A Homebrewer
and A Baker

That beer was amazing – to say the least. So now, after having brewed hundreds of batches of beer we can determine the style of that first attempt and categorise it as I.P.A. where “I” stands for “Inspired”.

After a few more batches we applied to the South African authorities for the liquor license to micro manufacture beer. We changed our 20L bucket system to 500L tanks, bought some glasses, plates, knives and forks and in 2018 we opened Thorny Creek Brewery and The Red Bus Cafe on our Veranda.  How simple and beautiful it was! We only had three tables and nothing else really – a very rustic setting surrounded by a few trees, aloes, the hills of our property. People started coming, we were brewing, serving food and it was an incredible journey offering craft and organic, the best  of the best we could find. We harvested our own vegetables, made juices, pink ravioli and green papardelli from the scratch… we will treasure these memories forever. Those who set at our three tables had the most interesting experience in the little hamlet of  Kleynspoort, a small but steadily growing village near Oudtshoorn, the Ostrich capital of  South Africa. All profit was invested back to our business.

When we discovered that we could actually use a bi-product of brewing – brewer’s spent grain – our menu went to a different level: it was not just bread it was bread baked with beer and spent grain, a cake wasn’t just a cake it was cake baked with spent grain flour and our organic vegetables.  For some people it might have seemed that we simplified our menu but we saw it differently. We refined our operation. With this concept we went through Covid and through stages of busy and quiet weekends. Seven years of this operation flew by fast then we decided to take some time off. To think and reflect.

Our main objective was no waste sustainability. We loved it, our customers understood and supported this concept. We would now like to spread our method of brewing and baking to households.