South African Beer

South African beers: The beer market in South Africa is completely dominated by South African Breweries. The vast majority of their products are poor industrial lagers of the same type that is brewed all over the world. But they have a few highlights: The Fransen Street beers which comes as a tart and refreshing wheat beer of Bavarian type. They also make a reasonably hoppy IPA. Another product is the moderateky interesting sweetish Castle Milk Stout. Their main opposition comes from Namibia, where the beers are brewed according to the German purity laws, but that doeasn't help much though. Tafel Lager might be nice to quench your thirst with in the Namib desert, but maybe it should stay there.

Another brewery that still survives is Bavaria. Their Edel Lager reminds me of a lighter versio of a German Helles, and it is marginally better than the standard beers on the market. In the cape there are a few small breweries producing fairly nice beers. The best example is Mitchell's a brewpub working in both touristic Knysna and beautiful cape Town. Their beers include raven Stout, a fullbodied stout, Bosun's Best Bitter, a refreshing and fairly hoppy English style bitter and an unpasteurized complex lager called Forester's Draught. Missing in our listings are my favourite of the lot: the Scottish style 80 Shilling Old Ale. We also tried teh lively unpasteurized lager Birkenhead Premium Lager from Birkenhead in Hermanus, and Tollie's Lager brewed in picturesque Stellenbosch.

We tried three beers from tiny Swaziland, which is a ridiculously calm and peaceful but enjoyable and scenic little kingdom. All three were brewed by the national brewer Swaziland Breweries. None of them were poorly made industrial lagers with some obvious off flavours. I especially disliked Halala 30 lager brewed to commemorate the 30th birthday of his highness King Mswati III. Maybe the brewers shows their dislike with the king's ruling in this way?

We also received a few Caribbean beers as gifts. The best of them being the sweet and strong Royal Extra Lion Stout from Trinidad & Tobago. Barbados became our 75th country when we rated the less outstanding lager Banks.

Swedish beers... A few new good beers has arrived this winter. The most prominent of them are the two new ales from Tärnö, Nils Oscar NO:6 Ale, a light, well balanced and elegant english style ale, and Nils Oscar N0:5 Julöl, the first commercial barley wine in the country, sold as a x-mas seasonal. It is very hoppy and malty, byt maybe it needs to be aged a year or two to balance out the sweetness. Another intersting beer is the bold and malty Postiljon ESB from Jämtlands bryggeri.

Another welcome addition to the alcohol monolply's stock is the arrival of a few new US microbrews. Most prominent are two wonderful ales from Goose Island, the hop monster IPA and the more balanced and toffeeish Honker's Ale.

We have also tried a load of beers from Italy. With one exception, the creamy they were all sub standard lagers. Sub standard is a suitable word to describe most of King and Barnes new ales. Like the terrible strong corn ale Cornucopia which tasted like vodka with corn flakes. All the fiv eor six ales we had from K & B were more or less bold and one-dimensional. Fargo from Charles Wells OTOH is a lovely fresh and hoppy ale.

That the Czech's brew great pilseners are widely known. To pronounciate or even remember their names is sometimes hard though if you're not familiar with Slavic languages. Maybe thats the reason that Litovel markets a nice hoppy pils under the name Tjeckiskt Öl, meaning "czechish beer" in Swedish.

When I was away I missed out on a few Polish and Belgian beers, most notably GB Amber Special that tops this listing. Another beer I missed was the reportedly absolutely horrible Polish cherry beer Piwo Wisniowe.

Finally... We have rated our most special beer ever, a South African sorghum beer called Joburg Beer. Sorghum beer is an indigenous beer style to Southern Africa and is consumed mainly by the black population. You can buy it in sleazy looking cardboard boxes. Sorghum ferments on the box, so it leaks slightly from the top, creating a brownish blob and a sour smell. It comes out lightly pink, thick like drinking youghurt and completely uncarbonated. It smells sourish like yoghurt, and give as floury mouthfeel when you drink it. The first sips are absolutely revolting, but if you get through that first stage, it is not that bad. Just very different.