The beer world is ever-changing. There are many trends playing across the craft beer landscape, some lasting for years and others for months.
Brewmaster Apiwe Nxusani-Mawela shares with us the five hottest new trends of the year.
Collaborations
This is when two or more breweries get together to brew a limited edition brew. The breweries would typically share the resources and both bring their own unique individual character to the collaboration. The collaboration has the advantage of tapping into both breweries' networks and consumers, benefitting both breweries. We are starting to see collaborations between breweries and musicians and the likes.
Canning
This is currently becoming quite a trend in the Western Cape, and soon to take over Gauteng as well. Breweries are packing their beers into cans instead of bottles. Advantages include having bigger surface area for branding, cans are cheaper in unit price compared to bottles and weigh less making transport easier.
The return of the pilsner
Everyone knows South Africa is a lager nation, but very few people actually know that pilsner is part of the lager family. There are a few breweries who have launched some great pilsner style beers, and I foresee this trend continuing into this summer and next year.
The continued evolution of the IPA
We tend to follow a lot of the American trends, and they are currently doing various variations of the IPA style which we have started seeing.
The use of African ingredients in brewing
We have brands like Little Wolf, UkhambaBeerworx and Loxton Lager who have been leading on this front inspiring other brewers. Hoping many more get inspired and we start having more brands using the many readily available ingredients.