IMPURE THOUGHTS

Extreme brewing is to making beer as flying down a canyon in your wingsuit is to taking a casual stroll in the park. Or pretty close, anyway. So in this issue, we’re removing all training wheels, safety nets and other comforts and looking at how you can take your brewing to extremes.

Around 1516 the Duke of Bavaria issued a decree which would become the now-famous purity law/marketing tool known as the Reinheitsgebot. If you’ve had beer from a certain commercial brewery that calls that sandy place north of Orange/Gariep River home, you would have heard of this decree, which is often proudly stated as a sign of purity, good brewing, and possibly, a noble and moral upbringing.