OnTap Magazine

With Intervarsitybrew rapidly approaching, Olga De Smidt tells us a little more about the competition and why it matters to the future of beer in South Africa. OLGA DE SMIDT INTERVARSITYBREW 2023 THE I magine 90 university students from different fields of study and seniority, in the same space, beer glass in hand. Sniffing, slowly sipping and frowning, some expressing surprise or confusion, some obviously filled with delight. Comparing brews; not so much “talking while drinking beer,” rather talking about the beers they are drinking. It sounds too good to be true, but this is the essence of Intervarsitybrew: A brewing and tasting challenge for university students passionate about brewing and beer culture. Add a healthy dose of competition, enviable prizes, influential figures and experts from the craft and commercial brewing space as spectators and talent scouts, and you have an epic “beery” weekend. HOWDOES ITWORK? Brew teams of 5 members each have to brew 6 beers of different styles and design a bespoke label for one of their brews. The categories prescribed each year are both general (such as Lager, IPA, sour) while challenging the teams to be creative, such as brewing a low alcohol beer, using alternative grains, local ingredients and wild yeast. Beers are judged by BJCP certified judges, some with international experience, as well as trained tasters from SAB and Heineken. The main event takes place over 2 days in Bloemfontein, during October each year, in a symposium and beer festival- like setting, but during the year the student teams also attend technical webinars and sensory training sessions. Since 2019, the competition has begun receiving more interest and support from industrybenefactors. Theevent has also tied in with the craft beer community by sending the winning team from 2022 to the Fools and Fans beer festival in Greyton in 2023. For this festival they had to rebrew their winning beer(s) and brave public scrutiny alongside the homebrewing community. The 2022 winning team from the University of Cape Town, also competed in the only National Homebrew Club Championship, hosted and founded by the Fools and Fans festival. TWENTY YEARS OF HISTORY The concept of a brewing competition among university students has a 20- year history that dates back to the first SAB-sponsored microbrewery installed at the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Pietermaritzburg campus in 2003. This partnership between academia and industry was driven by the now-retired SAB Senior Trade Brewer, Ben Lamaletie. The uniqueness of the initiative was for students to be educated, have fun, while showing their skills in a national brewing competition. The first national Inter Varsity Beer Brewing Competition took place in August 2008 on a KZN campground and annually thereafter at the SAB World of Learning conference and accommodation venue. After the ABInBev acquisition of SABMiller, the competition was in jeopardy of being discontinued in 2017, but with passionate support from CUT team mentors Hanita Swanepoel and Jasiu Lewtak and SAB Trade Brewer Anton Erasmus, the competition was relocated to the Free State and became a joint venture between SAB and the Central University of Technology (CUT) in Bloemfontein. The competition even survived the Covid-19 pandemic when student teams participated in an online competition in 2020, which was incidentally also my baptism by fire as event coordinator. We reimagined and rebranded the 56 | Spring 2023 | ontapmag.co.za