Restaurants

Celebrating South Africa’s craft brewing heritage – Stellenbosch Brewing Company

On September 24, we, at Home Food and Travel, celebrated Heritage Day with a beer tasting. This has become an annual event and craft brewers from around the country have been kind enough to send us their wares.

This year, we had three brewers in attendance and we had the pleasure of tasting over 50 brews from 16 local breweries. In no particular order, this is what we discovered.

STELLENBOSCH BREWING COMPANY – STELLENBOSCH

Located on a farm off the R304 just to the north of Stellenbosch, the Stellenbosch Brewing Company offers a tap-room to taste their wares and a restaurant with a menu that serves as a great accompaniment to their brews.

Their interesting ranges of beers have won numerous awards.

Mass Hoppiness – IPA – American

The tasting notes supplied were very descriptive. To quote; “This liquid euphoria will lift your soul up to a higher plane of existence and pleasure your taste buds with heaven-sent happiness. Feel the wind in your hair as you soar through double dry-hopped tropical and citrus bliss and prepare for a crash landing of hoppy headiness.” We couldn’t agree more!

Born Free Pale Ale – American Pale Ale

An assertive American-style Pale Ale with unique gooseberry and citrus notes, perfect balance of hops and smooth drinkability. It was well-liked by our tasters.

Bosch Weiss – Hefeweizen

A lightly hopped, traditional Bavarian wheat beer specially fermented with a unique yeast strain lending notes of banana, clove and coriander.

Hoenderhok Bock

I particularly enjoyed this beer. It is a German-style dark lager with roasted malt and a white head. Boasting a rich ruby colour and full body, it has an ABV of 6.5% and is crisp and refreshing.

Eike Stout

It’s a medium-bodied stout with a balanced, malty sweetness. Vanilla beans have been added during maturation, which has created lovely notes of caramel and smooth finish.

Interested in the other breweries we sampled? Read all about our experience with Karoo Kraft Bru here.

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About us

Actually, Home Food and Travel offers a lot more than just reviews of accommodation, restaurants, spas and adventure activities. We also visit great destinations, receive advice from interior designers and stop to smell the roses and taste the coffee.

Our team of journalists are seasoned travels and love visiting the myriad of exciting places around South Africa. Whether it is off the beaten track or in the heart of the top attractions of the country, we’ll be there,

Home Food and Travel advice on finding the right accommodation

So what is the right accommodation? Well more often than not, it’s your travel budget that dictates the type of accommodation that you choose.

Expensive is not always better. Our team at Home Food and Travel will tell you that they have camped in areas with limited ablutions and had a wonderful holiday. They have also spent a night in a five star hotel only to be disappointed because their expectations exceeded the experience.

The reason for your travels will also affect your choice. A business trip requires different amenities to a beach holiday.

Our articles, reviews and experiences can certainly help you make your decision.

Restaurants with a good mix of service, food and ambiance

To my mind a great restaurant offers three things – excellent service, great food and a wonderful ambiance. Of these, service is the most important.

No matter that the food is delicious and the setting delightful, poor service can ruin the occasion. However, great service combined with mediocre meal and a plane jane restaurant can still be a pleasant night out.

We’ve eaten in restaurants that are really dirty but with incredible food and couldn’t help but give a rave review. We’ve also hardly noticed what we ate because the setting was just amazing.

However, the best restaurants come with the best of service, food and ambiance.

Spas are the ultimate relaxation aid

How do you know when you have had a great spa experience? The answer, of course, is when you doze off on the treatment table.

Well that’s our theory anyway. It also doesn’t take a grand location with enormous facilities for a spa to be really good

A small, personal spa that is owner run can result in the best massage you have ever experienced. However, the grand spas in five star hotels offer unsurpassed facilities in an environment that just makes the stress in your shoulders and neck melt away before you even finish checking in.

Adventure!

You don’t have to be an adrenaline junky to enjoy an exciting experience. In fact, what are commonly termed adventure activities usually have incredibly high safety standards and unblemished safety records.

Ziplining, bungy jumping and shark cage diving are all very safe. It’s just that our mind tells us we are craaazzzzyyyy to be doing this.

On the road to great places of accommodation, restaurants, spas and adventure activities

If you’re driving, be safe and make use of all the wonderful farm stalls that populate South Africa’s open roads.

If you overhear somebody asking a lot of questions or see someone taking photos of empty bedrooms chances are it’s one of our Home Food and Travel team members.

We’re out looking or those great places of accommodation, restaurants, spas and adventure activities.

See you on the road!