Beers & Beats

FODDER BEERS & BEATS

THE BEER – SOUL BARREL BREWING CO.

Soul Barrel Brewing Company’s Live Culture Grand Cru was recently crowned best beer in Africa. We chat to founder and co-brewer Nick Smith about both the brewery and the beer.

Before starting Soul Barrel, you completed a Masters in brewing in California, you were an area manager for the New Belgium Brewing Co. and before that you were the senior brewer at Abita Brewery near your hometown of New Orleans. How did a New Orleanian land up starting a brewery in the wine country of Franschhoek, South Africa?

Part of my family is South African. We moved here five years ago with the vision of brewing world class beer that showcases South African ingredients. The beer industry has given me an adventurous life and we hope to provide the same opportunities here and help grow the craft beer industry. The brewery is built within the tank walls of the old Drakenstein Winery Co-Op, which closed in the 80s. Opening the brewery was a way to breathe new life into the cellar and start fermentation again.

What’s the story behind the name, Soul Barrel?

In New Orleans we believe in living with soul; meaning put meaning, purpose and passion into life. We brew with soul here. We also focus a lot on barrel aging.

How did you and your co-brewer Devin Hendricks connect? Do you share a similar frothy, yeasty outlook on life?

Devin worked part time down the road with our friends at Cape Brewing Company. When we started asking around, they recommended him to us. He was our first employee. Devin’s passion for beer and brewing was apparent to us immediately. He has worked hard and accomplished a lot in a short time here.

Tell us about your champion beer, the Live Culture Grand Cru, which just won best beer on the continent at the African Beer Cup.

It’s such a cool, unique beer! Our goal for Live Culture is to make a world class beer, unlike any in the world, displaying the best of South African ingredients. Live Culture is brewed directly into a large French oak barrel that hosts our house-mixed yeast culture. We’ve been brewing into it for almost five years now, and we never re-pitch yeast. Every time we empty it, we brew right back onto the yeast so it evolves with each batch, hence “Live Culture”. The Grand Cru version was our most ambitious to date. Grand Cru is a term brewers borrowed from winemakers, meaning “great growth”, and typically represents a special blend or release of the highest quality. Last year we floor malted a batch of barley in one of our old giant wine tanks, then dried it in the sun and over a fire for a very special beer. This special version of Live

THE BEATS – SI’S PLAYLIST

Si Kay, the filmmaker behind the German brown trout flick Kristalklaar has been busy this year making a film about fly fishing for grunter. As he’s bombed around the Garden Route, filming guides and innovative fly-tiers and capturing the spotty bastards unawares, these are the tunes – from MGMT to Jack Parow and Tenacious D – that have kept him going.

PRESS PLAY

Non-identical conjoined twins, Si Kay (left) and LeRoy Botha, have perfected the art of the synchronized howzit. Culture features 100% Soul Barrel malt, made from Caledon barley. A long aging period followed, during which the wild yeast slowly continued to work, contributing the dry, funky, peppery, light fruit notes the Live Culture is known for. After aging it was blended with fresh citrus, fynbos and hops. This version reminds us of aged, dry champagne. The beer is thoroughly imprinted with our environment. The process of growing the grain, fermenting the beer with our native wild yeast, and aging it with our homegrown fynbos gives it a unique sense of place.

For many decades there wasn’t much choice in South Africa when it came to beer, but that appears to be changing. As someone who has seen the scene in both countries, in your opinion, when it comes to beer, are South African palates maturing?

Definitely! For us to win best beer in Africa with a wild fermented beer like Live Culture is a sign of how things have evolved. We’ve seen a huge increase in our barrel aged beers, and in our intensely flavoured hoppy IPAs and seasonal beers. Our best-selling beers are IPAs, not lagers. Since COVID, we’ve also seen a big increase in people supporting local and uniquely South African beers.

What should we be looking out for next from Soul Barrel?

We remain intensely focused on quality. We want each beer we brew to be among the best in the world. We want to provide South Africans with a world class beer experience that changes their perception of beer. We’re busy expanding the brewery and further developing our people, and we also have a bunch of new beers we’re working on. We have a whiskey barrel-aged stout coming out soon, a fruity, hazy IPA and another stout brewed with local oats.

For more, visit soulbarrel.co.za