With our recent trip to Clarens, a historic city in the Free State, we had to stop at the local brewery, have some lunch, drink some beer, and buy way too much beer for our sanity! But life is too short not to enjoy it. There is a song in my language (Afrikaans) that goes something along these lines:
ons is jonk, ons is warm, ons is dronk […] min worries.
This roughly translates to “we were young, we were warm, we were drunk, no worries”. Many other similar songs and poems exist in our culture and language. Not to get too philosophical about it, but this speaks to a fond remembrance of the past, one in which there were little worries and stress about the future, a careless freedom in and for the past. In any case, we enjoyed the visit as it also gave me the opportunity to take some photographs of the beautiful interior and of the food. In fact, we were so hungry that I totally forgot to take photographs of the main food, but I took some of the pretzel.
The interior of the brewery is unique in that it again blends the old with the new. The old sandstone building in which the brewery is located, blends with the modern styles of beers, the found objects, like the old robot/traffic lights, with the contemporary tap system which they pour the beer with.
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The beers were lovely, I began with the IPA, a very floral/hoppy but also malty beer. I immediately tasted the familiar taste of the main hops they used, as I brewed a couple of beers with it. It has a very grassy and organic taste, reminding me a bit of olive oil, a very very strange idea I know. But I used some of these hops in my last batch of beer, and I can taste it immediately when a brewery uses it. (If I go back to my brewing logs, I might pinpoint which variety of hops they used. But these brewing logs are back at home, so I do not have access to them.) We have a "beer passport system with a few local breweries running, so you get a stamp and a free beer. In the photograph below, I scored the beer for free and I got a stamp on my beer passport!
I then moved on to the following beer, a special brew they brewed for their local beer festival. (I also bought way too many of them!) This was the brown ale but infused with hazelnut. The hazelnut (or nutty) smell is what first gets you as you open the beer and bring it close to your mouth. But more on this in my future post in which I review all nine or ten of their beers! That beer review post will be a long one. (This beer was obviously paired with the pretzel.)
We also did a beer tasting, but @urban.scout was not very impressed with these beers. As she sometimes says concerning wine, these beers taste a bit too much of beer to her. Jokes aside, she liked some of the beers, but the food was more to her liking. Especially the pretzel!
At the end, we ordered a pretzel, @urban.scout’s favourite. It was lovely, the crust was crispy, the interior so soft and fluffy, the salt adding to the complexity of the flavour, and their homemade mustard sauce, which I am sure was more of a bechamel sauce with mustard in, complemented the pretzel!
We had this dining experience outside on the main street of Clarens. There were few active people as it was still early morning, and there were not many cars driving past us. If we could go back, I would drink even more beers (as I am not the driver for once!) and eat more of their lovely food. The experience was surely one for the books, adding to the unique appeal of the brewery.
There was also a very cute water feature for dogs, which they called "The Doggy Ale". I think this was very original from them. (But I am sure others have also done this.)
Here are some last photographs that I took of the brewery itself:
I hope that you enjoyed these photographs of the brewery, and to have shared the experience with me. Not many people will come this way, but those who manage to visit this town really need to give the brewery a visit as well! You will also end up buying all of their beers just to try them all on your own time. (Because drinking 9 beers in one go is a little too much, even for me! But you can give it a go!)
Happy travelling, enjoy a cold beer, savour a nice plate of hearty food, and stay well!
All of the photographs used in this post are my own, taken with my Nikon D300. The musings and writings are also my own, inspired somewhat by their awesome beer!
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Clarens is the one place hubby and I never got to visit, but still is on my bucket list for local travel! That brewery looks like the perfect place to hang out, and get good food at the same time ;)
For sure! There were so many seats, and we were there very early. So we had the place for ourselves. I can only imagine the nice ambience it will have with many patrons and some good music!
Thank you so much @ewkaw for the curation! I really appreciate it and all of the effort throughout the year. Have a splendid festive season, and keep well!
Thank you! Have a wonderful holidays too :)