Being a brewmaster

Ella Al-Shamahi talks to two women from South Africa and Germany about reclaiming the craft of brewing beer - something which was historically the domain of women.

Apiwe Nxusani-Mawela is a brewmaster and the first black, female co-owner of a craft brewery in South Africa. Her award-winning range of Tolokazi beers pays homage to the female brewers of Africa, inspired by the Tolo Kingdom’s rich brewing history and celebrate ingredients unique to the African continent such as marula fruit and the rooibos bush. Apiwe regularly trains graduates - most of them women - in the art of beer-making at her brewing facility in Johannesburg. She is also an international beer judge and taster.

Ulrike Genz is the brewmaster at Schneeeule Brewery in Berlin, which she founded in 2016 after years of developing a recipe thorough scientific study of the Berliner Weisse, a beer that had its heyday in the middle of the 19th century. Once celebrated far beyond Berlin’s borders as the “Champagne of the North” the beer is now, according to Ulrike, a “barely drinkable, mass-produced industrial beer”. Schneeeule Brewery’s mission is to give Berlin back a piece of its culture back…served, of course, in the correct glass!

Produced by Hannah Dean

(Image: (L) Ulrike Genz credit Markus Raupach. (R), Apiwe Nxusani-Mawela beer4change.)