OnTap Magazine

Patricia Pillay With us heading to the half- way point of 2023, it is great to take stock of the work the Beer Association has been doing to promote beer and the economic contribution it makes across the country over the past few months. This has included supporting craft brewers as well as working together with our big beer members, South African Breweries and HEINEKEN to create an enabling environment for our industry and the 1 in 66 jobs it supports in South Africa. Critical to this is a legislative and regulatory environment that encourages both small and large businesses in the beer sector to grow. In this regard, we welcomed the announcement by Finance Minister, Enoch Godongwana in his Budget speech in February that the excise increase on beer for 2023/2024 financial year would largely be in line with inflation. BASA was also a proud collaborator in this year’s annual Hops Harvest Tour which hosted the Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development, Thoko Didiza, and the Portfolio Committee on Agriculture to showcase the contribution the SAB hop farms in George, Western Cape make to the agricultural sector. BASA was also a proud sponsor of the African Beer Cup awards which saw South Africa’s Richmond Hill Brewing Co (RHBC) winning the award for ‘Best Beer in Africa’. Other exciting news was that of HEINEKEN South Africa and South African Breweries (SAB) pledging R21.3 billion in new investment projects over the next five years. We hope that you enjoy reading about all these activities in On Tap this month. We certainly have a lot more planned for the coming year and if you are interested in receiving more regular updates on what the BASA team is up to, we encourage you to follow our social media page. Our handles are: Twitter @BeerSA_org Facebook @BeerSouthAfrica Instagram @beer_southafrica Cheers! LETTER FROM THE CEO OF THE BEER ASSOCIATION OF SOUTH AFRICA 6 | Winter 2023 | ontapmag.co.za