South African Craft Brewers Can Suck My Balls

I love beer. It is not a casual ‘I like a few brews on the weekend’ kind of love either. I love beer with a deep, obsessive passion. Over the last decade, I have travelled to 25 countries, sampling beers, visiting breweries, talking to locals and discovering the sheer, spectacular breadth of the brewing art. I also brew my own beer on a small but (at least in my opinion) highly skilled level.

I have visited some of the traditional greats during this time: Germany, Czechia, England and, in particular, Belgium. I have also visited some countries where, either through force of legislation or a lack of beer drinking culture (I’m looking at you Italy) the craft beer scene has been small or only mildly exciting.

I have also had the privilege of getting shitfaced in some amazing places where the iconoclastic adventurousness and creativity of the local beer scene has astounded me, in particular, Estonia, the country I have called home for the last few years. In fact, I would go so far as to say that Estonia just might be the very best place in the world to be a beer drinker (with sincere, deeply felt apologies to Poland).

I recently returned to South Africa thirsty and excited to see what my home nation has to offer.

Fuck.

As a South African, it pains me to admit that I have come to this conclusion: South African craft brewers, with very few exceptions, are the worst in the world and the South African craft brewing scene is the dullest, most unimaginative one I have come across outside Saudi Arabia. For a nation that drinks as much as we do, that’s a fucking shame.

I have forced down insipid Lager after piss-poor Pilsener, poorly balanced IPA after cloying Weiss and enough goddamn shitty dry-hopped Amber and Golden Ales to last me a lifetime. Every single brewery brews this same selection of drudgery without fail, with a few adventurous souls making stouts that taste like cigarette ash and motherfucking Belgian style ales that have 5% ABV. Other than coming to your house and kicking you right in the face, there is no way to convey the rage I feel when I see this. A Belgian Tripel cannot be fucking 6% ABV you useless, inbred naai.


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