24 Jul 2014 SA’s latest craft brewers – young, talented and black
Meet Apiwe Nxusani of Beerhogs and Ndumiso Madlala of Soweto Gold, two young, black South African beermakers who are helping to shape this country’s burgeoning craft beer market.
While the craft beer explosion in South Africa, as elsewhere in the world, is transforming beer drinking and the industry, at the same time another uniquely South African transformation is unfolding. Leading the way are two remarkably different brewers with an intertwined past.
Both part owners of their respective breweries, Apiwe Nxusani of Beerhogs (below) and Ndumiso Madlala of Soweto Gold (above) are out to change the flavour and colour of the craft brew scene. Recognising the inherent limits of brewing for an affluent minority, these two are busy crafting beers with more mass appeal.
And with these strategies they hope that the colour of money will accompany the rich golds and reds being served up frosty in a pint glass.
Having served their time working for SABMiller in various roles, these two have the brewing experience, technical skills and training to coax almost any flavour from the yeast, malt, hops and water that go into their beer. (Graduate science degrees and international brewing and distilling diplomas? Who knew there were such things?)
A self-professed beer nerd, Nxusani is not much of a drinker but has been captivated by the brewing process since she visited an open day at the University of Johannesburg where she learnt that a career could be made of brewing and distilling.
“I’m like a chef; they don’t eat a lot,” she says. “They just eat to appreciate the tastes they’ve created.”
Madlala also came of age at SABMiller, climbing the ranks alongside Nxusani before branching out in 2011 to start his own operation. When investors failed to materialise, he headed back to overseeing SAB breweries across Africa and learnt even more about brewing and branding.
A great beer lover – our outdoor interview was accompanied by delicious winter sunshine and a pulled pint in front of the Orlando brewery – Madlala saw the opportunity to reach an untapped African market ready to step out on SAB.
They labour at opposite ends of the city both geographically and socially – Nxusani deep in middle-class suburban Kyalami, Madlala in the heart of Soweto – but the two have a similar reading on how to enchant beer drinkers whose thirsts will feed their bottom lines.
For Nxusani this means creating a ladder to more complicated, tastier beers. With her Brewhogs pilsner and red lager she’s building “a bridge to people who are used to drinking lagers. What we make is drinkable; it’s more like what they know. We want to play around in the lager field, but it will be lager with a twist.”
A taste fundi, she experiments at home with more outlandish inventions but realises that South African tastes will take time to follow the yellow brick road.
Madlala’s approach is equally calculated but he hopes to bypass Oz and get straight to El Dorado. Soweto Gold is not aimed at beer connoisseurs, nor is it intended to take its drinkers on a gustatory journey. Instead, he has created a full-flavoured beer to capture the lucrative black market.
“If you look at the recipe, it has similar properties to Carling Black Label,” he says. “It’s slightly sweet, lowly hopped.”
He adds special malts and a proprietary yeast blend to up the flavour profile, but is not too bothered if drinkers don’t savour the difference.
“What we’re selling is also an aspirational product. We are adding something for them at the top end. There are taverns here in Soweto that outsell those in Sandton in single malts and exclusive products. We want to tap that market.”
And tap it he has. With his Orlando brewery only set to open in late July (he currently crafts in Nottingham Road Brewery’s KwaZulu-Natal facility), he is already outselling SAB products in select pubs around town.
With a planned onsite canning facility and new varieties coming up, he is riding a brand wave likely to lift him and his investors to prosperity.
Look out for an Orlando Pirates Football Club-inspired Orlando Stout in black and white and a clear sorghum, maize and malt beer sure to be a hit with Madlala’s KwaZulu-Natal homeboys.
As with any South African industry, race matters.
Nxusani is proud of what she has accomplished and the role she can play in transforming the business: not only wresting total domination from SAB, but also adding diversity to the craft brew scene. There is evident pleasure in startling people out of their comfort zones….