Four Woodstock Brewery beers have been awarded the best beers in the country by the Untappd Community Awards, which recognise best-in-class brewers around the globe.
Rhythm Stick Pale Ale won gold status; Danzn Weissbier also won gold; Slice of Life Session IPA got silver; and Californicator IPA was awarded bronze. These beers were chosen for their popularity, taste and richness.
Woodstock Brewery, which turned its brewery into a soup kitchen during Covid, has been around for 10 years, serving the community of Woodstock and the greater city. During Covid, the brewery produced soup for the immediate needs of the less fortunate.
Andre Viljoen said he got the idea of the brewery when he was wrapping up his career in banking in 2010 and decided to buy an old building on Albert Road in Woodstock and turn it into a brewery and restaurant.
“I wanted to move back to South Africa and realised that at that time there weren’t many craft breweries in South Africa. I bought an old derelict building in Woodstock, which I felt was suitable for a brewing factory site, and we then took quite a while to complete the building and brewery in the middle of 2014, so this is our 10th year of operation,” said Viljoen.
The Rhythm Pale Ale beer that won gold status has a pronounced crisp bitterness with a clean, medium-bodied mouthfeel, with biscuit and subtle passion fruit flavours.
Session IPAs are said to be beers that are not too filling; they’re not too bitter, not too hoppy, and not too malty. The beer strikes that perfect balance on the pallet.
Speaking about his popular beers, Viljoen said, “Born Slippy and Pilsner, happy pills are very popular. These are the typical beers the South African Pallet craves! We also have a range of ales with rhythm sticks, a pale ale, a Californian, and an IPA, probably the most popular. Our session IPA, Slice of Life, is a delicious lighter IPA is a popular easy-drinking IPA, and our Weiss Beer, Danzn, is also very popular.
He said the reason he values the Untappd Community Awards is that they have “unbiased views and ratings of beer connoisseurs and enthusiasts—our most important customers.”
Untappd said it is proud to release the firstever Untappd Community Awards, which celebrate the thousands of great breweries and beers rated as best-in-class by 11 million users in 2023.
“Countless breweries globally brew amazing beer, and we recognise (and have even heard from a few brewers through the years!) that we could do a better job of highlighting the best non-IPAs and barrel-aged stouts that don’t garner the eye-popping 4.0+ average ratings. While there are plenty of awards to go around for various IPA and Stout substyles, the Untappd Community Awards will recognise annually the very best beers in all qualifying substyles.”