The Capital Craft Beer Festival is probably the biggest craft beer festival in South Africa at the moment!
The event took place on 15 June 2019 and is annually organised by the Capital Craft Beer Academy, that describe themselves as follows: ” Capital Craft Beer Academy is a restaurant which specialises in serving quality food together with the best craft beers that South Africa has to offer. ” They have long been a driver behind the craft beer scene in South Africa, particularly in Pretoria, and support home brewing just a much, regularly hosting beer talks and homebrew club meeting.
This was the seventh Capital Craft Beer Festival and it was huge! Hosted at the Pretoria National Botanical Garden and drawing crowds of over 10 000 festival goers this was quite the festival. As well as the 3 stages with live performances, there were also over 40 breweries present at the even, including some international names like Duvel, Leffe, De Poes and La Trappe.
The breweries present this year: Aces Brew Worx; Afrofunk; Agar’s Brewery; Anvil Ale Brewery; Big Sip Co.; Cape Brewing Co.; Clarens Brewery; Copperlake Brewing Co.; De Poes Brewery; Devil’s Peak Brewing Company; Drayman’s Brewery & Distillery; The Duchess Non-Alcoholic Gin & Tonic; Duvel; Everson’s Cider; Fokof Lager; Friar’s Habit Craft Brewery; Frontier Beer Co; Hazeldean Brewing Co.; Hoegaarden; Jack Black Beer; Just Brewing Co.; La Chouffe; LaTrappe; Lagunitas Brewing Co; Leaky Tap Brewery; Leffe; Legends Brewery; Liefmans; Mad Giant; Mamelodi Lager – Our Home Our Beer; Nottingham Road Brewery; OC Brewery; Rekorderlig Cider; Soweto Gold; St Francis Brewing Company; St Louie Kriek; Stash Breweries; Stimela Brewing Co.; Striped Horse; The Standeaven Brewery; UkhambaBeerworx; Zwakala Brewery
With all these to choose from it was an awesome day! The names in bold had some of the best beers of the day.
St Francis Brewing Company has a particularly good Wildside Session IPA, probably the best beer of the day for me! Other notable beers were Stimela Brewing Co.’s Straight Arrow Amber Ale and Agar’s Brewery’s Black Mamba Stout.
Some other encounters included a beer that was supposed to be a wee heavy but could pass for banana juice and a lager or two that was reminiscent of bread flower. So good overall range, as they say “horses for courses”.
So many years after the craft beer craze began it is great to see that the South African scene is still going strong!