OnTap Magazine

When Bruce Jack contacted me to get together for a beer project, I was intrigued. Bruce had come up with an interesting idea (and challenge): to brew a beer inspired by the ancient grain sorghum, used to brew African umqombothi. Bruce Jack Wines have always been a personal favourite, especially because he uses little-known grape varieties and crazy blends all under the banner of exceptional quality. This is a man after my own heart. My excitement was piqued, but it came with equal amounts of trepidation. Sorghum has a reputation in the brewing world for being really tough to brew with. It lacks a husk, which aids lautering (this is brewing jargon for the removal of wort from grain particles). Along with some other eccentricities, it creates a gelatinous porridge of unmovable liquid. This has brought many a seasoned brewer to his or her knees in frustration. We needed a solution – and it meant applying my mad brewer’s brain to the challenge, as well as making some well- placed calls to brewer friends. By the end, we had come up with an action plan on how to use the grain: by opting for a blend of barley malt and sorghum. First things first: grain. I decided to keep it simple, opting for 50% barley malt from our local maltings in Caledon and 50% sorghum from a supplier in Gauteng. Next up: hops. We have some very special hops at our disposal and so I opted for an almost hedonistic amount of the fruit bomb Southern Passion and African Queen varieties. Lastly and most importantly: yeast. Given that all our ingredients were sourced in South Africa, we couldn’t let this slip. I placed a call to my friend Craig at Liquid Culture. Craig is culturing yeast from wild sources in the country. No one is really using these fascinating strains in a commercial setting. That makes this collab beer unique. The traditional drink is thick and very sour due to lactic bacteria, but we needed a beer that was clean and much more like something a craft beer drinker would know. So we looked to the darling of the craft beer world – the New England IPA. It makes use of hops for their aromatic fruit flavours late in the brewing process to yield a soft almost fruit juice-like beer, both in terms of looks and taste. Fruity and bold, the bones of a good beer are here and a new beer type has emerged from the challenge. Bruce has called it Salute to the Sun. It is a salute to the African sun that blesses all our ingredients here and to the cheers we share when good friends and a good idea come together. Read the full version of this article in the current issue of Jack Journal, available from Exclusive Books, Pick n Pay, CNA and Woolworths. A SALUTE TO THE SUN Fraser Crighton Brennerstrasse 17-19 · 96052 Bamberg - Germany · www.weyermannmalt.com WEYERMANN ® SPECIALTYMALTS OUR DISTRIBUTORS IN AFRICA: bevPLUS (PTY) ltd. and Dematech (PTY) ltd. 13 Michigan Street · Airport Industria · 7490 · Cape Town · South Africa www.bevplus.com Phone bevPLUS: + 27 - (021) - 820 9500 · e-mail: info@bevplus.com Phone Dematech: + 27 - (021) - 385 0483 · e-mail: info@dematechsa.com