Enjoy Beer Like the Best, Made At Home

By Ryan Lee Hancocks for Mantality.co.za

At some point in every man’s life he has contemplated making his own beer. Well that day has come, as an increasing number of SA guys begin to enjoy the art of beer-making. The cost and space requirements are amazingly low for such an intriguing hobby; all it really demands is time, patience and passion to start making your own premium brews.

The Micro and home brewing scene in South Africa has really taken off since 2000 and across the country artisanal beers are springing up in bathrooms, pubs and braais.  A great place to start, if you are looking into what it takes for you to make and bottle your very own beer, is at www.howtobrew.com . This site could be termed the go-to guide for beer making, ranging from easy to more complex brews, this is where a lot of your starting out research is going to come from.

Where to next after your quick SWOT on home-brewing? Well, the homebrew club down in Cape Town called SouthYeasters (www.southyeasters.co.za) have an amazing website, listing stockists of all the goodies from equipment to malts and yeasts available from suppliers all over the country.  This is a great goto resource for finding exactly what you need in South Africa, as well as some tried and tested recipes and seasoned advice from some of SA’s homebrew veterans.

Some great places to start exploring all the different malt flavours available are www.thebeerkeg.co.za based in Johannesburg , or www.africanhomebrewing.co.za based in Cape Town.

While you’re at it why not finish off your own brew by really impressing your friends with the PopCap or the Keyring Bottle Opener, honesty with this in your hands everyone of those homebrews is going to look like a piece of art.

So now that you have been pointed in the right direction and have one or two undiscovered brews rattling around in your head, get out there and start brewing!

By Ryan Hancocks for Mantality.co.za