Craft beer is no longer just for hipsters. Read on to find out why you should join in this trend and even try your hand at making it yourself!
Trendy, brew
Speciality beers are growing in popularity around the world as they are of higher quality, come in a larger variety of flavour and support local small businesses. Very different from the commercialised, mass-produced stuff you may see in your normal liquor store, craft beers usually have a high volume of malt, making them more tasty and less alcoholic.
“Craft beer is growing from strength to strength,” says Gemma Smith of craft beer business &Union. “We currently have 21 micro-breweries in South Africa and loads of guys are experimenting in their own homes.”
And it’s not just SA that is experiencing this. The business of craft brewing has seen a significant growth in the America, claiming for the first time more than 5% of total share in beer industry profit. Meanwhile in Ireland more and more microbreweries and ‘brewpubs’ – pubs which brew a lot of their beer onsite – have opened doors.
Even places like Japan have been hit by this trend, with traditional restaurants increasingly serving craft and people using social feeds like Twitter and blogs to find out about the latest offerings at their favourite craft brewery.
Brew your own!
Craft brewing is said to be a pretty easy task and with time you can become a connoisseur, experimenting with ingredients like molasses and liquorice to enhance the flavour. While you can buy your own brewing starter kit at local hardware store Midas, the basic elements of making beer is something to brew it in and a dark place to store for a minimum of two weeks.
You will need to boil and then ferment ingredients such as malt, hops, speciality grains and yeast, taking care to keep an eye on the temperature. There is plenty of information online with instructions and answers for any questions you may have.
Kevin Wood of Slow Beer producers Darling Brew offers a word of advice: “Craft beer is about passion and innovation – it is about finding the right flavours through the temperature bands within the brewing process.”
Good luck!
