also known as the Lager Stronghold.
I was not expecting anything close to the diversity of US craft brewing, so I went in with the mindset of finding good clean lagers and ales rather than some bizarre milkshake and in that regard was pleasantly surprised.
Hit up a few breweries and had a few local brews as well. Some impressions:
"big" breweries:
- Castle Lager - It's everywhere. And TBH, it is a decent lager. The light version was pretty meh but Castle I could live with. Decent maltiness, clean, enjoyable.
- Windhoek Light - Brewed in Namibia, green bottle, 3% - Went down cold on a hot day. Vaguely like Heineken.
- Black Label - Yep, Mabels are popular there. Basic light colored lager. OK, but give me a Castle over it 9/10.
Local breweries:
- Cape Brewing Company: Brewery is located in the Spice Route complex in Paarl, which is chock full of other artisanal businesses. Lager is spot on, a solid craft lager. Favorite there was the Summerfest, which was similar to a toasty US Octoberfest lager. They did a decent pale ale and hefe as well. Fark lager needed work. Mandarina Bavaria IPA was OK, if you like Mandarina Bavaria hops. Not a fan of that hop. Complex also has a winery, distillery, chocolatier, wood fired pizza oven, ice cream maker, coffee roaster, glass blowing, butchery, biltong manufacturer, restaurant... Fun place to spend several hours!
- Mitchell's Ale House: Located on the waterfront in Cape Town. Affiliated with Newlands, a sub-arm of SAB. Best draught Castle I had on the trip. They make 5 or 6 brews, the best of which was a 90/ Scottish; at 5.6% it was closer to a 70/ but with that maly profile I was not complaining. A really good beer I went back to twice. Also did a solid ordinary bitter. Overall very decent, with killer calamari.
- Stellenbosch Brewing: Located outside of Cape Town in the middle of nowhere near a ropes course. They were definitely one of the more advernturesome breweries, and had a number of US styles on tap. Festbeer was OK but not great, out of the IPA and the NEIPA (!) was similar toa lot of startups here where they just don't quite have things right yet. Beautiful location.
- Havoc Brewing: Located in wine country. Until recently called Granite Rock. Lager was clearly the star, a decent clean Helles. Honey Ale was sweet in an odd way. African Red Ale had a strange flavor I could not identify. The grapefruit chandy still makes me make a face.
- Woodstock Brewing: 20hl system in a somewhat trendy neighborhood. Did a wide range of beers, super nice people in the taproom, upstairs restaurant was clueless and we left and hit the taproom again on the way out, where they comped us some samples. Californicator West Coast IPA was old school, but the star of the show was the Born Slippy 4% lager. Super clean, and just a beautiful malt profile and balance with the noble hops. Yold J that if we lived there and I had a kegerator, this would be on 24/7. No bottles. Dammit.
- Airport Brewing: Yes, they have a brewpub in Johannesberg Airport. Good English IPA. Really bad blonde ale.
