OnTap Magazine

DROUGHT FOCUS C ape Town’s drought is reaching crisis point, with locals preparing for the possibility of Day Zero. Commercial brewers are already making plans - installing boreholes and water treatment plants, shipping water from around the country, searching for springs on their property, performing regular rain dances and if all else fails, making plans to turn to contract brewing. There has already been one brewing casualty, with Woodstock- based nanobrewery Gallows Hill announcing that they will suspend brewing until Cape Town’s water situation improves. “Given the catastrophe facing the city and the fact that we do not rely on the brewery for Homebrewing is not a drought-friendly hobby and some Cape Town homebrewers have already opted to hang up their mash paddles until the worst has passed. But it is possible to be a water-wise brewer. Here are some top water-saving tips from the Cape’s homebrewers: Andrew Robinson I’m doing partial mash so am only boiling about half the water and then topping up the fermenter with cold bottled water. I cool the boiled wort with pool water pumped using a fountain pump through my unused garden hose to a chiller and back to the pool. Paul Groenewald I plan to brew with spring water all the way from Swellendam. I’ll also use my pool for cooling and rainwater or spring water for cleaning. Darren Taljaard Before I stopped I was cooling with pool water, recirculating the water back into my pool so there was no wastage. I have a 67-litre bucket with tap fittings that I would fill with pool water, then pump it out of the bucket into a counter flow. It then feeds back into the pool. Alan McLachlan I have made some process changes (e.g. no-chill brewing) to reduce water usage, and have been buying bottled water to brew for the last six months, although that’s now a problem due to the panic buying. I have stocked up on homebrew, and am probably looking at one more brew day max before turning to crates of macro lager… David Tinker I did my last brew with rainwater but I’m going to pause brewing for a bit now as I will need that water if we hit day zero. our livelihoods, we feel that the most appropriate thing to do – until the water situation improves or we can engineer another solution – is to suspend brewing,” they announced on Instagram, ending with a promise to be back. Elsewhere in Woodstock, Drifter Brewing has used the drought to get creative, releasing their Water Restriction Gose. A small portion of the water used for the brew was collected from the chilly depths of the Atlantic Ocean, with the Drifter team swimming to the backline in Blouberg to capture their brewing liquor. The beer is available through League of Beers, at select liquor stores, branches of Hudsons and of course at Drifter’s tap room. SAB to distribute water South African Breweries (SAB) have announced plans to help deliver drinking water in the event that Day Zero arrives. The company, now owned by AB InBev, has pledged to distribute a million cases of water throughout Cape Town every week if the city’s taps are turned off. And no Castle Lite jokes please folks – this is serious business! HOW TO BREW IN A DROUGHT 44 / On Tap / Autumn 2018