CUT brewers team showing off their R10 000 cheque prize money. From left: JJ Nell, Civil Engineering student, Janwillem Scheepers, Microbiology student; Dr Olga de Smidt, Lecturer Microbiology; Dr Gary Paul, Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Resources and Operations; Dr Jasiu Lewtak, Chemist, Renaldo Pillay, Design and Studio Art student, and Prof. Ryk Lues, Professor: Environmental Health.

Following a successful Beer and Food Affair held on 22 August 2019, the Central University of Technology, Free State (CUT) hosted 14 universities to compete in the 13^th SAB Intervarsity beer brewing challenge.

Participating universities were challenged to brew different categories of beer for the competition. Beers were subjected to rigorous judging under the leadership of Dr Chris Roth from the University of Pretoria. Qualified beer judges were invited to the event to judge all beer entries from 85 participants as a blind tasting

The competition forms part of SAB’s efforts to support universities in developing microbreweries which serve as valuable training grounds for students in microbiology, chemical technology and engineering programmes.

The challenge, which is a brainchild of Mr Anton Erasmus, Trade Brewer at SAB, aims to promote home brewing and beer culture in South Africa, encourage responsible beer appreciation among students and to introduce prospective SAB employees to the business.

After the AbInbev took over at SAB, the event was hosted in the Free State for the first time in 2018 and was a joint venture between CUT and UFS. In the same year, CUT team ‘Brewski’ won the People’s Choice Award for ‘Interbru’ Witbier and this year, the team made the university proud and walked away with R10 000 for each of the two prizes won namely; the Winter Warmer Award and the People’s Choice Award. Other winners include the University of Stellenbosch who won the Best African Premium lager and best of show prices, University of Cape Town won the best IPA category and North-West University took home the best label of the competition.

Dr Jasiu Lewtak, one of the team members and a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, said that as a team they are very happy and proud to have won the awards considering the fact that their equipment is not as advanced as that of other universities. “It is the first time that Phehla Brewery wins two awards in one competition given the fact that most universities have much more advanced equipment than us. With the little equipment that we have, we managed to create an excellent product, which we believe worked out very well for us during the competition. We are very happy and regard our success as something to be proud of.”

Dr Lewtak also mentioned that four market-ready beers from Phehla brewery were recently launched and he and his team are looking into commercialising the products. 

The event was sponsored by Test It LAB, Anton Paar and LiquidCultures.