Cry the Beer-loved country

What if I told you that humans began brewing beer way before they could even bake bread? Approximately 13 000 years ago. People were fermenting wheat and barley in Israel's Raqefet Cave's. That's according to UK beer journalist and the author of The Meaning of Beer, Jonny Garret, who was one of the keynote speakers at last weekend's BeerEx Africa conference held at the V&A Waterfront's Makers Landing.

The opening panel discussion focused on the state of the beer industry in South Africa, followed by a session on brewing lager with dry yeast, sensory training, tips on hops' best-practices and the potential of sorghum in brewing. Some of the conversations centred around how South Africa, a country with a rich history of female brewing, finds itself 90 percent male-led in the beer industry? Why Africa is yet to develop a commercially viable yeast strain for beer production?

"The South African beer industry contributes R98 billion to the country's GDP and R74 billion in tax revenue. This industry employs thousands of people, it creates livelihoods and yet it is penalised with sin taxes. These are some of the things we are fighting - the removal of sin taxes - to ensure that this industry can grow," said Beer Association of South Africa (Basa) CEO, Charlene Louw.

"We represent quite a number of brewers and if you look at the stats South Africans are actually responsible. Of those who drink it is only 10 percent that tend to give beer a bad name. Beer has low levels of alcohol and as an association we encourage responsible drinking. We produce some of the best beers in the world and we are not doing enough to promote this. There are quite a number of economic opportunities that still need to be realised in this industry." 

What set this conference apart from the rest was the fact that one could literally sit back with a bottle of beer in hand during proceedings as well as sample some of the best beers from around the world. Everyone pulled out their tasting glasses when it was time to sample Pliny the Elder, a double Indian Pale Ale (IPA) brewed by the Russian River Brewing Company in California. It is currently considered the best craft beer in the world and it necessitated that I suspend my self-imposed teetotalism to taste it.

Russian River Brewing Company founders Vinnie and Natalie Cilurzo gave an afternoon talk to a room full of brewers, beer lovers and beverage industry experts. It was more a motivational talk on how Vinnie started brewing from as early as 1994, their struggles as a couple in the beer industry and how their popularity suddenly surged in 2010 when they were rated highly on ratebeer.com and beeradvocate.com.

Beer does not taste great in general. It's bitter and is more of an acquired taste. Much like wine. So, I really did not know what to look out for when tasting Pliny the Elder but what did stand out is that it tasted far lighter than its claimed 8 percent alcohol volume. Upon first kiss it was gentle and gave off citrus and grapefruit notes. Crisp even and lacked that heavy-meal-like rounded taste I've come to associate with craft beers.

And this got me thinking about South African beer drinkers and why craft beers aren't as popular in this country. Beyond us being brand-loyalists one tends to find that craft beers can be relatively pricey, aren't readily available in all outlets, vary significantly in terms of taste and many of them aren't associated with easy-drinking. I still find it hard to believe that anyone drinks beer for taste. It's more for effect. Be that as it may, there is potential for growth and space for many more brewers in this country. 

Romina Delicio, one of the partners of BeerEx Africa, told me that many more beer promotional efforts are underway and there's even a dedicated South African beer route online.

Co-Founder of Cactus Crafts, Willie Hamman, added that producing more flavoured beers can significantly increase as well as change the beer drinker profile in this country. 

"Craft beer is associated with older pale males in this country. How do we change that? We could start by working on more flavoured beers that can appeal to women and younger people," said Hamman during one of the many expo talks on the ground floor where beverage industry suppliers also did interactive demos, homebrewing workshops, social media competitions, packaging and pouring demos. 

One of the joys of attending BeerEx Africa is interacting with beer judges and brewers from around the world. There are even brewers, like Harper Brewing Co and the Candy Cane Project, that brew for charity not profit. There was a lot of learning on my part this year.

The highlight though has to be attending the African Beer Cup Awards on the closing night. 58 expert judges spent an entire week chugging down 260 brews from 14 African countries and this year the 'Best Beer in Africa' title went to South Africa's Wild African Soul (Umqombothi) brew by Soul Barrel Brewing and Tolokazi Beer.

In the African Speciality Beer category Botswana's Okavango Craft Brewery took the silver award whilst Rwanda's Kweza Craft Brewery's Inzovu IPA took bronze.

There were quite a number of other category winners; ranging from International Lagers, Pale Bitter European Beer, Irish Beer styles and more.

The awards weren't based on "Does it taste good?" but rather each beer is judged on overall agreeability and balance of ingredients. The beers must have both the base style and the speciality-type ingredient or must have followed the process.

Cape Times