OnTap Magazine

24 | Summer 2024 | ontapmag.co.za and ultimately concludes that people just “don’t know enough about it.” “I CAN MAKE A DAMN GOOD BEER” Anton Erasmus sees it as their responsibility, as elders, to “transfer the seeds for beer culture at a young stage to people that otherwise would not have been beer people.” He is adamant that over the years they have spotted “excellent talent” through the programme, and not just for brewing, but for adjacent skillsets: leadership, a people-facing ability, technical abilities. In other words, for companies like SAB and Heineken, these competitions are productive recruitment opportunities. Anton is visibly proud as he insists that these students accept the challenges given to them, and then elevate the game. “They overtake us, and we reset the bar. It’s become an organism, an ecosystem, and it's the only one in the world where a large brewing company has invested small but tactical and strategic capital in developing students to understand business, and to understand a beer lens and optics.” “To misquote Lance Armstrong, ‘It’s Not About the Beer,’” Charles Hunter says, smiling. For him, it’s about the soft skills in addition to the technical skills you acquire as part of the process. It gives students confidence and an edge. When they graduate, they can say: “I’m a microbiologist and one of my skills is I can make a damn good beer.” And while we are discussing “damn good beer,” it must be stated that the beers submitted by students to this competition are, by and large, incredibly good. Commercially-good, in many cases. Olga explains that those involved in the competition – like Chris Roth, convenor of the judges, and Michelle Erasmus of CBASA – make an extra effort to ensure students understand the feedback they receive from the judges during a competition. Olga tells me that it’s been evident over the years that the teams really take this feedback and apply it to their process. Anton is more colourful in his description: “When you walk into that hall right now, you're smelling good beer. There are no off flavours. This is just astonishing. Whereas 20 years ago, with all due respect…we used to smell when we got to the venue that the students had arrived because some of the beers were less than ideal….But we've taught them, and they taught us.” We must remember that South Africa does not have a brewing faculty or university like those in other countries. Acquiring the at-times necessary accreditation from here can be difficult and expensive. This is, to some degree, a gap this initiative is looking to fill. And its efforts are being noticed. Anton reports that he is frequently asked about “this intervarsity thing” when he travels abroad. This may in part be about personality: Anton has a big one. “I'm known as the crazy guy from South Africa whenever I go to Belgium or Germany – and I'm proud of it,” he assures me. I am told repeatedly that weekend how this programme is people-driven, and Anton is one of those people. He too says that the continuity at each university requires a champion – a person or group of people who pass the torch, and keep the lights on in those beloved lab-breweries. PASSION FOR BEER CULTURE It is the final evening and the winners for each category are being announced. For every first-place win, a drum roll crescendos as participants rap the tables with their hands. UCT does incredibly well – the look of joy and surprise evident on their faces each and every time their university is called to the podium. This includes winning Best of Show with their low alcohol “WIT Restraint.” (This is notably the first time that a low alcohol beer takes the top spot.) 1000 Hills Chef School also wins several awards, including second place for Grandma’s Porridge. But it was the team from the University of Limpopo, pulling off two second place awards and one third place award that seemed to delight the crowd the most as the perceived “underdogs” at the competition. Almost deafening hoots and hollers followed their award announcements, giving me discernible goosebumps as I watched them pose for photographs. As Olga tells me later, beaming, “Everybody was quite chuffed that they won.” At around 9:00pm that evening, Andrew Downes of Swagga Brewery, and longtime friend of the programme, taps my shoulder. “Looking around this room, what do you notice?” he asks. “There is free alcohol available to university students,” he continues, “and no one is getting out of hand.” I will admit, I had noticed this distinguishing feature of the weekend myself, and it reflects another broad topic that emerged throughout my many conversations: “beer culture.” Theconcernabout theoverconsumption of alcohol generally was a frequent refrain, especially by industry folks. Charlene Louw, CEO of BASA is adamant about preaching the message of responsible drinking, and helping consumers understand that “beer is the beverage of moderation.” There were those references to evolving gender assumptions around the beverage. Many expressed wanting to establish a truly “African” beer style, one that needn’t rely on ingredients from abroad, that harkened to stories and traditions native to this continent. I wonder if encouraging more home- grown styles, recipes and innovations wouldn’t influence what Anton sees as a difference between a “beer culture” and a “beer drinking culture.” The former, he says can be found in places like Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic. It is something old and engrained in the DNA. The latter, which he is clear is not a negative, is what he feels exists here in South Africa. Marketing and educational efforts could, however, have significant impact on a beer drinking culture, he argues. There is room for evolution. One-of-a-kind initiatives like this one, developed out of a few plastic buckets in a couple university campus’ Microbiology and Chemistry departments, have the capacity to influence this beer evolution. Olga de Smidt’s vision for the competition seems to echo this sentiment: “I think fundamentally, it creates a space for us to grow the beer community, and we do that on the foundation of passion for beer culture. It is easy to teach someone how to brew beer, but you can't teach passion. Passion has to be cultivated and that is what this competition aims to do; cultivate passion for beer.” The competition included a beer bottle label design component.