WE ♥ REAL BEER III.

You know you’re excited. Your mouth is salivating at the thought of tasty brews. Your knees are getting weak. You’re very, very thirsty. You need beer. Lots of it. And it’s coming. Yup, someone must have touched wood, tossed a dwarf or kissed their lucky stone because there’s another installment of the ridiculously popular craft beer festival and it’s only a week away. WE ♥ REAL BEER craft beer festival version 3.0 is on next Friday, 30th September. Put that in your diary. Do it now.

What’s it about? Same great venue. Same awesome breweries. But with some great new beers. Jack Black has a new pale ale out. The Brewers & Union boys have their Versus Goliath. Darling has their Bonecrusher Weiss. And there’s more – real artisan ciders from Eversons, Gone Fishing and Terra Madre. I’ve had the privilege of tasting the latter just once, and am really looking forward to more. There’s also music from the Dixie Swingers and rumour has it that there’ll be a home-brewing demonstration too.

Timing has also been cut back to the original 4pm – 11pm, which means 7 hours of pure unadulterated beer indulgence.

Get your tickets here at webtickets.co.za or at the door (best buy in advance and avoid the queue). Cost is R50 and includes a WE ♥ REAL BEER pint glass that you can keep by your bedside as a memento forever.

The Old Biscuit Mill.
September 30.
4pm -11pm.

WE ♥ REAL BEER & PIZZA.

There it is people. Beer & pizza. Genius.

Real beer from &UNION, Jack Black, Birkenhead and Camelthorn. Wood-fired oven pizza from Knead. Music by the Swingsetters. All going down at the new Knead bakery in Palmyra Junction, which is a shithot space both inside and outdoors.

For anyone that didn’t get a chance to hit up the We ♥ Real Beer craft beer festival, this is the next best thing. And for everyone that did, this is the next best thing.

I’ll see you all there.

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9th December – 6pm -  Knead Bakery, Palmyra Junction, 9 Palmyra Road, Claremont, Cape Town.

Berne.

The new beer from the boys at Brewers & Union is Berne. An Amber Lager, Berne would seem to fit in the middle of the range of beers at &UNION. It’s not as fruity and light as Steph. It’s not as dark as the Dark. It’s not as mad-freaking-crazy as the Touro, their 10% alcohol demon-beer from hell, aka Blackhands (because you’re going to end up crawling on the street after a few and will wake up with…  you said it). No, Berne is like the middle brother. The flavour has lovely sweet notes, almost like wild honey. It goes down very smoothly, and is actually quite light for its colour. Overall, it’s a pretty damned tasty beer.

The Berne flavour actually reminds me of a Pale Ale (which is big in the States), while the weight is closer to a lager. Brilliant – a more flavorful lager is what we have here, folks. I’m not a big fan of lager. Castle, Windhoek, Zamalek, Heineken, Amstel and all the others really taste like watered down beer. Corona could probably just be relabeled as bottled water. Real beer has more flavour and character. Well, in my book it does. The Unfiltered at &UNION is a good lager. Jack Black is also good, even better if you ask me. I still think the Touro is perhaps the most outrageously flavourful, delicious and impressive beer you can buy. With R125 – though it’s worth it. But then it’s an ale. As far as I know, an amber lager like Berne is made like any lager (bottom-fermented), but the barley malt is toasted, hence the increased flavour, and colour. And increased tendency for me to drink it more often. Even before noon.

Berne is a beer you can drink a lot of, and often. And that makes it a cracker. Well done guys.

www.brewersandunion.com

HQ.

HQ has attracted a lot of attention since opening, in no small part due to the fact that it serves one thing: salad, sirloin and chips. I heard about this about six months prior to their opening and had a big chuckle, thinking that this wouldn’t fly in Cape Town. Yes, it’s based on L’Entrecote, the Parisian brasserie that serves the same single menu, but this is not Paris. Capetonians generally like several choices of steak and a number of cream-based sauces to smother it in, something I really detest. If a cut of meat is good enough, it really shouldn’t need much accompaniment. They get it right in the states, where the best steakhouses serve Porterhouse steaks for two, cut and served at the table, with the butter it’s cooked in spooned over it. If you ever get to New York, go check out Peter Luger Steakhouse, which has a wall showing “Best Steakhouse of the Year” plaques for the last 20 years or so.

Anyways, back to HQ. The place has a very cool urban, industrial chic interior with a leather-clad bar area offering cocktails and big sofas to enjoy them on. There’s a good-sized fireplace too, which is a big draw. And bonus, the bar serves Jack Black on tap. The only thing not befitting is the space-age looking pendent lights suspended from the ceiling. The restaurant area is all perfect brasserie style though: red leather banquet seats, brownpaper-covered tables, floating balloon lights and an exposed kitchen where one can see the two chefs in action. Kitchen is actually a bit of a stretch, since it’s really just a grill station, which is all that’s required when you’re making one dish.

After eating several meals there, I think HQ works. The salad is very simple, but is meant to be more of a palate cleanser than a starter course, so this is how it should be. The chips are as good as they get in Cape Town. And the sirloin is very, very tasty, especially with the Cafe de Paris butter. Not too strong like most sauces- complimentary rather than supplementary. You’ll love it, if you like sirloin that is. Many people prefer the tenderness of fillet over the flavour of sirloin, and mark the restaurant down for this. But sirloin, especially this free-range stuff, is always going to have a bit of sinew and will never be as soft as fillet. But the flavour is richer and far superior. Once you understand this, you open yourself up to experience steak nirvana.

The wine list is very small, but I guess this fits in with the focused dining experience. Staff have been accused of a lack of wine knowledge, and I’ve experienced this too. The restaurant can also become unbearably loud on Friday nights, when the bar area hosts a DJ and half of the Cape Town party set. This can be great fun if you’re there for drinks and to chat to all the single ladies, but an intimate dinner would be impossible. They’ve got a bit of stick for this, with people complaining they become more like a nightclub than a restaurant. I’ve had this experience in Las Vegas, and it was quite a blast when the restaurant became the VIP section of the club at a certain point in the night. But I guess if you’re not expecting this, you’re going to be surprised and potentially annoyed. It’s not like they have dancers in cages though. Mmm, there’s an idea.

Overall, dining at HQ is a great steak experience, as good as I’ve had in Cape Town. There are the old Cape Town classics like Nelson’s Eye and the Hussar Grill, which fall into the old-school steakhouse mould and will always be around. Carne is probably the closest competitor to HQ, though not with their sirloin, which pales in comparison.

HQ. A ballsy restaurant that works, whether Cape Town is ready for it or not.

www.hqrestaurant.co.za