ON THE HOP

Impala Cerveja, Cervejas de Moçambique (SAB Miller), 550ml bottle, RRP 27MT/R9.25

Impala is a strong and accessible pale lager from Mozambique, made by an SAB-owned brewery in an attempt to appeal to local markets with its low price and simple branding. Nothing spectacular about that, but Impala is made primarily from cassava — a carbohydrate-rich plant which provides the basic diet of about half-a-billion people throughout the world. Impala is part of an SAB Miller Africa project that, in the words of their corporate affairs director Hloni Matsela, hopes to “increase the local sourcing of raw materials required in the production of local brands”.

In partnerships with local farmers, SAB Miller has taken “a structured approach” to the supply chain. A mobile processing plant for the cassava travels between different growing regions during harvest and planting seasons. “Local communities benefit from the income they receive for the crops, as well as from skills development programmes to enhance their yield and the quality of their farming practices,” Matsela says.

The entire enterprise would fail if the beer were unpalatable, something that some people may assume of a beer made from a starchy root. But it turns out that Impala is a very decent-tasting lager, perhaps lacking a touch in carbonation, but OK flavour wise. It’s a very basic beer, very lightly hopped, and a tad watery. But it’s very quaffable, too. A beer made from a sustainable local crop at 6.5% alcohol by volume, available for under R10 — Impala is pretty great.