SUIP!
A young man's misadventures with South Africa's beers, bars and breweries.
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Well, I had far too much fun at Banana Jam Café last night. Things went from good to better when fabulous owner and Craft Beer Project mastermind Greg Casey pulled out the soft and caramelly Clarens Red from the back and then, in a fit of joyous abandon, decided to mix Red Bull and Devil’s Peak Woodhead Amber Ale on the suggestion that “it’s apparently a big thing in Germany”. Ah, to be the owner of a restaurant with an endless supply of craft. (It was actually quite nice, to tell the truth, but don’t let anybody else hear that.)
Other highlights included cheesy jalapeños, potent cocktails – dubbed “bitch pops” by the girls – and me strutting around in my dad’s denim shirt, shouting “JUICE SPRINGSTEEN” over and over and over. Post-drinking events included attempting to speak Welsh and singing Craig David’s “What’s Yo Flava” a capella in the car home.
God, I love this place. You should really go.
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I had a housewarming on Saturday. I recently and very happily moved into a large house in Woodstock with three of my childhood mates and one lovely woman after a year living on the mess of traffic and chip packets that is Rondebosch Main Road. We’ve worked very hard on the place: converted surplus building materials into tables and benches, battled with unstable curtain rails and painted a massive chalkboard wall, á la (500) Days of Summer. A celebration was in order, so my housemates called up their friends and put up an event on Facebook.
I called up Keg King.
Keg King is a Cape Town-based business that supplies draught beer for just about any kind of event you can think of. They supply weekend markets with local craft beer, run their own bar in the Cape Quarter, educate beer novices with their College of Beer evenings and supply starter kits for the budding homebrewer. They’re also really nice guys, to boot.
Despite the multifaceted nature of their business, using Keg King for private events is simple. Choose from a wide and still expanding list of keg options (including selections from SAB, Namibian Breweries, Mitchells, Camelthorn, Darling, Boston and Jack Black), how many kegs you want and whether you want a one-tap or two-tap unit.
Call them, place an order, and they deliver straight to your door.
It’s no frills come party day, either. Keg King delivers a compact cooling unit attached to a no-spill tap. Your keg and a small canister of CO2, which powers the pouring, are then attached within minutes. No plug points, no wastage, no mess.
Now all you need is 50 people and an iPod filled with awful dubstep.
We got one 30-litre keg of Jack Black lager for the party – nothing fancy, but something that we thought would please most of the crowd. And please it damn well did. The beer was fresh and ice cold, and the revelers loved filling up their own cups.
Fuel for a great evening, and the first of many keg nights to come.
All in all, the benefits of Keg King are numerous. It makes large parties easy, even for the more discerning drinker: there is simply no better way to bring 50 litres of your favourite microbrew into your house. It’s a gloriously simple and efficient system. Plus, it doesn’t leave hundreds of bottles and cans lying around the house.
Keg King operates in Cape Town, Stellenbosch and Durban. Visit http://www.kegking.co.za, or email mark@kegking.co.za to order your keg and let the beer and good times, quite literally, flow.
