I never expected it to catch on like it did. South African National Beer Day was born out of a desire to celebrate South Africa's favourite tipple in style. It was also meant to give the local beer scene a little boost each year. After consulting a number of...
Earlier this week I published the results of the 2019 Brewmistress Beer Awards. There was one brewery that I felt was lacking from the list, or at least from the votes. And that same brewery had been lacking in previous years too. In fact, when I searched for...
It's a few days late, but I figure you've all been busy eating your own weight in mince pies and braai meat and testing out various hangover remedies thanks to a little festive (over)indulgence. Or maybe I'm projecting. Either way, polls have closed, votes have...
It's the end of the year. The end of the decade in fact. People are already predicting what's going to happen in 2020 and beyond. But before we do that, let's look back at 2019. It's been a fairly quiet year for beer in South Africa. We are in the midst of a period...
The Cape Town Festival of Beer has always been a special weekend for me. It's pretty much the anniversary of when I arrived in SA and more importantly it's an annual get together of a great big pile of awesome people, with an equally sizable pile of great beer....
Do you remember your first CTFOB? Do you remember any of them? Perhaps you've never been to one, or maybe, like me, you've attended all nine. This year marks the 10th Cape Town Festival of Beer and the three-day fest is looking bigger than ever. You'll have around...
Early in September, I launched a new Facebook page. It's something people in the industry had been discussing for a while and something that I somehow got involved in a few months back – the Gugulethu Craft Beer Festival. It began when I was contacted by Vuyani...
For some reason I'm not aware of, I haven't written anything about Hey Joe Brewing Company on the blog yet. After a few false starts and many months of anticipation, the brewery opened in Franschhoek in April. If you haven't visited yet, put it on your summer to-do...
When ABI took over SAB in 2016, the local beer industry was filled with questions: would they decide to crush craft? Would Budweiser replace Black Label as South Africa's favourite beer? How many jobs would be lost? And perhaps most worryingly of all, how would I...
