The Universal Language Of Beer

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DAY 164: I’ve discovered that waiting around for my safari to start in Windhoek during the rainy season for a couple of days isn’t so bad—there’s always beer.

Just outside Windhoek are the Namibian Breweries, the fairly new beer-making factory built in 1987.  This newer brewery replaces the former one in town and produces ten beers—including Windhoek Lager, Windhoek Special and Tafel Lager—all under strict German purity standards, using ingredients imported from Germany.  With these strict German beer-making laws in place, Namibian Breweries also produces the German Beck’s and the Dutch Heineken.  They also produce and bottle schnapps, tonics and beverages of Pepsico.

MY TRANSPORT, ORGANIZED BY OUTSIDE ADVENTURES, was driven by Ephram, a middle-aged Windhoek native who sometimes referred to himself in the third person.  He told me about the segregated times in Namibia’s past—before a black man could go on such a tour of a brewery. 

“It was terrible,” he said.  “Luckily, Ephram was not shot.”

During the turbulent years, Ephram was a sort of modern day male Rosa Parks, entering “whites only” establishments, knowing that men are men and money is money, no matter what colors they are.

“I tell them, if the whites use different money than the black people, then fine, but the black people use the same money as the whites.” The money, he continued, was produced and printed by blacks and even the buildings of the establishments were constructed all by blacks—so why wouldn’t they be allowed to use them? 

Things have changed in Windhoek since then—although a lot of prejudice still exists today in one way or another.  At any rate, Ephram’s anecdotes and history lesson passed the time until we arrived at the parking lot of the beer plant. 

THE NAMIBIAN BREWERIES PLANT was a beautifully landscaped factory on the outside, with freshly cut lawns and gardens.  Inside the modern office building, which was as sterile as a hospital, I was greeted by Loureen the Namibian Breweries tour guide.  I thought it was just going to be the two of us until we were joined by a big school group of about twenty late-teens and a teacher.

Loureen led us around the plant, from the big mixing tanks and hoses to the filtration room to the big fermentation silos outside.  From there, we saw the motorized assembly line (picture above) where beverages were bottled by machines like in the introduction to Laverne & Shirley—if it wasn’t so much security, I would have tried to stick a glove on a bottle. 

I was sort of the outsider of the group since everyone else spoke to each other in either Afrikaans or some other tribal dialect.  I figured they might have taken me for a lone Japanese tourist since I didn’t say much and just shot away with my little Japanese digital camera.  One girl was suspicious of me and asked if I was one of the tour guides or on tour like they were.  I told her I was just a tourist.

WHILE THE PROCESSES OF BEER-MAKING ARE INTERESTING, they are not more interesting than the processes of beer-drinking.  When the factory tour ended, Loureen brought us to the bierkeller, the company bar, which was out of place in the modern building; it had an old-fashioned wooden German motif.  Loureen transformed from tour guide to bartender so that we could sample the fruits of the breweries’ labor.  While the students gathered around the bar, Loureen asked me first what I wanted to try.

“Well, what do you recommend?” I asked, revealing my American accent to the class.  Eyes lit up.  “I’ve tried the Windhoek and the Tafel, what else is there?”

“I can give you the Hansa draught.”

“Sure.”

“A big glass or a small one?”

“Uh,” I started, feigning the hesitation.  “A big one.”

“A big one!” I heard from across the bar.  One of the African guys was in full agreement with me.  His mates smiled.  As I sat at the end of the bar like Norm Peterson on Cheers with my big glass of Hansa draught, the curiosities of the others grew.

“Where are you from?” the professor asked me for the class.

“New York,” I answered. 

The class was in awe.  One guy—a really effeminate one—introduced himself as a singer and dancer as if I was some big New York talent scout.  (There was nothing I could do for him, although if you are reading this Blog Mr. Simon Cowell, come on down.)

BEER IS A GREAT ICE BREAKER because the more we “sampled” drinks, the more we broke down the cold barriers of prejudice.  I thought they might have mistook me for Japanese, but in fact, some of them thought I was one of the locals in the “coloureds” race.  I thought they were so young they were probably underage high school students, but they were actually college students of legal drinking age.

Eventually everyone got a taster—and by taster I mean a full-sized drink in the first of several rounds of beer—on class time too nonetheless!  While I sampled different beers (Windhoek Special is my favorite, with Hansa draught in a close second) I chatted with Tulongwe, Lizel and some other Namibian girls who told me the whole story of the class.  Although each of them had come from different areas of Namibia, Angola and Zambia, they were all students in an international university based out of Windhoek to learn the business of tourism.  Tourism in Namibia, like in most developing nations, is a major industry that brings millions of needed foreign money into the country.  Being in the program had its perks, one of them being field trips to Cape Town, France, Germany and local breweries.  (It was Lizel’s brilliant idea to go to the brewery for “research.")

“We should do this more often,” Tulongwe said to her classmates.  I was told this was the first time the class actually went out together in a social way.  Beer not only broke the ice for me to meet the class, it also brought them together amongst themselves.

“ANYTHING MORE?” Loureen asked me from behind the bar.

”Everything more!”

She served me another “taster.”

In the end, what had started out as a somewhat boring tour about tanks and fermentation turned out to be the start of new friendships.  The secret?  Beer! Lizel invited me to their class’ benefit party that Friday—inconveniently when I would be on safari already.  We swapped e-mails and cell phone numbers and I told them I’d contact them the following week when I got back to Windhoek to see if anything was going on.  Perhaps it’d be the next time they’d hang out socially again.  Perhaps it was just another excuse to drink more beer.

Ephram came to pick me up so I bid farewell to my new Namibian, Angolan and Zambian friends at the bar.  Ephram drove me back to the backpackers where I stumbled back through the gate.  Needless to say, I was pretty drunk from all the “tasting”—and all before noon too.

THE REST OF THE DAY I watched some more videos and partook in the nighttime braai of kudu steaks and boerewors (sausage).  I’d go into detail about it, but I don’t quite remember for some reason…


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This blog entry about the events of Wednesday, March 31, 2004 was originally posted on April 01, 2004 on the blog, "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World (Or Until Money Runs Out, Whichever Comes First)," hosted by BootsnAll.com. It is one of over 500 entries that chronicled a trip around the world from October 2003 to March 2005, encompassing travel through thirty-seven countries in North America, South America, Africa, Europe, and Asia. It was this blog that "started it all," where Erik evolved and honed his style of travel blogging. (It starts to come into focus around the time he arrives in Africa.)

Praised and recommended by USA Today, RickSteves.com, and readers of BootsnAll and Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree, The Global Trip blog was selected by the editors of PC Magazine for the "Top 100 Sites You Didn't Know You Couldn't Live Without" (in the travel category) in 2005.





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