SUIP!

Well done, Holland. You’ve just made the best thing ever.

In a small village deep in the - ahem - nether of the world’s most notoriously party-friendly country, metalworkers Thomas Tolkamp and Dinand Veerbeek created a series of 400cc buggies, each equipped with comfortable bicycle-seats-cum-bar-stools, a fully-equipped driver’s station, a 3mm auxiliary input for mp3 players – and a keg.

That’s right. A keg.

The wistfully and confusingly named Cafe Buggy allows 50l of beer to be served, straight from the tap, at a blistering pace of 13km/h to anything up to 15 thirsty passengers. Although it can only go for 35km on one tank of petrol, this might very well be the best pub crawl accessory ever.

Since the construction of the first Cafe Buggy, Tolkamp and Verbeek have been inundated with requests to hire it for bachelors’ parties, so much so that they have built two further machines, each smaller and more refined than the last. The Cafe Buggy 3, a smaller, less cumbersome 8-seater, is even available for private purchase.

If you can’t live without this masterpiece of automotive engineering, visit www.decaferacer.nl, or email info@decaferacer.nl for more information.

Woodmill Lifestyle Market Boutique Beer Festival

Vredenburg Road, Stellenbosch

Friday 3 February 2012, 1730-2200

Wine country gets a beer festival this weekend when the Boutique Beer Festival kicks off tomorrow night at Woodmill Lifestyle Market in Stellenbosch. A recent (and still relatively little-known) addition to Stellies’ upper crust, the Woodmill is a comfy indoor market held every Friday night from 5:30 ‘til 10, usually populated by gourmet stands, wine merchants and other ‘top-end niche products’, which I suppose might be stuff like goats cheese and macaroni picture frames.

Entrance on Friday night is R30, which naturally includes a branded glass (as is in vogue with local festivals) and five tasters. KeeZee and her Oompah band will be providing entertainment and excuses to crash beer glasses together with a semi-drunken “Prost!”.

Breweries in attendance will include Triggerfish, Darling, Paulaner and Boston, as well as Kommetjie newcomers Valley Brewery. With a lineup like that, there’s every possibility Stellenbosch might take a few more steps towards becoming beer country - even if they insist on using words like “boutique” to describe beer.

At first, Banana Jam Café makes perfect sense.

A mélange of Rastafari tricolor and terracotta, this Caribbean hideout in Kenilworth’s Harfield Village is a local legend. What started out as a tiny café across the road in 1999 is now a 150-seater homage to what most people think Jamaica might actually look like – sans slums and spliff smoke, of course.

Reggaeton lightly pulses through its mango walls. Sunlight drips lazily through palm fronds onto a happily buzzing courtyard. A chalk drawing of a dreadlocked man carrying a tequila sunrise beckons customers to try today’s specials: pork belly with Carolina sauce, blue cheese and bacon burgers and key-lime pie.

Wait a second. Key-lime pie – and hamburgers? A cursory glance at the menu. Jerk chicken? All good. Curried goat? Certainly. Jambalaya? Irie.

But it’s Monday night, and it’s two-for-one on burgers and pizzas. Trays of luxuriously cheesy plates are waltzed between packed tables by slop-wearing waiters to patrons both young and ancient.

While Banana Jam Café may have made its name over 11 long years of dishing up authentic and tasty Caribbean staples, tonight it’s a restaurant split in two: sunny, zesty fare on one side, honest pub grub on the other. Banana Jam is home to what is arguably (and what is most probably) SA’s largest collection of rums, but it’s pint glasses of all hues of amber, gold and auburn sitting wet with condensation on almost every table.

Upon closer inspection, it’s perhaps no surprise that Banana Jam is on the frontline of SA’s craft beer revolution. Take the restaurant’s main wall, for example, where 171 obsessively collected cans and bottles of beers and spirit coolers rest on a trio of shelves. Some are from far away as China; some from as nearby as Newlands.

Banana Jam owner Greg Casey has had an interest in beer for as long as he can remember. At the beginning of 2011, the café began South African craft beer tastings which became a ‘huge hit’ with their customers.

‘I then went to California where I managed to learn a bit more about beer,’ Greg says. ‘On returning, I asked Jack Black and Boston Brewery to design and build a tap that I had seen in the US.’

The result was a sleek steel arch rising out from the main bar, which now features beers from a handful of local breweries and homebrewers. Small-batch beer is the name of the game, and such is the variety on offer that Greg is looking to add another eight taps to his main bar, due to demand not only from his suppliers, but also from his customers.

‘We are slowly showing people that, like wine, you do not only have to drink one brand of beer,’ he explains. ‘The craft beers are holding their own against the big guys.’

And so they should: with beers as varied as short and snappy small-batch mango ales, lip-smackingly hoppy Indian Pale Ales from Triggerfish and even cider from Everson’s on rotation, it’s easy to find something to suit your plate and palate. Your best bet is the tasting platter of 6 craft beers for R45. It’s both great value and a generous introduction to the various styles on offer.

Although the Caribbean may be famous for its herbal intoxicants, Banana Jam throws something new into the mix. Carrying no airs or graces, this gratuitously easy-going establishment is as multifaceted as the archipelagoes it draws its inspiration from.

And the drinks are good, too.

—

This piece was originally written for GQ.co.za.

Saints on Kloof Street is Cape Town’s newest burger joint. This Gardens portmanteau of rock ‘n roll, bike culture, Camelthorn beers and endless varieties of hamburger, replete with tattoo ceilings and a staircase printed with the lyrics from the last stanza of Stairway to Heaven, is well considered, exquisitely styled and, perhaps surprisingly, has its act together - especially so for a place that’s only been open for a week.

The place might seem familiar to some: Saints was once known as Angels, a bike and burger bar named after the father of the owner, a man by the name of Angelo who had a vowel lopped off his name in a mix-up in immigration. It was serendipitous, a lucky pun that cashed in on decades of biker folklore.

That was, however, until a group of Hell’s Angels came into the semi-eponymous bar one evening and threatened it with a trashing if the name wasn’t changed. Cue a renovation, a renaming and a reopening.

Happily, the rebirth of Angels seemed to had quelled the tempers of real life Angels. On Friday night they decided to turn up and show their support for Saints. The backfire of hogs echoed around upper Kloof. Residents leaned out their cars to take photographs of Harleys, beards and gloriously grimy leather vests. A good burger in Cape Town is becoming a dime a dozen, but a story like this certainly isn’t.

Happily, Saints’ burgers are very good, too. A menu of Jukebox Classics offers recommended pairings of patties, condiments and toppings under riff-heavy titles like Smoke on the Water and Heartbreaker, but potential permitted burger and topping combinations range literally in the hundreds. (Probably as numerous as the amount of songs on the free jukebox next to the main downstairs bar.) Saints currently offers half a dozen different bun varieties, but that will likely change as the menu is refined over the next few months.

Saints are the only pub in Cape Town to host a bank of taps full of brews (seasonals included) from Camelthorn, Windhoek’s (and Namibia’s) only craft brewery. Custom-made craft taps like the ones here seem to be coming into vogue in the city, adding personality to bars too long characterised and cartoonified by hulking SAB taps encrusted with frost and gaudily advertising. The taps may be from Italy, but the beer is closer to home.

Camelthorn’s Schwartz, which I had never tried before Friday night, is an excellent opening beer, sweet with touches of toffee and burnt sugar, medium feel and easy drinkability. Although the Helles (under the name of Saints Lager here) has been my go-to Camelthorn for months, the star of the show here is definitely the Weizen. Probably Southern Africa’s darkest weiss, it’s lacy, tart and satisfyingly fresh. Although one would probably say the bottled version of the  Weizen is merely a decent example of the style, fresh from the tap it’s a much lighter being, making it perfect for pairing with heavy burgers.

Another good pairing option – and possibly Saints’ greatest asset – is their chipotle chili ketchup, manufactured for them to their own recipe by Bushman’s Chilli Co. Don’t let the label fool you. It’s more tangy than in-your-face hot, but resisting pouring lake-like puddles of it onto your plate is a struggle nevertheless.

Saints won’t likely change the world, but it’s a bike and rock ‘n roll bar with just the right amount of cheese and just the right amount of refinement - something that holds true for their burgers, too. Although it still has its kinks to work out - kitchen staff mixing up orders aplenty so far - initial signs are very good.

Hell, if the Angels like it, I’m in.

—

Saints Burger Joint

84 Kloof St (opp. Hoerskool Jan van Riebeeck), Gardens, Cape Town

Somehow, against any faculty of reason or expectation, a Caribbean-themed café has become one of Cape Town’s most craft beery craft beer bars. All rastafari tricolour and terracottas, it’s an odd place to find what is possibly the Western Cape’s most varied non-festival bank of craft beer taps, built for them by the men from Jack Black after Banana Jam’s forward-thinking weekday craft tastings started becoming popular.

It’s turned out to be a valuable and surprisingly selfless investment. It allows at least nine beers and at least four different brewers to be represented on tap, with a handful more coming in glass. Banana Jam regularly rotate their taps, serving special small-batch brews from established names and homebrewers alike. It’s a small-scale vision of what dedicated craft bars in South Africa should look like.

This past Friday was one of those occasions when a small-batch was brought in, when the seemingly unassuming and simply-branded Mango Ale was put on the reserve tap. Brewed by Ryno Reyneke of the Southyeasters Homebrewing Club*, only 20 litres of the ale was made available at 4pm. I may have been the first customer to order it – I can’t be sure – and so eager was I to try it that I was erroneously charged R30 for a pint, instead of the R29 to which it was later adjusted. 

Not that it mattered much. It was just R1 after all, and this was the first batch of a one-of-a-kind brew.

Pouring a hazy, opaque orange with a light, white and slowly dissipating head, the Mango Ale carried tones fittingly reminiscent of fresh mango juice (sans head). With light whiffs of the eponymous fruit on the nose, you would expect the Mango Ale to follow through sweetly. But you’d be wrong: it packs a snappily sour punch and a sharp, lip-smackingly hoppy finish that lingers for ages. It’s definitely not mangoriffic, and it’s definitely not a fruit beer.** It’s subtle and satisfying at first, but dryness and a lemonesque acidity begins to develop on the palate after half a glass.

Without food to cut through this accumulation on the palate, I probably wouldn’t want to session this. It’s not a cooling or refreshing beer, but rather invigorating. Almost too invigorating, in fact. I sat fidgeting in my chair after I finished my pint, sweating from something other than the oppressive heat. As I left Banana Jam to return home, I let out a soft “oh dear” once I got on the road. I was light-headed and wriggly. I got home and paced around the house, sipping a pint of water. I wanted to play football or go snowboarding. I felt energetic.

It was an odd experience, and I couldn’t tell if it came from me or the beer. The Mango Ale sold out by 6pm, so I won’t be able to have a second tasting unless it’s brewed again. In any case, it was distinct, lip-smacking and gratifyingly odd. I love small-batch brews. The Mango Ale gave me another reason why I should.

_—

_{* Well, at least I think it was a man by the name of Ryno Reyneke. Nobody was able to tell me for sure by the time this post was written, but by doing some general Interneting, I think I got it right. Please let me know if I didn’t.}

_{** I must qualify that by saying that I don’t know how the Mango Ale was actually brewed – it may very well be a fruit beer technically, i.e. flavoured with fruit instead of brewed with fruit, but my judgement was that it tasted more like the latter than the former.}

Durban’s central suburbs are a bit of an anomaly. Half chic, half stuck in time, it’s the sort of place that the hip and frighteningly uncool rub shoulders quite easily. Seemingly frozen in the amber of its Eighties and Nineties heydays, a suburb like Musgrave isn’t exactly known for progressive dining. But in an unassuming corner of Durban’s most famous once-famous suburb rests one of its best-kept secrets.

Unity Brasserie and Bar on Vause Road admittedly isn’t the sort of place that jumps out from the sidewalk. But once you enter into its mute-palette world of painted brick, polished concrete and slick illustration, chances are you won’t want to go back to the rough-edged outside world too soon.

Somewhere in between upper-crust gastropub and relaxed brasserie, Unity is immediately inviting and intriguing. Silhouettes of livestock adorn the windows and walls, reflecting Unity’s focus on their use of locally sourced and ethically raised animals. It’s stressed on their menus and specials boards. It’s even printed out on the steps of their entrance stoep.

Fittingly, a lot of care goes into their ambitious menu of gastropub favourites and new inventions. You’ll find superlative burgers – from venison to veggie – inexpensive bunnies and, unsurprisingly, a damn good cut of cow. That is, if you’d want to look past such decadences as the bone marrow on toast or the tagliatelle ragu. For such a seemingly meat-geared establishment, Unity also offers a pleasing number of well-constructed vegetarian dishes, of which the lentil and butternut bobotie is king. Frankly, it’s better than most meat boboties.

“Most people say that Unity’s for carnivores,” says owner Sean Roberts, who also runs the classic Mediterranean eatery Café 1999, which is literally next door, with his wife Marcelle. “But I’d like to have a hand held out to the vegetarians as well.”

But the best thing about Unity isn’t its ambidexterity, its commitment to good produce, or even its bar menu for game-time snacks; it’s the beer.Unity is one of the very few restaurants in South Africa that offers its own house craft beer. Brewed a half-hour’s drive away at Shongweni Brewery (whose Robson’s range is considered by beer critics to be one of SA’s best) the aptly-named Cowbell is an astonishingly creamy pilsener with light citrus notes and hoppiness that slakes the itchiest thirst. Its richness accompanies most of the menu superbly, but it’s just as good sipping it by itself with one eye on the cricket.

In a few months’ time, Unity will become exclusively a craft beer affair. Additions from Darling Brewery and Jack Black will soon accompany Cowbell and their current European craft options supplied by Brewers & Union.

“Craft beer and me have a love affair going,” Sean enthuses. It shows. Even now there is, quite literally, nothing like Unity anywhere else in the city. Cowbell itself will be bottled and available locally soon, but world domination isn’t the plan.

“It’s not my game to want to get it out to bottle stores and lots of other restaurants,” Sean says. “We hardly have enough for ourselves.” And that’s no surprise, as they don’t seem to sell any other beer here: they go through 1500 litres of Cowbell a month.

Unity is a welcome tonic in a city in need of more thoughtful dining, not to mention alternative drinking options. Bringing together just the right amounts of sophistication and fun, it goes to show that innovation breeds in places sometimes thought stale.

—

This piece was written for GQ.co.za, and may be found in its original format here.

It’s not strictly beer-related, but it should go hand-in-hand: support your local market. Respect for local produce, artisanship and small-batch craft is the foundation of craft beer. Without it, we wouldn’t have amazing things to eat or drink.

Starlings Café, a favourite spot of mine on Belvedere Road in Rondebosch East, has a tiny but useful market in their back garden every Wednesday. I went and bought some inexpensive and delicious angelfish from Ocean Jewels, a SASSI-approved dealer, and browsed through preserves, organic meat, eggs and butter, and a handful of other delicious-looking things (as well as interacting with a lemonade saleswoman who seemed very suspicious of my claims to being a beer writer. Thanks for the sip of lemonade, if you ever read this, suspicious lady.)

It’s not as expensive as you think. It only requires a little effort, but the rewards of browsing at markets, large or small, are endless: they’re inspiring, fun and, hell, you’ll probably even get a good meal out of it.

There’s always the slightest bit of apprehension when I discover something’s become defictionalised – you know, when a company buys the rights from a film studio to make their fictional product into something real. It’s problematic: Wonka Bars can’t actually be as good as they are in Charlie’s universe, and a real-life Sex Panther cologne can’t actually have bits of real panther in it, as wonderfully perverse as that sounds.

Fictional products often reach some kind of unattainable perfection. That’s the sticking point. Well, for most of them anyway. Duff Beer is a glorious exception: Matt Groening, the creator of the Simpsons, created Homer Simpson’s drink of choice as a parody of commercial American lagers. It’s cheap, poorly made and, with the help of its muscle-bound mascot Duffman, its advertising is everywhere in Springfield.

But now it’s real (sans Duffman, unfortunately.) German brewery Eschweger Klosterbrauerei began brewing a licenced Duff premium lager 18 or so months ago. Sure, beers by the name of Duff have been brewed in a handful of countries – Mexico, England, Australia and the US to name a few ­– but many of those are mere Duff namesakes, and not Springfield Duff. Duff Brewery in Dunedin, New Zealand, for example, started brewing a beer called Duff long before the Simpsons even began. Unsurprisingly, it was threatened with legal action by the Simpsons’ American network Fox – despite Groening stating he would never license the trademark himself – and so it was forced to change the beer’s name to McDuff.

While there is a Belgian version of Springfield Duff, it doesn’t look very authentic. Only one brewery brews an authentic real-life version of the beer Homer once described as “the beer that makes the days fly by”, and lucky me, I was given a couple six-packs of it by my brother for Christmas. Due to its worldwide appeal, it can be quite difficult to get hold of. It’s no surprise it’s popular: it looks very much the real deal.

But what about the beer itself? Although Springfield Duff is supposed to be bland and a wholly corporate product – the several varieties of Duff, such as Duff Light and Duff Dry are actually the same beer in the Simpsons universe – real-life Duff is a much better pale lager than most commercial lagers. For one, it has wonderful mouth feel, and a satisfyingly medium carbonation, even out of a can (which is the way I admittedly drank all of my share, just like Homer Simpson.) Flavourwise it’s nothing special – thin corn maltiness carried by the slightest bitter tinge; it’s definitely common denominator stuff.

But it’s really not that bad. It’s inarticulate, sure, but its fictional self, not to mention its fictional drinkers, aren’t very articulate either. It’s profoundly inoffensive on nose and palate, and that can’t be said for many American macrobrews. Duff Beer might be corporate clear and slightly weak, but it’s great fun and a far cry from the Miller High Lifes and Coors Lights it was made to make fun of. Even a fictional beer brand known for being swill can’t emulate the dross that comes out of the world’s biggest macrobreweries. It’s funny. (Or sad, I can’t tell which.)

That’s the problem with bringing fictional products into real life: even if it’s supposed to be bad, it simply can’t live up to its reputation. Maybe that’s a good thing in this case.

—

Eschweger Klosterbrauerei Duff Beer; 330ml can; 4.7% a.b.v.

Pros: A great novelty, as well as a drinkable, sessionable pale lager.

Cons: Slightly disappointed that it wasn’t genuinely shit.

Today, Suip! and Homebru.net proudly present the Best Beer on the Table Award 2011.

The Southern African beer world doesn’t have many awards. Most praise handed to South African beers or breweries is, well, meaningless. It’s awarded by hack food writers in ill-considered feature pieces or given out at bogus competitions to which only multinational breweries are invited. (Has anybody even heard of those events at which Carling Black Label conveniently wins “gold medals” every few years?)

Real beer needs real awards. This is where the Best Beer on the Table Award comes in.

The winners this year will win a small trophy and a lot of recognition from our readers. They will also receive our own stamp of approval that they are welcome to use whenever or wherever they want. Although this might seem like only a fun small bit of recognition at the moment, in a couple of years we hope this award can be significant, to brewers and the drinking public alike. As craft beer continues its exponentially upward rise in this country, we hope to expand this award to include Brewers’ Choice and Drinkers’ Choice awards, as well as our critical choice (which we hope to expand with other beer writers coming on board), as a reflection of the camaraderie that (mostly) exists within the craft beer communities of South Africa and Namibia.

The jury this year consists of Nick Mulgrew (Suip!) and Joakim Löfkvist (Homebru.net). Our nominations are, in no particular order:

1. Bierwerk - Aardwolf
2. Devil’s Peak Brewing - King’s Blockhouse IPA
3. Darling Brewery - Bone Crusher
4. Bierwerk - Renosterbos
5. Triggerfish Brewing - Bonito Bombshell Blonde
6. Triggerfish Brewing - Hammerhead IPA

A lot could be said about all these beers, but we keep our reasons short. Some are delicious, some are plain innovative, and some are helping to bridge the ever-widening chasm between craft beer and popular beer.

This year it wasn’t an easy choice, but after a lot of thought, three stood out above all others.

Second runner-up: Devil’s Peak King’s Blockhouse IPA

First runner-up: Triggerfish Hammerhead IPA

The Best Beer on the Table 2011: Bierwerk Aardwolf

Last year was a tremendous year for innovation – coming from within South Africa’s brewing ranks and also with international help – in the burgeoning craft community of the Western Cape, and our three winners reflect that fact.

The American-influenced stylings of Somerset West’s Devil’s Peak Brewing has brought forth four brilliant beers, with the Blockhouse IPA garnering the most superlatives, including an award from the Cape Town Festival of Beer – and now they lay claim to our second runner-up award.

Eric Van Heerden leads Triggerfish’s homegrown experimentation. Joakim calls him one of South Africa’s best microbrewers, and he’s probably right. The Hammerhead IPA hits all the right visual and olfactory notes, as well as being a knock-out on the palate. It’s full-on but, crucially, it is never overpowering. Its balance is impeccable, and for that it wins first runner-up.

Two IPAs, though? Although that might seem excessive, it should go without saying that the IPA isn’t South Africa’s strongest draw card. You could probably count the amount of good pale ales in South Africa on one hand - and that’s not an exaggeration. That’s what makes the success of Devil’s Peak and Triggerfish’s brews that much more startling.

Our winner, however, is not a pale ale. It is something more dark and slightly more mysterious, in both conception and execution. Bierwerk’s Aardwolf is a five-malt, espresso-stained masterpiece from Christian Skovdal Andersen. It’s not only what much of the international beer community considers to be the best craft beer in South Africa (it’s SA’s top-rated beer on Ratebeer.com), but also what we consider it to be as well. It’s irresistibly morish and deep, rewarding the slow drinker with its veins of vanilla, its lingering and deliciously bitter coffee finish, and its almost kaleidoscopic spectrum of roast and malt notes. Locally, it takes not only the coffee stout - a favourite of seemingly every newcomer to the craft world - but also the stout to new heights.

—

Special Innovation Award: Bierwerk Renosterbos

Bierwerk’s Renosterbos is some kind of mad scientist beverage alchemy. A barleywine brewed from SAB pale malt and Southern Promise hops, along with liberal amounts of golden syrup and yeast from both Rochefort and Da Chouffe breweries in Belgium, Renosterbos was aged in Brettanomyce yeast-infected red wine barrels, supplied by an unnamed Western Cape winery, for seven months.

The results were spectacular: a knock-you-down-after-one-glass sort of brilliance that hasn’t been seen in any other quarter of this country all year. Andersen is returning to South Africa soon. Let’s hope 2012 brings more of that same brilliance, both from him and other brewers, newcomers and old hands alike. We can’t wait to see what’s in store.

—

Congratulations to our winners. Your prizes will arrive shortly. Regular Suip! resumes Monday.

‘Then on Friday I got this call from a shebeen. They said my rep hadn’t arrived with the beer.’

Chris Barnard shrugs. Eleven years ago he was a simpler man, a Capetonian plastics manufacturer working in Paarden Eiland with a part-time penchant for homebrewing. He’d recently spent a year visiting German hamlets with his soon-to-be wife, indulging in their seemingly endless varieties of small-batch brewed beer. Upon his return to SA, he found local commercial brews to be unpalatable in comparison, so he set up a small brewing operation in his factory’s garage in an attempt to provide himself and his friends with an alternative.

‘I was brewing more than we could drink though,’ he recalls, ‘so I thought, well, let’s sell the excess to the okes working in the factory. I was unlicensed, so there was no duty on it. We were practically giving it to them.’

‘But it turned out these okes were going to my secretary, getting labels from her, and – because the company was called the Boston Bag Company – wrote ‘Boston Breweries’ on the bottles and sold them to shebeens.’

And that’s how Boston Breweries started. Chris suddenly found himself spending four days a week in his factory’s garage in order to directly supply shebeens with his homebrew.

‘I reckoned, well, you’re unlicensed, I’m unlicensed – let’s make beer.’ The story comes easily. He’s proud of his brewery’s genesis.

What officially started as a garage operation with an output of 4 000 litres a month in 2000 is today an 80 000 litre-a-month microbrewery, brewing a dozen or so beers within its walls that are enjoyed throughout SA – and not only in shebeens. But you can tell Chris wasn’t counting on his little project getting so big: the factory floor is a haphazard maze of boilers, fermentation tanks and packaging lines. As such, he recently began applying the classic paradigm of New York City real estate to solve his space issues: grow taller, not broader. He’s cut the tops off his fermentation tanks in a bid to expand their capacity. It’s undeniably the work of a man obsessive about his craft.

In addition to the five Boston-branded beers – of which the fresh, lightly malty Naked Mexican and the caramel-toned kick of the Hazard Ten Ale are most recommended – Barnard’s premises are also the birthplace of beers for both Jack Black Brewery and the increasingly-popular Darling Brewery. But the most exciting development at Boston is undoubtedly the creation of SA’s first commercially-brewed pumpkin ale. Traditionally a North American seasonal, pumpkin ale is a point of contention for new world beer connoisseurs, some of whom argue that they’re too cloying and gimmicky to be taken seriously.

Boston’s Van Hunk’s Pumpkin Ale doesn’t fall into that trap, however. Lightly pumpkin-pie sweet and satisfyingly bitter, its rich veins of nutmeg, coriander and cinnamon create a sprightly and aromatic ale that’s bound to appeal to enthusiasts and more tentative drinkers alike. Admittedly, it might not sell so well in shebeens, but it certainly sets the bar for more innovation from Cape Town’s resident plastics manufacturer-cum-chief brewer.

‘I just think it’s a cool beer,’ he says, shrugging again, equal parts resigned and content.

—

This piece was originally written for GQ.co.za, and is viewable here.

^{(Photo by Joakim Löfkvist)}

So, this Friday my Swedish SA beer conspirator, Joakim Löfkvist (writer of Homebru.net and the most active reviewer of SA beers on Ratebeer, where he goes under the handle of Jolo), and I will be announcing what we deem to be the best three beers we’ve tasted over the past year. It’s what we call The Best Beer on the Table Award, and it’s very illustrious, I assure you. We might even make a couple trophies or something.

We nominated three beers each and, from those six, selected what we deem to be the best three. Although we will each be announcing our winners on Friday, I thought I would let you know what my nominations were, as well as explaining my choices. Of course, this is all highly personal and subjective, but, you know, that’s beer for you. So without further ado, my three nominations are:

1) Bierwerk Aardwolf (Cape Town)

There’s a lot to say about Aardwolf, but I’ll try to keep it short. Gaining almost universal acclaim from beer lovers both here and in Europe upon its release (it’s currently the highest-rated South African beer on Ratebeer) it can be difficult to get hold of - I was very grateful to receive a four-pack sent from its brewer, the immensely talented Dane, Christian Skovdal Andersen, via Boston Breweries’ Chris Barnard, at whose premises Andersen brewed it. Made with dark grains and roasted African coffee, Aardwolf is a knockout: pleasingly sweet, a tiny bit bitter; deliciously laced with tones of espresso, a touch of vanilla and a dozen other things - and yet it retains a wonderful sense of balance usually not seen in most coffee stouts. Soft on the mouth, it rewards slow drinking, cellaring and savouring. Although Bierwerk’s other beers, especially the superlative Renosterbos, flirt with brilliance, it is Aardwolf that is most accessible. It is simply ingenious, delicious and the work of some very talented hands. Andersen is going to be involved in more projects in South Africa this year, including, I hear, a new brewery in Woodstock. After collaborations with Boston and Camelthorn, hopefully Anderson will be able to show us what else he has hiding up his sleeve.

2) Devil’s Peak King’s Blockhouse IPA (Somerset West)

Relative newcomers Devil’s Peak King’s Blockhouse IPA is the best pale ale I’ve had all year. Last year’s Cape Town Festival of Beer had 100 beers on show, but the highlights were undoubtedly the Somerset West brewery’s quartet of American-influenced brews, which included a knockout imperial stout. (I use “knockout” both metaphorically and literally, as my memories of the CTFoB became significantly more hazy after a halfpint of it.) The sessionable, refreshing and tantalisingly bitter King’s Blockhouse was the best of the four, however. Devil’s Peak is ultimately looking to get South African palates accustomed to excessive hopping and high bitterness, but this is a delectable compromise: an exceedingly tasty introduction to American-style IPAs, tailored for the adolescent South African palate. It’s also a perfect mealtime sip. From what I’ve been told, Devil’s Peak are looking to move to Cape Town city proper into bigger premises sometime this year. Such a move promises big things and, if this beer is anything to go by, we can just hope those promises are fulfilled.

3) Darling Bone Crusher (Darling/Cape Town)

Finishing off my trio of nominations isn’t South Africa’s best beer – but it’s probably South Africa’s best beer in a lot of people’s minds. Darling’s Bone Crusher, brewed at Boston Breweries in Paarden Eiland, is a modern witbier that I keep coming back to. It has an eye-catching label and an unforgettable name. Most crucially, however, it has good marketers: Darling’s people are tireless in their promotion of their product, catalysing their brewery’s rather startlingly quick rise to relative popularity. (Boston chief brewer Chris Barnard once said to me, in good spirits but with some exasperation, that he continually finds that people on the other side of the country know of Darling, but not his own brands - even though Darling brews at his premises!) But setting it apart from most other breweries that rely on marketing nous, Darling actually have a good product to work with. A light, crisply tart and refreshing wit, Bone Crusher is a not only a good craft beer, but an accessible and unpretentious one, too. If anything, it’s an indication of what a popular craft beer in South Africa could look like in years to come. (That is, if this doesn’t become that beer itself.) While some breweries revel in esoteric projects, Darling seems to be sensible in their innovation: if any one small brewery is to bring local craft to the South African mainstream, there’s only one contender for it as far as I see it at the beginning of 2012. There may be better beers available than Darling’s, but there is sure no better package – comprising great identity, great beer and great marketing – in this country than them right now.

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As you may have noticed, my three nominations are all from the Western Cape. This may be unsurprising to some, but it might make others feel indignant. Is this Cape-centric?

Well, no. It simply reflects things the way they stand now. Although breweries like Shongweni Brewery (Shongweni), Gilroy’s (Roodepoort) and The Little Brewery on the River (Port Alfred) continue to delight, the Western Cape is the epicentre of South African beer at the moment, with more breweries more readily creating new, more innovative beers – both Triggerfish’s oeuvre of great beers, of which Joakim is a big fan, and Boston’s Van Hunks Pumpkin Ale spring to mind almost immediately – to try make inroads into what is still quite a small market. It’s the one place where beer consumers are opening up to new options more than anywhere else in South Africa. That said, 2012 is set to be a huge year for local craft, with a handful of new breweries set to open in the coming months. Perhaps as craft’s reach and influence begins to extend throughout the country, brilliance and innovation will begin to come  from new, unexpected places.

Anyway, the winners will be announced Friday! In the meantime, check out Homebru.net in the coming days to hear Joakim’s side of things. Also, what do you think? Am I right? Completely wrong? Absolutely stupid? Let me know here or @SUIPEXCLAMATION.