So, what do you get when Rugby Players begin to brew beer? If you thought some whacky and crazy beer, you would be wrong. A stock standard lager is probably not something you would have thought. But this is the beer that Rugby Players Steven Kitshoff and Malcolm Marx provide us. They are local South Africa rugby players, playing for our country’s national team, the Springboks. The beer is brewed, I think, by Saggy Stone, or by friends of Saggy Stone, as this is where you can buy the beer, and it is listed on their website as well. Funny story, I went to the same school as Steven Kitshoff, and if my memory serves me correctly, I saw him play a year or two before he went off to university. My brother, a year younger than I am, went to school with Kitshoff’s brother.

In any case, I was sceptical about the beer; what could a bunch of non-brewers and rugby players, do with a beer? It looks like a standard draught, lager, with an exceptionally low ABV % (cash grab, money making brew??), and it does not offer the drinker much more than the local beer. Or so I thought…

I am always sceptical of beers with a low ABV %, as this is immediately a sign that they wanted to make the beer for cheap. Less ABV can in some sense directly correlate to fewer malt, and fewer malt is cheaper to brew. (Drunk) Logic. For reference, the standard lager brewed by commercial brewers in the country is between 4-5.5% ABV, so a 3.9% ABV comes to the low end of the continuum. The 5.5% ABV beer (usually Black Label or Castle Lager) is priced at R18.00 for a 500ml can, but the Bomb Squad beer costs double that, selling for R36.00 if I remember correctly now. That is quite the price for such a low ABV beer in my opinion.

Enough of the ABV rant… Let us get to the actual beer review.

And wow, was I wrong about the beer. Or not wrong, as the low ABV is also detrimental to the full-bodied taste of the beer, but this beer almost tasted like a Pilsner Urquell. It was incredibly malty almost smelling like a mash tun! If you have ever brewed your own beer, you will know the smell of a mash tun when you open it. (If you drank some of the warm wort (with a bit of whisky in it for those who dare) this is also very reminiscent of the taste.) While I drank the beer, I also had a very “toasted cookie malt” idea in my head, but always with the incredibly clean malty taste and nose. It was an incredible beer after all.

Don’t get me wrong, there is so much wrong with this beer. There is nothing experimental in any sense of the word, and the ABV being so low screams a quick money making scheme to me. Linked with the fact that they sell these beers at one of the major chain shops in bulk, I am very sceptical about the integrity of the people behind this project. Also, because it is being sold at this chain store, it is marketed toward the general beer drinker, not the craft enthusiast.

This is sad, because the beer is brewed, I think, at my favourite craft brewer, which makes some of the more experimental beers available in the South African craft beer scene.

But I am also surprised that this beer is so well rounded, malty, and dare I say, enjoyable. Will I return to this beer, the lager? Probably not for the price. It is way too expensive for what it offers compared to the other beers. Will I try their newest edition, a Pilsner? For sure! I am waiting for the Pilsner to reach me, I am not sure where I might get one.

Should Rugby Players (and for this matter wineries) brew beers? No, I don’t think so. They are playing it too safe, experimenting almost nothing, and offering us nothing more than the standard craft brewer does.

Let us hope for some more experimentation.

For now, happy #beersaturday, and enjoy a cold one!

All of the opinions are my subjective drunk opinions – I am not paid to say anything, in fact, I paid for the beer, so you know it is my drunken opinions. The musings and writings are my own. The photographs are also my own, taken with my Nikon D300.