South African beer has had two main influences on its development. Firstly, European settlers who colonised the country brought expertise and know-how as the country was populated. Dutch immigrants from the 1650s onwards and British immigrants during the 19th and 20th centuries contributed in different ways to the knowledge of alcohol production.
South African Western Beer Beer reached South Africa with its first white settlers and has been brewed there for over 300 years. On October 4, 1658, Jan van Riebeeck recorded in his diary that the first beer was brewed at the Cape on this day. Beer is today still held in high regard as a wholesome natural beverage. In 1960 the Malan Liquor Commission completed its intensive investigations into the distribution of intoxicating liquor in South Africa and reported as follows: "The thought of the Commission underlying this report is that conditions should be created which would encourage the consumption of natural alcoholic beverages, preferably in conjunction with food, at the expense of stronger liquor or spirits. Greater differences in price between natural beverages and spirits and the easy availability of the former are recommended as part of the scheme aimed at diverting the drinking habits of the people in this direction." Dr. E. M. Jellinck, who was regarded as the world's leading research scientist in the field of alcohol studies, came to the following conclusion: "The type of beverage used is always revealing of drinking habits. Beer is a beverage selected, not by inebriates, but mainly by moderate users of alcohol." Another critical but often overlooked influence has been indigenous knowledge. Local breweries operated by the
black population, especially groups such as the
Sotho,
Zulu and
Xhosa, have been brewing forms of
sorghum beers long before any Europeans arrived.
Umqombothi, from the Nguni languages (
Xhosa and
Zulu), is a traditional beer made in the
Transkei from maize (corn), maize malt, sorghum malt, yeast, and water.
Bantu beer The brewing and consumption of Bantu beer played an important role in
Bantu tribal life in Southern Africa. It is traditionally brewed by allowing a mixture of water and malted sorghum to ferment. The fermented product is only partially strained and thus retains a considerable percentage of solid matter. It is looked upon as both a food and a drink. In recent years commercially produced Bantu beer powders have replaced sorghum malt in home brewing and at smaller industrial breweries. Most municipalities enjoyed a monopoly on the production of Bantu beer in their areas, and the larger ones operated modern industrial plants. In the industrial production of Bantu beer, maize grits became the primary ingredient and were mixed with sorghum malt in a ratio of two to three parts of maize to one part of malt. Although most of the industrially produced Bantu beer is still sold in bulk, modern packaging in plastic and other types of containers was rapidly being introduced at most municipal breweries. Since the supply of European liquor to the Bantu was legalised in 1962, the sale of Bantu beer by municipalities started to increase faster. European and Bantu beer have much in common. The latter is virtually the primitive forerunner of the former. In
Leipzig, Germany, a centuries-old brewery is preserved as a tourist attraction, and its product is hard to distinguish from Bantu beer. It is not generally known that the nutritional value of European beer closely approximates that of Bantu beer. Both contain about the same percentage of alcohol, but in contrast, fermentation is terminated in the case of European beer by pasteurisation after bottling; it continues with Bantu beer until it turns 'sour'. The alcoholic content of Bantu beer increases after it leaves the brewery, and it is not unusual to find that it contains more alcohol than permitted by law, namely, 3% by weight or nearly 4% by volume. It was permitted by South African law of 1964 at that time. Now, back in the 1960s, the South African Government decided to use the profits that accrue to municipalities from the production and sale of Bantu beer to plough back for the benefit of the Bantu communities in their respective designated areas. At that time the
Apartheid Government built schools, libraries, clinics, four-room houses for the Black population of the land asthey were removing all African communities from their townhomes, e.g., Old
Alberton North (
Emagogogweni area) to
townships, e.g.,
Katlehong,
Thokoza, and
Vosloorus areas (
Katorus), far away from the European communities. They built all that using the Bantu Beer profits. Bantu beer was produced at a cost of approximately 8 to 10 cents per gallon and sold from bulk at about 20 cents, leaving municipalities with a gross profit in the vicinity of 10 to 12 cents per gallon, of which 2 cents accrue to the Central Government as excise duty. When a gallon of European beer was sold through a municipal outlet for consumption on the premises, the following amounts accrue: (а) the State (as excise duty) - 80 cents; and (б) the Municipality (as a gross markup on sale) - 83 cents. Municipalities had to pay 80% of their net profit on selling European liquor to the
Department of Bantu Administration for use in the development of Bantu
homelands. From the purely fiscal angle, there was seen to be a strong case for encouraging the Bantu to drink more European beer because more significant amounts would become available for the government budget. == Modern day ==