SUIP!

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.

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_{* 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.}