OnTap Magazine

ontapmag.co.za | Summer 2024 | 21 " There were gate crashers our first year, don’t you remember?!” Anton Erasmus laughs as he looks across the table at Charles Hunter. A smile creeps across Charles’ face as he recalls the event to which his friend of several decades is referring. It was 2008 and teams from roughly eight universities found themselves at a camping ground outside the town of Howick, north-west of Pietermaritzburg, known for the Howick Falls, a 95-metre-high waterfall along the Umgeni River. What had started out as modestly run interdepartmental beer brewing competitions on campuses like the University of KZN-Pietermaritzburg, had grown significantly since its early days in 2000, and enough universities now hosted beer brewing “teams” that they felt a competition among them was in order. The chosen location kept costs down, and most of the participants were able to drive over, beers in the back of their bakkies. But then, an uninvited team rocked up: North-West University (then Potchefstroom). They’d heard about the competition through the marketing grapevine. “They hired a vehicle out of their transport park, got fuel from some professor, got permission to drive this with students…and arrived in the middle afternoon on the Saturday when there was only like 12 hours left. I think some of those students slept in their van. That’s when we said, you know what this means? It means it could be that meaningful to be seen, not as part of a herd, but…as part of strong pioneering work.” Anton tells me. “So that to me, that was an epiphanal moment.” There was powerful interest in this daring venture of theirs. MORE BELLS & WHISTLES Charles Hunter has been a lecturer in the Microbiology Department at the University of KZN – Pietermaritzburg for 25 years. According to him, the beer brewing competition began as a rivalry between the Microbiology and Chemistry departments. In Microbiology, they have a microbial processing module that teaches students about fermentation, and Chemistry has a module on chemical technology processing. In other words, both departments had aspects of brewing built into their courses. Kicking off in 2000, third-year undergrad students started brewing beer in their lab using plastic buckets and kits purchased from the local chemist. Someone was clever enough to get Senior Trade Brewer from South African Breweries (SAB) Ben Lamaletie (now retired) from Prospecton Brewery to come judge the product. Over time: “It became a bit of an event,” Charles says, chuckling. There was a venue on campus called the Chemistry Grignard, a nod to the “Grignard Reaction,” or for those of us non-scientists: ethanol production. This aptly named pub would host these competition evenings where people could come and sample the beers. Charles is honest: “They were really terrible; they ranged from vaguely drinkable to completely not drinkable.” Those involved began to think: wouldn’t it be nice if we could make proper beer? “To Ben’s credit,” Charles explains, “he ran with the idea and got people at Prospecton interested, and that secured us sponsorship.” The brewery provided kegs, and brewers from Prospecton offered technical input, and all together they designed and built their 50-litre system microbrewery. Word spread and the teams acquired more and more bells and whistles. It still took several years to get up and running. In 2005, they held a few in-house tests and small competitions, and only then started rolling it out to other institutions. And then that fateful first attempt at a multiple-university competition in 2008. After that, whichever university won the competition would host the following year. That was the process until it became logistically easier to have the SAB World of Learning host the annual event (SAB being the sole sponsor at that point), which they did between 2011-2016. INNOVATIVE STYLES PUSH CREATIVITY It’s late October 2024, and I am now attending the 17th consecutive intervarsity brewing competition which has been hosted at the Central University of Technology (CUT) campus in Bloemfontein since 2017. This year, teams from 17 universities (and one chef school) across the country are competing – the most the event has ever seen. The weekend-long comp opens on Thursday evening with a light-hearted Beer Trivia game, followed by a welcome dinner. Students, mentors, lecturers, speakers, sponsors, and judges intermingle among a series of long dining tables in the glass- ceilinged Hotel School Atrium. Students of the Hotel School have stepped in as the event’s caterers, providing them Khensani Mothomogolo (L) attended the competition in 2021 with Wits University and now works at Brewsters Academy, lead by Apiwe Nxusani-Mawela (R) Participants listen to experts during a beer tasting session.