Well, just a month into us owning a brewery, we where invited to the Bathurst Country Affair which provides a platform to market this historic town in the Eastern Cape. if you looking for some history about the area, have a look at some of the local sites (try https://www.pigandwhistle.co.za to start with) as there is a lot of history (and big pineapples) and incredible urban legends.
A mad rush to get some marketing material together with a week or two to go, we managed (somehow) to get everything together including some artisanal chocolates from ela@sjukla.com for a beer-chocolate pairing combo (sounds weird, but works incredibly well). @thanks the fatter boet!
Day one and we off to go setup our venture at the beer garden at the Pig ‘n Whistle where Gavin welcomes us to his establishment. Our team is exceptional and having done this before, prefer that the two brothers rather step aside while they get to work. Our role in this whole event is to “stay out of the kitchen” and entice visitors to sample our beer.
The three day event was great for several reasons. Our main aim was to get the Kraft Alchemy brand out there and to get a feeling for the environment and the people that frequent such events. We sold some beer, but more importantly we met some great and interesting folk that besides some great discussions gave us a better insight into the craft market vibe.
I got to know my Beer Krew a lot better and spent many hours talking about the past and how we can make the brewery even better – kudo’s to Alert, Milli and Alma for their passion for this little brewery in Port Alfred and without them, we could never achieved what we did. Also special thanks to Gavin and Lucy and their team at the Pig ‘n Whistle for making us feel so welcome and part of this country affair.
I can say that it was a great learning experience and there are some lessons learnt for the future – all I know is that we have a great product that more people need to know about.
There are some great story tellers in these part of the woods (not us – other town folk), so take some time to listen to the locals while sipping on a local Squires Porter, which is incredible in the winter months I would suggest.
Great Times, Great People, Great Beer – what could be better
Bottoms Up.
Adrian