According to the South African Craft Brewers Association, there are more than 200 craft breweries in the country. In recent years, commercially produced Bantu powder beer has replaced sorghum malt in homebrewing and in smaller industrial breweries. Beers like Stormy Smoked Porter challenge the South African palate, but Marcus Rautenbach, a regular customer of The Craft Beer Library in mid-June, said he likes to experiment with something new. Mitchell's, a brewery located in Knysna, in the Western Cape, was South Africa's first independent craft brewery and was created in the mid-1980s, May said.
One of the advantages of being located in South Africa is the abundant supply of used wine barrels due to the proximity of the wine region. In the industrial production of Bantu beer, corn grits became the main basic ingredient and was mixed with sorghum malt at a ratio of two to three parts corn to one part malt. Beer was named the best in Africa at the first edition of the African Beer Cup in mid-May, among participants from 11 different African countries. Sakhile Mogale, a customer of The Countess, recently tried a Killer Hop from Mad Giant, a Johannesburg-based craft brewery and one of Pretorius' favorite breweries.
That said, Greg takes the time to import a large part of the beer himself, so they aren't available anywhere else in South Africa. In the Emmarentia neighborhood of Johannesburg, Chris Friendlander, head waiter at The Craft Beer Library, is also trying to attract South African beer drinkers to try craft beers. Other beers that are commonly drunk in South Africa are Windhoek Lager, a Namibian beer brewed according to the Reinheitsgebot, as well as Tafel Lager, another beer imported from Namibia. Johannesburg, South Africa While the craft beer industry in the United States has been flourishing for decades, in South Africa, the market is still finding its way.
Beer arrived in South Africa with its first white settlers and has been brewed here for more than 300 years. In fact, for all of the breweries currently in South Africa, it wasn't the easiest place to find so much detail. South African Breweries (SAB), the largest brewery in South Africa and a subsidiary of Anheuser-Busch InBev, has dominated the beer market in South Africa for more than 100 years. I wanted to opt for a beer style that hardly exists in South Africa and, at the same time, try to change people's perspective on what beer could be.
Today, South African Breweries (SAB) controls the vast majority of the South African beer market and, with the notable exception of imported brands such as Heineken, Guinness and others, SAB owns and produces all the country's major brands, in addition to owning Miller's Genuine Draft (American) and a long list of others, making it the second largest brewery in the world.
