OnTap Magazine

THIRSTVILLE, NC: 5 TOWNS THAT SHOULD HAVE A BREWERY Sutherland Almost everything in the tiny Karoo town is named for something astronomical, and I can just imagine sitting under the stars, sipping on a warming Baltic porter from a brewing company called Nebula or Cosmos or Geosynchronous Orbit… Port Nolloth There’s a Wild West feel to this windswept coastal hamlet, and a saloon-style brewpub on the seafront would be the perfect place to watch the sun dipping into the Atlantic. Victoria West The dusty main road in this Great Karoo treasure is lined with Instagram- worthy architecture and I can easily picture myself sipping on a pint of English bitter as the tumbleweeds fly on by. Springbok The stopover town is home to a superb steakhouse, the Tauren Steak Ranch. Tuck a 50-litre brewery in the back and people might actually spend a second night in Springbok. Pofadder It’s hours and hours from anywhere and there’s pretty much nothing to see or do, so imagine how happy you’d be to see a brewpub in South Africa’s official back of beyond. 01 03 05 04 02 Kalahari Craft Beer launched in 2017 and produces three beers – Gemsbok Lager, Puffadder Weiss and Meerkat IPA. The brewery itself doesn’t have a taproom but you can taste at Café Zest, one of Upington’s best places to dine. If you’ve come this far though, it makes sense to go that extra proverbial mile (or literal 155 miles) and head for the park. The Kgalagadi is the archetypal African park: handsome herds of gemsbok plodding along rust coloured sand dunes, lions napping under camelthorn trees, fireball sunsets and vast, star-studded night skies. While the park is accessible in a sedan, a 4x4 is strongly recommended if you really want to explore. I drove a 100km section in my rented Kia Picanto, but it was an often stressful drive, particularly after seeing a busload of septuagenarian Dutch tourists looking on forlornly as their guides and driver tried in vain to hoist their minibus from a particularly deep patch of sand. The Kgalagadi is best known for its big cat sightings and to make the most of it, you need an absolute minimum of three days in the park. Distances are vast, roads are sandy and day visits will only allow you to glimpse a fraction of it, but if you are looking for a place to spend a night before delving deep into the transfrontier park, you could do a lot worse than Molopo Lodge. Well-priced, friendly and with pretty landscaped gardens surrounding a large swimming pool, the lodge is only half an hour from the park gates. Best of all, they stock the full range of Kalahari beers alongside some lesser seen brews from the northern reaches of the Western Cape. As I gradually made my way towards the Western Cape – via Kakamas, Pofadder and Springbok – I stopped often to try and sniff out any sign of new breweries. And the best place to find beer, it seems, is at a winery. At Bezalel Estate, 30km south of Upington, they produce wine, brandy, mampoer and occasionally, beer. Alas, there are no permanent beers on tap – production is generally for weddings and the like – but it seems likely that a brewery will appear here in the not-too-distant future. The road to get here has been as long as any you’ll drive in the Northern Cape, but it seems that craft beer has finally arrived in the province. It’s unlikely to take over the local beer market any time soon, but at least you can stop every 400km or so to sample a microbrewed ale before you get back to your cold bottle of pale lager and your enviable Northern Cape view. Bushman Brewing Company has been a long time in the making but as On Tap went to print, brewer Stefan Steenkamp was poised to finish his first licenced brew. After two years of red tape-wrangling, the Kakamas brewery is finally ready to start producing its four beers: Choje Ale, Wandering Weiss, Kalahari Blonde and Charging Ox Porter. The beers will be available in restaurants and bars from Kakamas to Upington, with plans to distribute throughout the province as production grows. Stefan also aims to open a tasting room in Kakamas. Further west, the Northern Cape coast could soon see a small brewery starting up. Once a thriving diamond town, Kleinsee’s heart was ripped out when De Beers pulled out in 2009. Schools closed, attractions ceased to operate and the population dwindled to just 700 souls. Plans are slowly taking shape for a small brewery which will at least attract a trickle of thirsty travellers throughout the year. Kakamas and Kleinsee: Coming soon ON THE HOP 48 / On Tap / Autumn 2018