New beer from Cederbrew

When Cederbrew came to town (see here) brewer Tania said that the base of the Sarie Marais cherry Blonde will be coming out as a solo.  And now it has made its way to my glass.  An easy drinking blonde in the American style that will be a good start for lager-only drinkers.  Low in bitterness at 26 IBU and reasonable with the 4% alcohol.  Always a plus in the 550ml bottles.

Keeping the distinctive, informative labels with endangered local fish on the picture as well as the naming convention, Galaxias is easy to spot on the shelf.

I still prefer their Sandfish Weiss and not only because I feel comfortable pronouncing the name, but the style is more to my taste.  Don't be shy in ordering the Galaxias though.


This is a brewery that should be supported for the range of excellent beers they produce and I am glad for the expansion.

Now if I can get them to make a Wit.......

Follow the squirrel

Three amigos? Threesome?

No Rooibos.  Just Stellen.

Three beers from Stellenbosch brewing company picked up for R26.00 each at the Joostenberg Deli and Bistro complex just outside of Stellenbosch, where it is also brewed.  Proudly brewed by Bruce Collins. Proud enough to put his name on the bottle.  And a picture of a squirrel.

Bos Weiss is a 4.5% ABV with a distinctive banana smell.  I thought the Bos of the title might refer to Rooibos, but no. Probably Stellenbosch  then.  A nice and refreshing beer.  yeast in the bottle so if you like it more hefe-weiss, then you can go for it.  Low on hops as weiss should be.  If you can get it, buy it.

Next up an ale called Born Free Pale Ale brewed, according to the label, "To honour our 20 years of Mzanzi freedom"  New world hops obvious from the citrus on the nose.  No IBU on the label or website, but it is on the upper end of what I can drink with pleasure.  So in the 40-50 range. or very balanced that they surprise my dodgy taste buds.

Eiek Stout: A punny name

Eike Stout (a word play on the alternative name for the dorp "Eike Stad") is a very rich, 6% stout.  It has that dark malt smell and for once the chocolate malt delivers on the taste.  The added vanilla helps to create a chocolate sensation on the after taste just before a little bitterness from the hops.  With a rich chocolate cake this might be a conversion beer.

I like all these products, stylistically my preference is with the weiss, but the stout is very good indeed.  Nothing wrong with the Pale Ale, here it is again a personal taste issue.

Reinheitsgebot my arse

It is cited as the world's first consumer protection law.  It was intended to prevent the good folks of what would become Southern Germany to make beer in summer, spoiling it due to the high temperature encouraging bacteria and adding all sorts of muck to hide the awful taste.  So lord whatever of Bavaria (Duke Wilhelm the IV actually) said beer can only contain barley, hops and water.  This was before Pasteur alerted everyone to the wonderful organism that is yeast.  The actual truth of what the laws became is very convoluted and tedious.  But let's condense it to "just about anything goes in German beer these days, and has for most of history, but a little less goes in Bavaria, where the original law came from".  For more read here.

Some beer companies  use/used the gebot as a marketing tool.  Creating the impression that if you limit your ingredients somehow you are atop of the brewing pyramid.  German precision and all that.  Perhaps it was the Belgian attitude towards the reinheitsgbod that caused the Germans to invade.  Perhaps it was to learn more about beer making.  And perhaps because they had so much to learn, they had to go back.

Where the German tradition is one of barley and hops (and of course wheat and rye) the Belgians limit themselves to absolutely everything.  Adding fruits, candi sugar, oak barrels on top of barley and hops whenever it takes their fancy.

So this post is to celebrate some of the local brewers that do not constrain themselves by ancient Germanic customs and modern advertising.

Big on bottle: Big on flavour.

My first taste of what would become Van Hunks Pumpkin ale from Boston Breweries was like pumpkin fritters.  Pampoenkoekies.  This was the prototype with lots of cinnamon and nutmeg and pumpkin. Cinnamon fades faster than hops so nothing will quite match that first super fresh batch in my mind.  Cederbrew adds spices and actual pumpkins to make a, well, you guessed it,  pumpkin ale.  Darling's Christmas beer is also spiced.  Cinnamon and nutmeg again.

Wit bier is a Belgium style wheat beer where they frequently add oats, orange peel and coriander.  Darlings' Bonecrusher (faithful to the classic) is pretty much the reason I stopped trying to brew my own.  Honingklip adds chamomile, lemon and the obligatory coriander to their Wit.  Best wit I ever had was Anvil Ale's, made by Theo de Beer  ⁽¹⁾,   that used naartjie peel.

Lots of flavours

I wrote about lemon verbena and basil from Harfield brewery.  The ladies of Cederbrew adds lemon to their weiss.  They also add cherries to a blonde ale.  Eric van Heerden of Triggerfish uses buchu in the Bonito and adds coffee (lots of it) to his Champions Breakfast.  Another coffee-adder is Boston's Chris Barnard.  It is his Black River Stout that gets enhanced with coffee.  Over at Lilypatrick Frank Garaghty adds lactose to his stout, as does SAB to Castle Milk Stout.  Stellenbrau makes a rooibos infused beer⁽²⁾ with a semi-controversial patent.  Independent Beer and Spirit company's Bernard Kruger also use rooibos to elevate his Cochoqua⁽³⁾ Red Ale. This time added in the boil.

Honey is another favourite addition that should get the Germans still stuck in the past ⁽⁴⁾ annoyed.  Harfield calls theirs 1831 a Honey amber ale.  With the rooibos in the Cochoqua ale there is also fynbos honey.  The Birkenhead Honey Blond and the Boston Wild Honey Crystal Weiss makes use of the same ingredient.

The Red label is for seasonal or limited releases

And today a new one for me from one of my favourite breweries, Honingklip.  With their roots firmly in the Belgian tradition they think nothing about adding seasonal fruits, in this case  granadilla.  All passion fruit as the glass approach.  Not so beery on the taste with more subdued flavours of the fruit.  I like this beer.  It reminds me of a champagne cocktail. Obviously one with passion fruit.  The bad news is I only ordered three bottles. To bad they are gone for this season from the brewery.  If you're lucky some specialist store might have some left.  Go there.  Get some.  And then send it to me.


(1)    A really good surname for a brewer
(2)    Very good breakfast beer.
(3)    Pronounced koo-choo-kwa
(4)    Don't mention the war.

Cederbrew comes to Langebaan

Photo from their website.  They look even better in person.

If androids can dream of electric sheep ⁽¹⁾, I can dream of the Cederberg.  A place I have knowledge of, but have never been.  And previously with no desire to go there.  The stark beauty of the great outdoors is not my thing.  But after meeting the Niewoudt brewing sisters I suddenly have a desire to visit the place that can produce people like them. 

Now, of course the brewery helps generously with this desire, but not only that.  What drives you to make such good beer in, what can be called distant, if not remote an area? In fact I was taken to task when I suggested they were located across the river Styx.  It is in the fact the river Olifants.

I was privileged, along with the other Langebaan C.A.D.S., to meet (in alphabetical order) Melanie and Tania Nieuwoudt .  The brewing sisters of Cederbrew.  Brother Dirk we'll meet when the event is called "Meet the Maintenance man" (his joke, thanks Dirk) They came to Kalmer Karma to introduce their beers to the usual gang of idiots⁽²⁾ and rehearse for a big night at Beer House⁽³⁾.

We started with the people's, and my, favourite the Sandfish Weiss.  On first tasting this I thought they misnamed it.  To me it tasted a bit like a wit.  But weiss yeast used here and 1 cup of lemon juice. Also Citra hops.  So the brewers reckon that the hops and lemon juice (and zest.  what is zest?) echoes each other.  For sure this is an easy beer to drink.  In the various informal sub-tastings that took place, it beat Stellenbrau Jonkershuis Weiss, but not quite CBC Amber Weiss.  But it is a different beer to the CBC Red label.  Easier to drink, not so malty.  Let's call it a draw.

Sarie Marais is missing. Photo from their website.

Next up in our Cederberg tour was the Jan Pampoen. As demonstrated on many occasions my taste buds are not very sensitive, so while a very drinkable beer, I didn't pick up the 4kg pumpkin per 100l of beer.  And seeing that I don't like pumpkin, it is a good thing.  As an experiment to "get rid of farm produce"  this is  a success.  The spices added also fade with time like the hops. (this knowledge accrue when the brewers are there to help explain).  Our resident American said this "was one of the best pumpkin ales I've ever tasted."  High praise for a well made ale.

I missed out on the reason the cherry beer is called Sarie Marais. Not sweet and deliberately not.  I think they would sell more if it was sweet like the expectation created by the Liefman's Fruitese.  But this is a technically correct beer, not soda streamed fruit juice and vodka. I am eagerly waiting for the uncherried blonde beer that forms the base of Ms Marais.

The Catfish Pale Ale is an English style ale.  The hoppiest of the bunch.  Quite a distinctive beer. 

Label picture from their website. 

This fishy name, like the others, refers to endangered local Cederberg fish that the family are re-establishing in the river on their farm.  Label design, like everything else with this brewery, done in house, almost entirely by Tania and Melanie.  Besides the pretty pictures the labels contain beer geek things like IBU ⁽⁴⁾.  Something I wish most brewers did.

We ended on the Chubby Head stout.  Top 10 Chubby Head stout ⁽⁵⁾as it turns out. A dry version which the stout stalwarts really liked.  In the sub taste off it beat the regular stout at the bar, Black River from Boston.

Moral of the story, good things can come from home brewing (where Tania learned) and studying (where Melanie learned).  So encourage all home brewers you know, they might ferment into professionals.  Students really don't need encouragement when it comes to beer.  And whenever you get a chance, buy Cederbrew. 




(1)    I have no knowledge of live sheep.  Electric or organic.  Dead sheep to eat, different matter. Look up the movie and book reference.
(2)    From the masthead of Mad Magazine when they describe the contributing artists.
(3)    More about that later
(4)    Bitterness indicator.  Ask me some other time.
(5)   SA National Craft Brewers championship top 10 2014

Harfield Weiss

Eventually the vast wheat farms of the Swartland inspired brewers to make wheat beer. Although probably most of the wheat malt used is imported. 

Newcomer Harfield brewery has their own take on the genre.  The Durham Swift Weiss ⁽¹⁾  is different to the classically

Harfield and Boston

styled Johnny Gold from Boston breweries.  Harfield adds basil and lemon verbena to their brew making for a spicy smell that is there on the tongue as well.  They happily display this on the front label so you can't argue that you weren't warned.  Of course, if like me you don't know what lemon verbena is, then it doesn't help much. After looking it up I can tell you it is a South-American herb used to add lemon flavour to food and drink.  And after tasting it I can tell you it taste sort of lemony.  It might have too much flavour to be really drinkable, but it adds another dimension to wheat beers in this part of the world.

Against this the very much classic Johnny Gold from Boston breweries.  Tasting and smelling a little of banana and bubblegum, very much to style.  Clear looking and tasting, this one is more for drinking several in a row. 

(1)    Named for a jazz club circa 1930 in the village

Stone cirlce brewery

This brewery is an interesting one in the modern area.  Their internet presence is somewhat subdued.  From what I can gather it is a brewing venture of Wembley Tap, itself a very good place to drink beer in Cape Town.  They must be in the early stages of launch as at the time of writing their facebook page and twitter account is rather sparse.  Close to non existing actually.  This appeals to my inner Luddite, but the web address on the bottle reveals at this time only a "Coming soon" message. 

I came across the beers in Liquor City Claremont (delightfully open on a Sunday after the SouthYeaster's festival).  

Amber Ale left, Blonde Ale right

First up the Red Lotus Amber ale, 4.5%.  My brother bought it for the labels, which is distinctive and clear.  The inside of the one I tasted was not a great bottle of beer. I must drink more of it to completely make up my mind and make certain I did not get a dud.

The Halleluja Blonde Ale is a totally different case.  Slightly sweet, limited bitterness, to my tongue very much in the style of a Belgian golden strong ale or Tripel.  At 8.5% alcohol you don't want several, but a very good beer to share.  This one I don't need to taste again to know that I like it.  Get this into a glass near you as soon as you can.

Also available at least a Pale Ale named Green Lotus that I did not taste.