Every year, around this time, the food blogs are full of tips on where to dine beside a fireplace. So this year I thought I'd get a piece of the fireplace pie. This is my list of place in South Africa where you can watch a beer being brewed - then drink a pint by...
It all started with a bottle of Corona. This might sound like the beginning of many a drunken varsity tale, but in fact, the beer that could be said to epitomise the "fizzy yellow lager" epithet was also the inspiration for John Palmer's brewing career.Well, if not...
I've always admired Devil's Peak for not tiptoeing on to the South African beer scene. They arrived at the 2011 CTFoB and whacked us all in the face with a great big bag of much-needed hops. So I won't lie - I was a trifle disappointed when I learned that they...
You might have spotted a new Windhoek advertising campaign over the past week. The Namibian brewery launched a somewhat tongue-in-cheek string of ads playing on their Reinheitsgebot policy – that is, brewing using the ingredients laid out by the 1516 German beer...
Want to advance your homebrewing knowledge? Thinking of taking your brewing to a professional level? Join us for a three-day brewing course in Cape Town. Brewing Beyond the Basics covers every step of the brewing process, starting with an in-depth look at each of...
There's no shortage of beer festivals in South Africa but until now true beer geeks haven't had an expo, a conference they could call their own. Then along came Beer Boot Camp - set to be an annual addition to the country's beer calendar. The one-day indaba...
It has probably not escaped your attention that I have strong opinions when it comes to bottling beer. I have been known to rant about bottle-conditioning done badly. It's not that I hate the practice of bottle conditioning. Not at all. But bottle-conditioning is...
Over the past few years, many have tried putting together beer indabas in South Africa – I was most excited a year or so ago to receive an invite to speak at the same lectern as Stone Brewing’s founder Greg Koch. But alas, most of these conferences have ended up...
The first sip of beer I ever had was from my dad's can of Hemeling. I'd better not say how old I was, but I think that particular beer was discontinued in the mid 80s. I took a while for me to become a hophead (and I'm still trying to convert my dad to the joys of...
