2009/03/21
THE oldest alcoholic drink in the world is going global thanks to a brewing “mistake” at Grahamstown’s award winning Makana Meadery.
Already patented in South Africa, Dr Garth Cambray’s chance discovery is producing top quality IQhilika that is fast earning the micro brewery a world-wide reputation as a leader in mead technology.
Normally brewed in still batches, Cambray’s “continuous fermentation” system is set to revolutionise the industry after a chance online meeting a year ago with two Americans wanting to start their own micro brewery in Portland.
Now producing their own product at the Maine Mead Works, Ben Alexander and Eli Cayer said embracing the new technology had significantly lowered their start-up costs from 200000 (about R2m) to a mere 50000 dollars.
“It was a chance online meeting ... the timing was perfect,” said Alexander. “Garth was looking for someone in the USA to use his brewing technique and we wanted to produce honey mead.”
Alexander said in Grahamstown this week that, besides being able to set-up his meadery at a quarter of the projected cost, the golden brew it now produced fermented far quicker and more consistently than the ancient “batch” method.
“The Makana Meadery system is used nowhere else in the world. It is taking us less than two months to brew a batch of mead instead of the usual six months.”
The system also uses less energy, requires less working space than other micro breweries and cuts down on normal wastage costs.
European style mead takes more than six months to ferment, while the Xhosa way of brewing IQhilika takes about two days. The Makana technology ferments the product in 80 minutes and takes six weeks to mature and bottle.
Since their chance meeting, Cambray went to Maine to help set up the US operation and the two breweries have agreed to a “collaborative venture” to turn the world onto the new techniques.
The Makana system has already been registered in the US and a patent is pending.
Cambray said he stumbled on the “continuous fermentation” technique several years ago “by mistake” and soon found out circulating the yeast and honey mixture through a series of large, connected tubes was a more fail-safe option.
“Continuous flow keeps the yeast happy and allows it to do its job properly. The batch system does not always produce consistent flavours … it takes months to mature out.”
Cambray first dabbled in IQhilika brewing while still a student at Rhodes University in the late 90s and earned a PhD for his work.
His research project, however, soon turned into a BEE company that has helped empower hundreds of rural people by teaching them how to become beekeepers.
The company also has its own sawmill which it uses to make beehives and provides training to aspiring beekeepers from rural areas.
Started in 2000, the Makana Meadery has more than realised its goal of “placing a 20000-year-old South African honey-based beverage, IQhilika, on the world’s shelves”.
Besides exporting container loads of exotic blends like chilli, herbs and the more traditional mix, the famous Grahamstown brew was also used to toast former President Thabo Mbeki’s inauguration several years ago.
Since then, the company has branched out into bio-diesel and other green technologies.
Every day several buckets of ostrich fat from a nearby abattoir, old “chippie” oil from restaurants and supermarkets, and even crocodile fat is turned into top grade bio-diesel at the Meadery headquarters at the city’s Old Power Station.
“We are always looking at ways to turn waste products that are normally thrown away into fuels,” Cambray explains.
Besides working together to produce mead and sell the new fermentation technology globally, Cambray and Alexander share a vision to “use technology to improve local communities”.
During his visit to South Africa, Alexander and Cambray held several meetings with provincial high-flyers to “apply their proprietary fermentation process to the production of bio-fuels”.
The first known alcoholic drink in the world, mead was brewed in South Africa by the Khoi people using honey and the imoela plant root thousands of years ago.
African mythology says drinking mead will make a person feel “strong like a lion” – without having a hangover the next day.
“By drinking mead, the consumer is voting with their money to conserve bio-diversity ... bees nurture the environment and provide an income for beekeepers without them having to clear fields, use tractors and pesticides,” said Cambray.
Each bottle of mead is produced from nectar gathered from about 3million flowers. Bees travel about 20000 journeys, averaging 8km a round trip, which tabulates into about 160000km of bee flight per bottle of mead.
“Given that many of the flowers in South Africa and Maine are on trees, the bees assist in pollinating and conserving trees by making sure that flowers set seed and new trees grow. One bottle of mead results in enough young trees growing to remove 60kg of carbon from the atmosphere every year.” - BY DAVID MACGREGOR
Port Alfred Bureau
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