OnTap Magazine

OT: So you actually launched at the 2011 Cape Town Festival of Beer but you’re celebrating your tenth anniversary in 2022, why is that? DS: Although we launched at CTFOB, we didn’t truly start trading until early the following year. I remember it well. It was March 23, 2012 and I was in Johannesburg for a wedding. I sent out Devil’s Peak’s first invoice from the hotel room just before heading out to the ceremony. It was for a keg of First Light Golden Ale for a bar in Cape Town whose owner had tasted the beers at CTFOB. OT: JC – you were working in wine when Devil’s Peak first started. Why did you make the move to beer? JS: I was looking for a new challenge and also really like the fact that what you put in, you get out with brewing as opposed to winemaking, where the climatic conditions have such a huge impact on the end product. OT: What have been some of the highlights of the past 10 years? DS: A personal highlight was the first beer fest we did in Jo’burg. We flew up there with a red cooler box to serve from and by the end of the day my arm was aching from pouring beers. It was super busy but so much fun and we had great feedback. JS: Being a part of the Mikkeller Beer Celebration was a real highlight. It was just a great festival – amazing brands, beer- knowledgeable consumers and some of the best brewers in the world sharing their knowledge. RB: For me it was a team trip we took to the US to see what was going on and to get inspired. We visited New Belgium, Other Half, Hill Farmstead, Alchemist. It was on that trip that we discovered New England IPA, which would see us go on to release Juicy Lucy. OT: Devil’s Peak has been responsible for a lot of “firsts” in the SA craft beer scene – first to popularise the American IPA, first to popularise the hazy IPA, first to instigate a barrel ageing programme on any sort of scale. Has there been any particular innovation that you were particularly proud of? DS: I think our non-alcoholic beer, Hero (formerly Zero to Hero) is one of our biggest successes. We were the first to locally manufacture a non-alcoholic beer, with SAB releasing Castle Free shortly afterwards. It was a saviour during the lockdown when we were selling about 12 times what we usually sell in a month. I would argue that’s what saved us and saw us through the various alcohol bans. OT: You’ve obviously received some criticism over the years, particularly for pushing lager above all else. Do you think that was a mistake? DS: Not at all. The lager feeds the machine that allows us to do the creative, small batch, innovative stuff that we have become known for. There is this idea that you can’t sell lager and craft and I think that’s wrong. OT: We’ve heard a whisper that Signal Hill is expanding further into Africa – any truth to that? DS: Yes, absolutely and we’re pretty excited about it. We have acquired a brewery in Kenya and will be launching Striped Horse and Devil’s Peak there as well as continuing with the local brand, Sierra Premium Lager. From test batches on a 90-litre garage setup to opening a brewpub, popularising the term “tap room”, bringing out the kind of limited release beers that superfans camp out for and eventually becoming the largest craft brewery in South Africa, Devil’s Peak has had more wardrobe changes than Madonna over the past decade. We chatted to directors Russell Boltman and Derek Szabo and head brewer JC Steyn about the brewery’s ten year anniversary. My arm was aching from pouring beers 14 | Autumn 2022 | ontapmag.co.za