Last week on the Inside Africa show, CNN International explored South Africa’s craft alcohol industry and met some of the people involved in transforming the brewery sector, says IOL.
Inside Africa travelled to a town called Eshowe in Kwazulu-Natal to meet the chief executive of the Zululand Brewing Company, Richard Chennells.
Chennells elaborated on creating the brewery, “The motivation behind the Zululand Brewing Company was purely to put Eshowe, our town, on the map. Our brewery is very small, but it packs a big punch. We’ve got a great brand, it’s done amazing things.”
The Inside Africa team spoke with brewmistress Apiwe Nxusani-Mawela, who is the first black female brewmaster that left her corporate job to create her own company called Brewsters Craft.
“I left corporate realising that the craft beer industry in South Africa was growing but it lacked formal training, and not everybody would have been as fortunate as I am, who had to work at a brewery to learn the science of brewing, so that’s where for me it started. The brand is actually coming from my clan name. It’s like a tribal name.
“And women that brew beer in Africa, that on the continent women are still the main brewers, they would be known after their clan names. I wanted something clean, something world-class, something we could take anywhere in the world and showcase what we have as Africans,” she said.
The unbanning of alcohol sales has provided some relief as the craft beer industry has taken a massive hard hit from lockdown.
Nxusani-Mawela and Chennells are sure that the craft beers in SA will recover from their hard-knock and that there is hope for the future.
Picture: Facebook/Apiwe Nxusani-Mawela
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Picture: Apiwe Nxusani-Mawela/Facebook