Raise your glass to our beer of the year!
The FES – or Foreign Exchange Student – is a strong, dark and singular beer. It is very rich and somewhat sweet, almost like a port. And now the South African National Beer Trophy has selected this showstopper as the best beer in the country from more than 180 entries.
Trevor Maarschalk, owner-brewer at 1000 Hills Brewery in Botha’s Hill, KwaZulu-Natal, could not be more proud.
“This is a true David-versusGoliath story. Ours is a tiny brewery that produces about 500 ℓ a month – compared with the 25 000 ℓ of beer made by most of our competitors. We knew we had a good beer here, but receiving first prize was completely unexpected!”
The beer goes well with other rich flavours, such as dessert (especially chocolate or coffee) or a good plate of home-cooked food such as oxtail.
“You won’t be able to put away two or three of these beers while you’re watching the rugby. It is a strong, heavy beer with an alcohol content of 9% – about double that of the usual commercial beers,” Trevor says.
Trevor has enjoyed a lifelong romance with brewing. At the age of five he tried to make his own mulberry wine, and later on, at boarding school, he produced his own pineapple beer on the sly. He started brewing beer in his garage when he was 40, and a few years later he and his wife, Desiree, bought the 1000 Hills chef school. The brewery, where the students learn how to brew beer as part of their course, was added in 2014.
“At our brewery, nothing is controlled by a computer. Everything is done by hand, all the way through to the bottling,” Trevor says. “Chefs always try to push boundaries; that’s why we see a lot of creativity and experimentation.” Cheers to that!
• Two other brands managed by the brewery also excelled at the awards: Megan Gemmell’s Clockwork beer received two silver awards, while Deon van Huyssteen’s Doctrine was named the overall runner-up.
Where? Sample 1000 Hills’ boutique beers at the chef school’s restaurant, The Classroom Café, 2 Wootton Avenue, Botha’s Hill, KwaZulu-Natal.
Contact 1000hillsbrewery.co.za
031 777 1566 >