So, I nearly did not make it to the Joburg Festival of Beer because I woke up on Saturday morning with a slight hangover (completely attributed to the fact that I enjoyed an epic quiz night at the Liverpool Supporters Club and the awesome vibe that Baraca’s and Aandklas Hatfield has to offer on a Friday night).
Here’s my review of Joburg Festival of Beer 2013
Despite this I got dressed, grabbed my camera bag and headed off to the Hatfield Gautrain station to make my way to the first edition of this awesome beer festival.
After my taxi driver nearly got lost in Greenside I finally arrived at Pirates Sports Club at 12 noon and immediately made my way to the Darling Brew stall to get a taste of one of my favorite craft beers, Darling Slow.
This went down smoothly with the first half of the rugby between the Springboks and Australia (which was showing on all the television sets scattered throughout the festival’s beer tent).
Next I enjoyed a Jack Black draught, sampled a Frankie Four Fingers brew, enjoyed some fresh biltong and sampled a variety of the other brews that were flowing from the beer taps at the Joburg Festival of Beer (whilst catching a glance of the other rugby matches being played on the day).
The atmosphere at Joburg Festival of Beer was awesome, especially during the second half of the rugby and while Justin Serrao was jamming some tunes in the beer tent.
I have to admit that after exploring my way through “beer heaven” I finally found a weiss beer that enjoyed. I could not understand why the queue was the longest at the stall, but my first Delerium’s Cherry Weiss beer went down so smoothly that I opted for a second draught (even though it cost R10 more than the other brews at the festival), so I understood why the queue was so long. Belgians really know how to make beer.
Other awesome surprises at the Joburg Festival of Beer included bumping into good friends like Henry, Annemien, Gareth, Tammy, Hanro, Dean, one of the dudes from Jet Black Camaro and various randoms that recognized me as “the guy who takes photos at all the festivals” and finding out that so many people in Joburg don’t know what Afrikaans is for “Puss in Boots” (in case you did not know, it’s Nicholis Louw “want hy is die gestewelde kat”).
At 6 PM my budget was depleted for the day, my liver was refusing to shake hands with me and it was getting dark, so I finally headed back to Snor City. I have to say that Joburg Festival of Beer was well organized.
There were enough toilets, enough food stalls and a enough beer to satisfy every taste you can think of in 30 seconds and even though there must have been close to 3,000 people at the festival at one stage it did not feel too crowded at all.
The only issue I had was that the food was a bit pricey (but on the flipside anything is pricey in Jozi). Kudos to the organizers for pulling off such an awesome event and kudos to Henry for getting me back safely in Pretoria. Let’s hope it makes its way to Joburg again next year!
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