The South African Craft Beer Movement

Photo by Addison Berry

Even though South Africa is home to the second largest beer producer in the world, it's only recently that the very picky population of beer connoisseurs (read, snobs) started to recognize the ever-growing variety of craft brews. 

A fun fact from a recent New York Times travel piece on the amber-colored beverage, commercial beer has been around in the region since 1658, one year before the beginning of wine production in the region. Of course every oenophile goes on ad nauseum about South African wine, but there are a whole slew of microbreweries with names ranging from the very Afrikaans "Bierwerk" to the more universal "Triggerfish," and even the "Jack Black" — no relation to the actor, but he's surely stoked about the prospect.

For those beer-lovers among our readers (believe it or not, many a  gay loves beer just as much as, or even —gasp— more than wine, the grand landscapes and lush countryside of South Africa offers plenty of options for picturesque beer-centered excursions to various towns boasting high quality microbrews. There's even a tour of interesting breweries in KwaZula-Natal, a the traditional Zulu homeland. At one point we had a joke about Boers and bears loving beer, but it seemed silly, so we won't do it.