Lagerboy Speaks – Windhoek
Windhoek, as all nerdy Geography types like myself know all too well, is the capital of Namibia. A large tooth-shaped mass of desert in far south west Africa, it is the world’s second emptiest country (after Mongolia). Yet here, 6000 miles away in eastern Scotland, Windhoek Lager has managed to find itself for sale in Lagerboy’s local beer retailer. The people behind this? The Germans. Namibia was Africa’s only German colony, as part of ‘Südwestafrika’, and wherever they end up, they know a thing or two about brewing. In 1920 a handful of the country’s independent breweries were finding the going difficult, so like good businessmen anywhere, local ex-pats Carl List and Hermann Ohlthaver snapped them up and merged the operations. ‘South West Breweries’ was re-named as Namibia Breweries Ltd in 1990, when the fledgling republic gained control from occupying South Africa.
One of their core brands is Windhoek Lager, described on their website as ‘A premium, natural beer brewed according to the German Purity Law of 1516 using only the finest imported ingredients certified to contain no genetically modified organisms. This beer is mild in bitterness with a distinctive hops flavor, delivering an exquisite taste profile.’ Leaving aside the foodmiles implication of having German hops transported to southern Africa to be turned into beer and flown back to Europe, the beer itself is not too bad. A bit bitter, slightly gassy, but otherwise fairly inoffensive. It is liked by other people though, having won a gold medal at the 2005 DLG Awards (Deutshe Landwirtschafts-Gesellschaft, of course). But for Lagerboy, it’s a run-of-the-mill beer, similar to other German lagers. And as with those, you could do far worse.
