South Africa: Two new micro-breweries at the Universities of Cape Town and Stellenbosch

Two new micro-breweries at the Universities of Cape Town and Stellenbosch are planned to be open, Cape Business News posted on October 5th. These two micro breweries are joint ventures between the universities' chemical/process engineering departments and the South African Breweries Newlands Brewery which donated R70 000 (R35 000 per university) to the project.

UCT's Prof Sue Harrison said the Cape Town brewery would be invaluable from a teaching and training perspective, and will enable the university to feed better equipped students into the brewing industry, which will help SAB in the medium and long terms.

Stellenbosch's Dr Johann Gorgens said their brewery would give students first hand experience in process control, pilot plant development and process design, plus some fundamental business principles such as costing and product development.

In addition to funding the breweries, SAB will provide all the natural ingredients - barley malt, hops and maize - for the operations, and will evaluate the brews, said the company's manufacturing and technical director, Clifford Raphiri.

"Students are not only keen supporters of our products, but those skilled in the various brewing disciplines are vital for the success of the South African brewing industry. These are the fourth and fifth university micro-breweries that we have sponsored, and we look forward to an on-going relationship with both institutions.

"South Africans are acknowledged as being at the cutting edge of international brewing technology and SAB currently has more than 180 of its employees at SABMiller breweries around the world, from India to the USA. Their successors will be found at universities such as these," he said.

"Given that beer was made in South Africa before wine, it is not surprising that there is a very strong beer culture in South Africa.

South Africans currently consume just over 2.6-billion litres of beer a year, in contrast to 300 million litres of wine. Therefore, there is every reason to call South Africa 'Beer Country'."

"Brewers and brew masters at SAB are highly educated, highly skilled and passionate individuals. Apart from having a passion for beer, those working in the world of microbiology at SAB have a degree or national diploma in either BSc Food Science, Applied Science, Biochemistry, Microbiology or Engineering."

SAB currently has 65 brewers across the country, of whom 23 are women. There are currently 13 brewing trainees in the business, of whom 10 are women.

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