The making of Umqombothi – the traditional African beer – is set to leave a bitter taste for drinkers and brewers who produce the drink for commercial purposes.
With the newly-amended Liquor Products Act that came into effect last Friday, there are now strict production requirements that traditional beer merchants will have to abide by in order to stay on the right side of the law.
The new law prescribes that traditional African beer can only be made through the “alcoholic fermentation of malted grain of sorghum, maize, finger millet or pearl millet, or unmalted grain or meal of sorghum, maize, finger millet or pearl millet”.
It also needs to contain at least 4 percent solids derived from the grain but it may not contain or be flavoured with hops or any product derived from hops. The law also deal with requirements that need to be met for other fermented beverages.
Dipepenene Serage, chief director for inspection and quarantine services in the department of agriculture, land reform and rural development, said the inclusion of the traditional African beer in the new law was meant to address the issue of incidents of people adding toxic ingredients in their brews then calling it traditional African beer.
“Alcoholic beverages prepared for traditional ceremonies are exempted, the responsibility lies with the person preparing and serving it,” Serage said.
He warned that anyone breaking the law will be dealt with in terms of the Criminal Procedure Act.
Inkosi Zwelivelile Mandela, chairperson of parliament's portfolio committee on agriculture, land reform and rural development, said the law was meant to strengthen enforcement of the legislation in respect of all liquor products that are produced for sale, including traditional African beer produced for sale.”
The new law, however, has been met with mixed reactions from cultural activists and traditional leaders.
Chief Livhuwani Matsila from the Matsila royal family in Venda hailed the law as progressive.
He said the legislation will address incidents in which people lost their lives from consuming what police have classified as traditional beer including during the hard lockdown when alcohol sale was banned.
Matsila said the making of the African traditional beer has to be regulated to ensure that “chancers” who brew dangerous concoctions under the pretext of traditional beer are dealt with. “This will also lead to good efforts against the stigmatisation of traditional liquor products as those of inferior quality,” Matsila said.
Poet and cultural expert Zolani Mkiva said the law “recognises traditional beer as product of our heritage intelligence which is not below other products of Western influence”.
Cultural activist Mberegeni Maanda said Western ideas don't often work in African ways of living. “Different people brew traditional beer in different ways, some of the ingredients being used by other tribes won't even be written in that legislation,” Maanda said.
Dr Mashudu Dima, an expert on indigenous knowledge systems, said the move was an unnecessary Westernisation of African ways of doing things.
Dima said he sees no value in regulating how traditional African beer was being made. “It's not worth it for us as African people unless you're brewing something that has some tablets inside which is not healthy, what we do is African beer with natural fermentation,” Dima said.
Maurice Smithers, director of the Southern African Alcohol Policy Alliance in SA, said the law is meant to be quality control measure aimed at ensuring the quality of the product and for people to know what is exactly in a beer beverage they’re drinking, including umqombothi.
“The important thing to note is that this is not a ground-breaking piece of legislation, it is important but as a quality control law... you can't include strange ingredients in alcohol as some people would put things like battery acid to give it a quicker hit,” Smithers said.
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