OnTap Magazine

A lmost 2,000 kilometres directly west of the Namibian-Angolan border is an island called Saint Helena. As a British Overseas Territory, the roughly 4,400 individuals who inhabit the island are British citizens, however, it was the Portuguese who first set foot on its tropical shores at the very outset of the 16th Century. The island was uninhabited upon discovery, but soon thereafter, and for hundreds of years, became an important stop-over for ships traveling the “Cape Route” between Europe and Asia. Named after Helena of Constantinople (the mother of Roman Emperor Constantine the Great) the island is not a big one: measuring 16 by eight kilometres or 122km squared. Despite its modest size, several countries did attempt to claim it and/or fought over use of its land and ports, including the Portuguese, Spanish and the Dutch. It was the British in the end who officially took over, initially through a charter granted to the East India Company (EIC), with the first British governor arriving in 1659. The EIC built houses and a fort in Jamestown, a port on the north-western coast of the island, which eventually became the island’s capital. Over the subsequent years there were several significant influxes and exoduses of the island’s inhabitants, including the arrival of 15,000 formerly enslaved persons in the mid-1800s, as well as over 6,000 Boer prisoners brought over during the Second Anglo Boer War in the early 1900s. The population is now described as being of European – although mostly British – South and East Asian, and African descent. “Saint Helena is like that,” Paul Scipio tells me. “Everyone here comes from somewhere else.” I am speaking to Paul, and his nephew Craig, who are, it seems, third and fourth-generation Saint Helena inhabitants: “There is a story that my great grandfather ran away from Italy, for some reason, but you can imagine – if he ran away, he was probably in trouble.” Paul chuckles. I find myself in conversation with the Scipios because they have so far successfully managed to do something others on the island never have: serve draught beer. CRAZY RESEARCH In 1969, Paul’s father – who was born on Saint Helena in 1928 – started driving a truck around the island selling his homemade Italian ice cream under the name Skipps. It was his nickname, derived from their Italian family name. The business didn’t last long, Mr. Scipio eventually moved on to other things, but it immediately came to mind when Paul and Craig more recently began to consider opening their own catering company. The catering company idea actually came about as an offshoot of another business – these guys have many! – they had started: an amusement park. With the go-cart portion of the park up and running, they felt the next step was to serve refreshments, and for those refreshments to be mobile. This way, they could cater to a broader audience, both on and off park grounds. They decided they would have three trailers: one for food, one of course for ice cream, and one for beer, although they were not interested in the status quo – the twosome were insistent on offering draught beer. “All through the years, we’ve tried to do something unique; we’ve never copied other people,” Paul says, adding that to keep a business afloat on a small island, you need to provide something different, something new. At the time, the beers available on the island were all in bottles or cans and included such brands as Windhoek, Castle Light, and Guinness. Choices were limited. There had been other bars, two or three Paul seems to recall, that had a beer-on-tap set- up, however, it ended up being too expensive to bring in kegs and the necessary carbon dioxide cylinders, which you typically pay a rental fee on per day. Draught beer on the island was considered unreliable and cost- inefficient. That is, until the Scipio family got involved. “We did crazy, crazy research to find what we found.” A MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN Once the desire to be mobile solidified, the Scipios contacted a company called Venter Trailers in Johannesburg who built them three trailers and shipped them down to Cape Town, where Paul and Craig flew in to meet them. This was in early September of 2023. Paul already knew Lance Setzer at Electrical Industries on Paarden Eiland in Cape Town, which is an industrial area east of the city bowl. Lance gave the two men permission to use his workshop. “We were so grateful to him for doing that,” Paul tells me. “We were able to fit out all of our trucks in two weeks.” The Scipios knew there was good reason draught beer hadn’t survived on Saint Helena. First, you need a reliable The three Skipps trailers View from the trailer Craig Scipio pouring beers in the trailer Left to right: Stephen Peel, John Scipio, Craig Scipio, Paul Scipio and Ashwyn Julies Everyone here comes from somewhere else Photos courtesy of Paul and Craig Scipio ontapmag.co.za | Autumn 2024 | 23