Pints sized up

South African Breweries Limited produce Castle beer (amongst other things) so if you think you want to order like a local then this is a safe choice, right? Wrong. According to my source, a self-professed local hospitalities expert, imported beers are pretty popular in South Africa now. If you want to order an African beer though, a good choice would be the Namibian Breweries beer Windhoek, a beer that is brewed according to German purity laws.

Windhoek is brewed using much more natural processes, and hops are the only thing that is used as a preservative in the beer. So if you open a keg of Windhoek you only have about 2 days to use it instead of the week you might have with a keg of Castle.

If you spilt a some Castle and you spilt some Windhoek and left both puddles until the next day you would find that the Castle was as clear as when you poured it. The Windhoek, however, would have already formed a layer of mould. Not that pretty, but at least it shows the Windhoek is healthier. Anything living that landed in the puddle of Castle clearly died immediately.

So the brewing process might be slower and it might be a few rand more expensive, but you can drink more of it without feeling the effects so badly the following morning.