deefstes wrote:
I am another regular patron of Loco Liq in Blairgowrie
Convenient for me, but pricey. It's getting to the point for me where it's just about worth while to drive home via Northcliff on a Friday afternoon.
and I also enjoy the local microbreweries for the simple reason that they produce a variety of dark beers which the you will never find coming from the SAB stable. And when it comes to microbreweries, I reckon the South African ones are as good as you could hope to find.
There's some very good ones. There are some not so good ones, but
a) that's the way it is with microbreweries everwhere
b) one man's meat is another's poison
Do Drayman's have any dark beers? They're a German-styled brewery and the Germans aren't particularly known for their dark beers. Certainly the only Drayman's I've ever tasted were all very crisp. I didn't like their Berghof at all and I'm generally not a big Weiss drinker. The darkest I've had from them was an Altbier that I can't remember the name of now but it was a middle of the road sort of pale ale.
I don't recall a stout or a porter from Drayman's. I like the Mitchell's stout, and if your tastes incline towards dry stouts then you should try the aforementioned Black Mist and also the Porter (Pickled Pig?) from Nottingham Road.
Drayman's brews mostly German styles, but they include a bitter and an IPA. I haven't seen much of the IPA recently. I hope it returns for the summer. Their bitter (Goblin) has been a bit not-quite-right but is getting better, much more like a proper English bitter. They also have a low-alcohol beer that tastes like something. Their "Letzer Wunsch" is a lager coming in at 3% and it's surprisingly tasty.
Certainly you get dark (dunkel) beers from Germany. Most of them lagers, but not all. I'm partial to a dunkel weiss from time to time. The trick, for me, with weiss is to go for the unfiltered beer. The filtered weiss beers LOOK posher and nicer, but they lose out taste wise. If you think of the Erdinger range then the silver label is filtered and the white is unfiltered. The Drayman's weiss is unfiltered, and more strength to them.
Also try a weiss with a slice of lemon floating on top on a summer afternoon - quite refreshing.
On the topic of Lager though, and here I'm straying outside of the scope of microbreweries, does anyone know of a shop in Randburg (aag, make that Johannesburg) where one can buy Carlsberg? Loco Liq used to sell it but they've been unable to get it now for some months (might be years now). I do like my dark beer but Lager has its place and when you arrive in that place there really is no other beer I feel that could compete with Carlsberg.
Depends what you mean by "lager". If you mean a dry, golden coloured, bottom-brewed beer then anything labelled "Pilsenser" is a candidate (all Pilseners are lagers, strictly speaking not all lagers are Pilseners but the two terms are getting interblurred these days). So there's one from Nottingham Road. You don't care for the Drayman's Berghof, but you could try the Letzer Wunsch (labelled "helles", German word for a pale lager). Most Portuguese and Mozambican beers are lagers (NB! A lager can be dark in colour, like a stout, but stouts are ales and dark lagers are dark lagers) and there's usually a selection at Liquor City. Also look at Brewer's Union which is starting to pop up in bottle stores in Jo'burg (I first saw it being sold at Maboneng, and it may have spread out from there). Locally there's also Bavaria (confusingly owned by a Dutch company with the same name and who also import their own beers into the country - so things get confusing) and they brew a lager.
Generally interest in more individualistic brews is growing, and the bottle stores are aware of that, so many of them are extending their range all the time. If you've the time on a Sunday morning then wake up early, drive out to Pretoria, and catch the Friends Of The Rail train out to Cullinan (best to book in advance). At Cullinan there is the cockpit brew pub which is quite interesting if you are interested in beery things. There's also the Irish Ale House in Broederstroom. There's another brewpub (name escapes me) just West of Magaliesburg, and one out near Rustenburg which does German style beers.
