On Tap is South Africa's and Africa's first and only beer publication - a quarterly magazine aimed at brewers, craft brewers, homebrewers, beer fanatics and those just beginning to dip their proverbial toe into the mash tan.
When I was 22-years old, my older brother dragged me into a small craft brewery in our university town. He informed me that he was tired of my “beer ignorance” (at the time I thought beer was a monolithic beverage of the Bud Light-variety), and we were going to do a tasting. I immediately fell in love with the darkest beer I sipped–some kind of German coffee stout, from what I can recall–and that was it. A deepened understanding of the sheer range and possibility of beer, and my love for it, was born. Since then I have learned that beyond the product is the community it so often fosters. My first piece for On Tap described how craft beer had provided that community for myself and my husband after…
Craig Claassen Craig started his journey in beer as a homebrewer in a London bedsit in 2004. He is a partner at Neelsie Travel and it was in 2017 that he fused his passion for tourism and craft beer to create the Beer Route, an organisation set up to promote craft beer tourism in South Africa. He is also the co-founder of Lunar Brew and current chairperson of the Helderberg Homebrew Club. Check out Beer Route at www.beerroute.co.za. Niall Cook Niall is the co-founder and brewer at Richmond Hill Brewing Company (RHBC) established in 2015. He started homebrewing at the age of 16 with the goal of finding his way into the professional brewing industry. An honours degree in Microbiology from NMU and work in Ireland and Germany in a…
With us heading to the halfway point of 2023, it is great to take stock of the work the Beer Association has been doing to promote beer and the economic contribution it makes across the country over the past few months. This has included supporting craft brewers as well as working together with our big beer members, South African Breweries and HEINEKEN to create an enabling environment for our industry and the 1 in 66 jobs it supports in South Africa. Critical to this is a legislative and regulatory environment that encourages both small and large businesses in the beer sector to grow. In this regard, we welcomed the announcement by Finance Minister, Enoch Godongwana in his Budget speech in February that the excise increase on beer for 2023/2024 financial…
After a tough few years for the beer industry, with the Covid-19 national lockdown and four alcohol bans proving insurmountable for many businesses, including 30% of craft breweries who shut their doors permanently, the sector, like the rest of the economy, now face an even bigger threat – the high levels of sustained load shedding that has beset the country since the start of the year. The ongoing power outages have impacted the entire beer value chain, with craft brewers who barely managed to keep their doors open during the Covid-19 pandemic most acutely affected. Brewers need at least nine hours of uninterrupted electricity supply in order to brew a batch of beer, which means load shedding above stage 3 makes it impossible to complete this process. Power outages have…
On Friday, March 3rd, 2023, the South African Breweries hosted the Beer Association of South Africa (BASA), the Minister of Agriculture Land Reform and Rural Development, Thoko Didiza and the Portfolio Committee on Agriculture to showcase the success achieved on its hop farms, with hops being an essential ingredient in beer. The tour was held in the George region of the Western Cape. The tour included insightful briefings on the harvesting process and the instrumental economic impact of beer agriculture within South Africa. The hops agricultural sector is a critical component of the beer value chain and is a major job creator, particularly in disadvantaged communities.. The industry has also invested around R1 billion into programmes aimed at supporting and developing emerging black hops and barley farmers. This is the…
On the 13th of April 2023, the fifth installment of the South Africa Investment Conference took place, which is aimed at attracting investment into the country. BASA welcomed the wonderful news of HEINEKEN South Africa and South African Breweries (SAB) pledging R21.3 billion in new investment projects over the next five years. These investments will not only create much needed jobs for many South Africans, but will also serve as a boost to other economic sectors such as agriculture and the hospitality industry. HEINEKEN South Africa announced a R15.5 billion investment over five years, including a R3.8 billion investment for a new greenfield brewery, and a R1.7 billion investment into a maltery. The remaining R10 billion investments will be used for capital expenditure projects to expand and maintain existing operations…
