Posted in Beer on 22. Sep, 2011
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.
Last year the first We ♥ Real Beer Craft Beer festival at the Old Biscuit Mill was a huge success. The follow-up happens this Sunday. Yes, the Summer Craft Beer Festival. The 2nd Coming. The Best Sunday Ever. Whatever you want to call it, it’s going to be awesome.
The gist is simple: R30 gets you entry, your own We ♥ Real Beer pint glass, plenty of beer stands, food vendors and some kickass live music entertainment. Beers from &UNION, Jack Black Beer, Camelthorn, Darling Brew and more. And on the food side, I know Jason “Wheat-at-the-Knees” Lilly from Jardine Bakery is making porchetta (rolled whole pig slow-roasted over a fire), plus there’ll be lots more on offer.
What the Angela Lansbury could be better than that?
Well, this: buy ten pre-sale tickets and bonus, you get them for the price of 9. And buying pre-sale tickets means you skip the queue, which was nasty last time. Purchase tickets at &UNION, Superette or contact @weloverealbeer on Twitter or email shaunfrancbond@me.com.
Easy, yes. Great, yes. But, wait, I have something even better than that… (okay, this post sounds like a Verimark infomercial at this point)
Free tickets!! Yup, I have five tickets to give away for this Sunday’s event. How to get them? Simply post a tweet with both #RealBeer and @foodie_za in it before 5pm this Wednesay. Five most interesting/obscure/creative/whacky/funny tweets get a ticket. Done.
We ♥ Real Beer Summer Craft Beer Festival
Sunday, March 20. Old Biscuit Mill. Noon – late.
There it is. The reason you’ve been getting drinking fit since December (apart from that week of gym in January). The next We ♥ Real Beer craft beer fest is on a Sunday in March, from noon till late. As if the last one wasn’t fun enough (I think I called it “the greatest event I’ve ever been to!” at the time), this one promises more beers, more food and more music.
And with these beers, you won’t wake up the next day feeling like someone Chuck Norris’d you in the head. In fact, the hangover is rarely noticeable, so you should still be able to make productive use of that public holiday Monday.
Oh, and an early bird ticket deal: buy 10 tickets before the event and pay for 9. R30 per ticket. Available at &UNION, Superette or from @weloverealbeer.
Do it folks. Support the little guys. You know you want to…
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.
There you have it. It’s about time someone threw something together that celebrated the love and joy that is Real Beer. If you have no idea what I’m referring to by the term Real Beer, these are naturally brewed beers made by independent brewers. Craft brews. No additives or strange ingredients. No mass global brands. Smaller is better. Think Jack Black and Brewers & Union. And a few other small but quality producers.
The craft beer scene in South Africa is definitely still infantile. Yes, we have the giants, but the little guys, well, they’ve got a long way to go when compared with the great microbrewery scene in the UK or US. The quality is there but the market is still tiny. The Real Beer initiative is one step in the right direction and this craft beer festival of theirs is certainly another. I’m really looking forward to this – it’s going to be one helluva fun night. Let’s all go and support the little guys. But do remember to drink responsibly, i.e. get a taxi there, because you know you’re probably going to stumble out when it’s all over. It is a beer festival, after all.
Attended the launch of this last night. A pretty cool initiative if you ask me. Two of the hottest beer brands in South Africa have teamed up to create We Love Real Beer, a collective aimed at sharing real, naturally-produced beers brewed by independent brewers. The brands are CSG (owners of the Brewers & Union and CSG ranges) and Jack Black. So no Castle anywhere. Perfect. Or Zamalek. Though I do like a Zamalek every now and then, usually it’s at a random hotel bar somewhere in the Karoo with plenty of the kort-pant brigade around and only just one to quench the thirst before a Karoo Martini (klippies & coke) is in order. But let’s be real, I’d rather be drinking a bottle of Steph Weiss or a Jack Black 9/10 times.
The launch was at &UNION, that centre of the luxury beer culture in Cape Town, and held in conjunction with the Beer Drinkers’ Union (“a collective of people united together to to enjoy real beer”). With all the formalities in terms of titles, speeches and unions, one might think this was a board meeting, but not so. The beer was generously flowing out the Jack Black tap, out the Brewers & Union bottles and down the throats of a thirsty beer-loving urban hipster audience. Pointy sneaker and plaid shirt clad folk sank the beers and wolfed down some ridiculously tasty sausages as well as the odd pretzel. Naturally I also scoffed down a pork prego in three or four bites, as one does.
It was a festive evening and the omnipresent Rus Nerwich came on later and with his trio banged out some great improv jazz. The vibe was convivial and tongue-in-cheek, yet somehow one feels that this could be the start of something the big guns in beer should be nervous about.
www.weloverealbeer.com
Who is the Foodie? It doesn’t really matter. Bacon is god. Wine cures anything. If you believe those two facts, then we’re going to get on fine. This means you have discovered the power of food to make life better. This knowledge is imperative to the art of living well.
