There are 99 reasons to go to this pub

02 September 2013 - 02:50 By NASHIRA DAVIDS
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Beerhouse on Long Street, Cape Town, proudly boasts 99 bottles of craft beer, including Defrium, which has been voted best beer in the world
Beerhouse on Long Street, Cape Town, proudly boasts 99 bottles of craft beer, including Defrium, which has been voted best beer in the world
Image: SHELLEY CHRISTIANS

A Cape Town businessman has brought the road trip ditty 99 Bottles of Beer on The Wall to life. Beerhouse in Cape Town's Long Street stocks 99 varieties of craft beers from all around the world. And, of course, the bottles are on display on the wall.

Randolf Jorberg, a German entrepreneur who moved to Cape Town in 2007, said the idea came while he was sitting in a German pub with his South African girlfriend Varnia Jacobs.

"We were sitting in a small bar with this wide variety of beer and I thought: 'Wow! This would well work in Cape Town'," said Jacobs.

On August 2, International Beer Day, they opened Beerhouse, complete with a counter with 7 000 bottle caps and beer bottle chandeliers. "We are not here to make money for a season or two; we are here to stay. We want this place to be here 20 years from now; we want this yellow building to become a landmark in Long Street," said Jorberg.

In the toilets, customers are encouraged to indulge in "bog poetry graffiti" or what the owners also term "bogging". "Beer whisperer" Murray Slater, spent two nights writing brief descriptions of all 99 beers on the menu.

"You get four core ingredients in beer; water, malted barley, hops and yeast. All of those can be used to manipulate the flavour and style. So you've got four different variables - that is why beer has so many variations, more than wine. And the majority of South Africans don't know about it," said Slater.

Many locals might only know of pilsner, lager and stout, but Jorberg believes they are ready for chocolate stout, or a wheat beer blended with strawberry juice, and maybe Belgium's Defrium, which was voted the best beer in the world in 2008.

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