OnTap Magazine

ontapmag.co.za | Autumn 2026 | 33 The Wits team won best beer overall, but it was with their Kudu Lager, not that crowd-pleasing stout. While Pretoria did not take home the top spot again that year, Tyrone says, "[Wits] was the winner, but looking back, I'm the winner, because I got Tessa." On Sunday morning, all participants gathered to share one final breakfast before heading their separate ways. Earlier that morning, Tyrone had scoured Hatfield for flowers to give to Tessa, as a departing gift. Unsuccessful on that front, he eventually found a vendor setting up early for the Sunday market in the mall parking lot, where he settled on a small granite hippo figurine. In return, Tessa gave him her scarf, laced with her perfume. "So that he would remember me," she says, before adding with a grin: "And he did." A mere two weeks later, Tyrone introduced Tessa to his parents. "It was very quick," Tyrone laughs. TIME SPENT ABROAD The connection continued into their professional lives. At the end of 2009, Tessa started as a graduate at Reckitt, a home and personal care company, in their research and development department, unaware that Tyrone had already been an intern there since 2007. Neither had known they would end up in the same department, and it came as a complete surprise to Tyrone when she first walked into the office. It soon became a tradition for the couple to spend Friday afternoons after work at a vibrant bistro near Emperor’s Palace in Kempton Park, enjoying a few beers and a plate of onion rings to unwind. In September of 2010, Tessa traveled to Italy with the company — her first international trip — at which point she very enthusiastically told Tyrone that she’d love to land a Reckitt position at their Italy plant, given that they “drank beer at lunch time!” Unfortunately, Italian visas are not easy to acquire. Instead, when a position opened up with the company in Dubai, she took that instead, moving to the UAE in early 2011. Before Tessa left South Africa for the UAE, the couple got engaged. They then suffered through 18-months of long distance. Luckily, Tyrone was also hired by Reckitt, and shortly after getting married, the newlyweds spent their first year of marriage together in Dubai. They took full advantage of where they were, traveling every chance they got. And everywhere they went, they sampled the local beers. Tessa, in particular, travelled extensively, often video calling Tyrone from Belgium to show him the local brews. "We now have a cupboard full of beer mugs and glasses," Tessa says. "Whenever I travelled, I would get at least one beer mug to bring back for Tyrone." Their collection grew to include pieces from the beer gardens of Germany and various taverns and cafés across Belgium and the Netherlands. A DIFFERENT JOURNEY FULFILLED After Dubai, the couple returned to South Africa. Tessa thought it best that she get her business degree before they had kids, and they knew Dubai wasn’t where they wanted to start their family. Soon enough, she was enrolled in a full-time MBA at the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) in Johannesburg. Tyrone had hoped to land a job within six months of their return home, but the chemical engineering industry was still reeling from the effects of the 2009 global recession. Instead, he too returned to school, obtaining an Honours in environmental engineering at Tuks. Their shared love of beer also faced a more personal challenge. For seven years, they struggled to conceive. They made the difficult decision to stop drinking beer, and alcohol of any kind, to support their efforts. This sacrifice lasted for five of those years, and they only resumed their hobby a little over a year after their daughter, Kira, was born in July 2021. They broke the long fast with a Leffe Brune and