Interesting article on African beer

I loved this article. Lets hope some of these beers get distribution in the USA in the future.

 

What?
How can an article about african beer not mention traditional african beer styles like pombe or dolo, which are a unique part of the continent's culture?
It's like if an article about "beer in europe" would ony focus on the likes of Beck's, Heineken and Stella Artois........
And Flag as a cheap option? When I was in western Africa, Flag was mid-price range, Guiness was expense and local light lagers were cheap.......

 

Thanks for posting. I was traveling all around South Africa a few years ago for an extended period of time and I got to see a number of places where the craft beer movement was taking off. Specifically down on the "Wild Coast" and "Garden Route" (south-eastern coast), I stopped at Mitchell's Brewery which is the country's largest producer of craft beer. As a brewer myself and obviously been fanatic, I spoke with the staff there who told me that they've seen the movement begin to pick up steam and slowly skew away from light lagers. They had some pretty decent English styles on tap (90-shilling, a Mild, etc) in addition to a couple lagers.

Seems like the palates of South Africans are starting to be more open to different styles though I didn't see any IPAs or solid Pale Ales while I was there. I kept thinking at the time that now is the right time to be an ambitious brewery owner in SA who produces hoppy styles, sours, BBA stouts, and things that we know and love here that haven't quite made it there yet. The market seems particularly primed for it given the influx of tourism from both Europe and the U.S. I wouldn't be surprised to start seeing some South African IPAs and other styles start popping up in global distribution within the next 5 years.

 

Have tried nearly all of these and more while travelling coast to coast (Eritrea to Mauritania) through Central Africa, and I import and sell Tusker at my restaurant. None of them are really great beers, all are worth trying.

Star (Nigera), Bell (Uganda), Casablanca, and Guinness Export from Nigeria are the only ones you can really find in Australia, and they are imported in very low qualities. It took months to organise a reliable source of Tusker that I could sell at a reasonable price.

That article is missing Bier Nigere. That stuff is amazing

 

I think African beer should have a special place in the global beer industry. There are great traditional brewers in the region and their products are great-tasting. These products should be exported more often to other countries in Europe and Americas.