HOW TO MAKE BEER
It’s not as hard as you might think to brew it yourself, writes Nick Mulgrew
“T here’s no better feeling in the world than tasting your very own beer,” says Lynnae Endersby of Cape Town’s Beerlab, one of a handful of new SA retailers catering to a foaming interest in home brewing. Of course, sorghum-based beers like umqombothi have been made at home for hundreds of years. Enterprising shebeeners made their own beer and other alcoholic drinks to get around prohibition laws during apartheid, and to save a buck or two. More recently, however, home brewing has become en vogue, thanks to the growth of local microbreweries and “craft beer”.
A typical home-brewing kit contains the basic equipment and ingredients to make 20 litres of beer. It’s as easy as putting a large kettle on the stove, pouring in a few things and transferring everything to a sterilised plastic bucket. Once fermentation is complete, usually after a few weeks at a cool temperature, you can bottle your beer.
“People who have never home brewed think it’s really complicated and you need a degree in engineering or chemistry,” says Endersby. “But it’s so easy to get started.”
Once you’ve started, big things might follow. Two years ago, Ant Cawood and his brother-in-law Andrew opened a shop called Beerguevara in their home after becoming frustrated by the limited varieties of malt and hops available to home brewers. Today they are Cape Town’s acknowledged all-grain home-brewing specialists, with a branch in KZN.
“We started running free home-brewing workshops from our kitchen, advertised on Facebook,” says Cawood. “They would be fully booked within two hours of posting the event.”
Beerguevara’s workshops take brewers through every aspect of the all-grain brewing process. “I love the creativity of it,” says Cawood. “There are over a hundred different hop varieties, each with their own distinct characteristics. There is an amazing variety of malts to choose from that add specific colour, taste and texture to your beer, not to forget the myriad strains of yeast, each with their own unique signature.”
There are home-brewing clubs all over SA. “New brewers don’t have to go it alone,” says Dion van Huyssteen, chairman of KZN’s East Coast Brewers.
If you’re new, right now is the perfect time to start. Winter’s cooler air means you don’t need any specialised or expensive temperature equipment to make good beer.
And once you’re set up, you can make beer for from as little as R3 a bottle. Making something delicious and well crafted can become an addiction.