South African Brewries

You may know Charles Glass as the small bespectacled man often depicted amid an assortment of test tubes and flasks perfecting the taste of what has become South Africa's trademark beer. But who was Charles Glass? From what is known about the legendary brew master, we can gather that he was an entrepreneur of sorts. He came to South Africa in the late 1800s during the Gold Rush. However, he discovered gold of a different form when he hit upon the brewing recipe for a pale-gold coloured liquid - Castle Lager.

He seems to have been a bit of a dark horse and a born traveller who did not stay in one place for long. Originally from Kent in England, his restless nature brought him to Newcastle, South Africa, where he met a man called H.B Marshall who first ignited his interest in brewing. He left Durban for Johannesburg, which was a mining town in those days, that very same year to set up a brewery. In 1884, he started the company Glass & Co. with H.B. Marshall and Jim Welsh in Marshall's Township, Johannesburg. It was a difficult time as Glass struggled to set up the brewery, plagued by shortages of proper building materials at the time. He had the further challenge of sourcing the hops, malt and the other ingredients necessary to brew the beer. He had to import these all the way from England.

The brewery was eventually completed and he started the work of producing a beer that would sell. It took a while. Miners in those days were more accustomed to drinking "hard tack" - a raw potato spirit mixed with tobacco juice and pepper - which was very cheap. At the time he was developing the brew, Charles Glass could be seen wheeling a barrow full of beer through the mining villages of Johannesburg observing the various reactions to his different brewing recipes.

The miners developed an appreciation for the recipe with a "somewhat bitter; somewhat dry but never sweet" taste as it had the perfect balance of being full-flavoured and thirst quenching. The beer grew rapidly in popularity. This brew was named Castle Beer in 1884 and the brewery was named Castle Brewery.

In 1895 the South African Breweries was founded with £500 000 capital, with its registered office being the Castle Brewery. Charles Glass sold his Castle Beer recipe to SAB and, having made his fortune, was struck by the travel bug once again and returned to England.

Glass is reported to have died in 1919. His legacy still lives on as the founder brewer for South African Breweries. His beer, now Castle Lager, is brewed in perfect balance using only the finest natural South African ingredients, making it the only beer to truly satisfy a South African thirst.