it won’t be my last.

Disclosure: My flights to Pretoria were sponsored by CCBF/Lift and accommodation was sponsored by Sun International.