OnTap Magazine

T he sky was dimming, the setting sun bringing with it a palette of fuchsia, gold and amber. The Orange – AKA Gariep – River gently roared in the gorge far below. I was the only person for 10km, sharing the patio of my vertiginously perched chalet only with the occasional dassie or gecko. I peered over the edge of the Oranjekom Gorge, deep in the Augrabies Falls National Park, and took a long swig of beer. It had been a long day of dirt road driving – roads that at one point got so bad that I abandoned my rental car and hiked the last kilometre to my lunchtime destination, 40-degree heat be damned. People often ask what the best beer I’ve ever had was, but there’s more to the perfect beer than ownership or hop varietals or IBUs. This was the perfect setting – the view, the solitude, the birdsong and the blissfully cool temperature as the sun did its daily disappearing act. And for that time and that place it was the perfect beer. For the record, it was a bottle of Castle Lager. LAGER LAND I sometimes think that the likes of Castle or Hansa were brewed with the Northern Cape in mind. After a day of long, straight, hot roads or any amount of time hiking or even strolling under those endless blue, sunny skies, I find a pint of lager is everything I want. Perhaps this is, at least in part, why craft beer has been slow to take off in South Africa’s largest province. I don’t mean to say that a microbrewer can’t produce a crisp, refreshing lager, but for many – dare I say most – the perfect Northern Cape beer already exists. But with that said, craft beer is at last beginning to make inroads in the Northern Cape. My trip kicked off in Kimberley, at the brand new Diamond Craft Brewing Co. The brewery was in fact so new that the first batch was still in the fermenter when I visited, but luckily owner Aubrey Schutzler is enough of a beer lover that his fridge was well stocked with interesting imports. We sipped and chatted about Aubrey’s beers, his blue agave spirit (you can’t call it tequila) and his plans to sell the Diamond lager, pilsner and pale ale on tap at a couple of Kimberley bars. Most notably, the beers will be available at The Occidental Bar. “The Ox” is a mock-up old-time pub in the reconstructed Victorian settlement at the Big Hole Complex. The main draw of Kimberley is its ability to make you feel like you’ve stepped back in time, and The Ox, with its dark wooden bar and black and white photos of bygone Kimberley, has a certain, albeit polished, Victorian charm. It also has the best selection of craft beer in the city – if not the entire province. On tap there are a few beers from big- name microbreweries in Cape Town and Gauteng alongside the SAB regulars and a couple of imports, and there’s plenty more in the bottle. With the exception of a few brews from Bavaria Brouery in Orania, the craft beers all hail from outside the province, so seeing a Diamond Lager in the fridge would be a fine and fitting end to a tour of the Big Hole. If you’ve never taken the tour, the Big Hole undoubtedly merits a morning of your time. After peering into the world’s largest hand-dug hole (far more impressive than the description would have you believe), you take a slightly ridiculous elevator trip down a mock- up mineshaft and then get the chance to nose around the vault, filled with closely guarded gems. The slightly theme-parkish but highly enjoyable old town adjoining the Hole gives you a taste of the Kimberley of yore: try your luck at skittles, take a comically short tram ride, peer into a recreated boxing gym, sweet shop and saloon, then of course end up with an actual beer in The Ox. DESERT THIRST Leaving diamond town behind, I headed north to iron ore country (it’s all about mining in this part of the world). I learned a nanobrewery might be on the cards in Kuruman but for now settled for a fine glass of homemade ginger beer before turning west towards Upington. Upington’s greatest attraction – other than the wide river cutting through the suburbs – is the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, a 2½-hour drive north. It makes sense then, that the first brewery in the area has taken its name from the desert region. It’s big and hot and empty and is beer’s final frontier. Our editor Lucy Corne packs her binoculars, road map and bottle opener and sets off in search of craft beer in the Northern Cape. On Tap / Autumn 2018 / 47