I miss beer. Not that they don’t have beer in South Africa, there’s just not a lot of variety, and what’s here ain’t great.
I’m normally a proud practioner of “when in Rome”, and there certainly is no shortage of awesome South African wines at ridiculously cheap prices. Pinotage is the country’s grape varietal claim to fame, but our hit or miss experience with them back in the States has put us off trying more of them over here. Mostly we stick with red blends—Pepper Pot*, Rupert & Rothschild Classique and Chocolate Block being personal faves. The problem is chunky reds go down like maple syrup in this heat, and adding ice or chilling it as locals do seems sacrilegious.
A restrictively high import tax makes getting my beloved Scotch an expensive proposition, though there are supposedly some very nice brandies down here. My one experience with them was while visiting our friend Cassie in Pretoria, who instructed me that real men take their Klipdrift brandy with cola and ice. Er, no Cass, real men drink good liquor that doesn’t need to be diluted with sugar water. If it tastes good, you shouldn’t need to put additional flavoring in it (I’m looking at you, Corona fans). There is a very nice single grain whisky, Cape Bain’s Mountain Whisky, which tastes like a lightly wooded bourbon. Tasty, but hardly the drink of choice to accompany brats and football. Or boerewors and rugby, in my case.
So, back to beer. Until we frequented the Paulaner Bier Garden and Mitchell’s Pub in Cape Town, I had been content with the meagre offerings of SAB Miller, the beverage giant that dominates most of southern Africa. Per usual, the beer of choice here largely falls along racial lines, with blacks preferring the locally brewed Castle and whites leaning towards Namibian Windhoek or pricey imports. Unfortunately, most imports are green bottle Pilsners, meaning you’ve got a fifty-fifty shot of opening one that smells like a cat peed in it.
Of the local macro-brew offerings, the Hansa Marzen Gold is marginally more
flavorful than the standard watered down lager, while Castle Milk Stout is probably my favorite. There are a number of micro brews in the country, though they are mostly down around the Cape, and finding a pub or bottle store that sells them is nigh impossible. In fact, the Zululand Brewery’s Zulu Blonde famously won "best brew" at a festival in England, but good luck finding it outside of Kwa-Zulu Natal. The zesty little fella to the right is Forester's Lager, which required exhaustive investigative skills (or an internet connection) to track down.
So when Marnie and I return in a few months, and you find me passed out on the couch in the middle of the day with a pile of bottles at my feet, you’ll know why. It’s not gluttony—just making up for lost time.
*Pepper Pot is available at Whole Foods in Columbus, for those willing to partake
I’m normally a proud practioner of “when in Rome”, and there certainly is no shortage of awesome South African wines at ridiculously cheap prices. Pinotage is the country’s grape varietal claim to fame, but our hit or miss experience with them back in the States has put us off trying more of them over here. Mostly we stick with red blends—Pepper Pot*, Rupert & Rothschild Classique and Chocolate Block being personal faves. The problem is chunky reds go down like maple syrup in this heat, and adding ice or chilling it as locals do seems sacrilegious.
A restrictively high import tax makes getting my beloved Scotch an expensive proposition, though there are supposedly some very nice brandies down here. My one experience with them was while visiting our friend Cassie in Pretoria, who instructed me that real men take their Klipdrift brandy with cola and ice. Er, no Cass, real men drink good liquor that doesn’t need to be diluted with sugar water. If it tastes good, you shouldn’t need to put additional flavoring in it (I’m looking at you, Corona fans). There is a very nice single grain whisky, Cape Bain’s Mountain Whisky, which tastes like a lightly wooded bourbon. Tasty, but hardly the drink of choice to accompany brats and football. Or boerewors and rugby, in my case.
So, back to beer. Until we frequented the Paulaner Bier Garden and Mitchell’s Pub in Cape Town, I had been content with the meagre offerings of SAB Miller, the beverage giant that dominates most of southern Africa. Per usual, the beer of choice here largely falls along racial lines, with blacks preferring the locally brewed Castle and whites leaning towards Namibian Windhoek or pricey imports. Unfortunately, most imports are green bottle Pilsners, meaning you’ve got a fifty-fifty shot of opening one that smells like a cat peed in it.
Of the local macro-brew offerings, the Hansa Marzen Gold is marginally more
flavorful than the standard watered down lager, while Castle Milk Stout is probably my favorite. There are a number of micro brews in the country, though they are mostly down around the Cape, and finding a pub or bottle store that sells them is nigh impossible. In fact, the Zululand Brewery’s Zulu Blonde famously won "best brew" at a festival in England, but good luck finding it outside of Kwa-Zulu Natal. The zesty little fella to the right is Forester's Lager, which required exhaustive investigative skills (or an internet connection) to track down.So when Marnie and I return in a few months, and you find me passed out on the couch in the middle of the day with a pile of bottles at my feet, you’ll know why. It’s not gluttony—just making up for lost time.
*Pepper Pot is available at Whole Foods in Columbus, for those willing to partake
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