Django beer: Crafty brews
Django Brothers’ beers are seen flowing from more and more taps across the region. City Life Accra met the two founders for a beer
It’s a scenario many of us in Ghana will be familiar with. Ask the waiter which beers are available and a list of the usual suspects is reeled off. A sigh meets it, and an order for ‘whatever is coldest’. There’s nothing wrong with the standard offering, of course, it’s just… well… low on variety. It was after just such an encounter, on a work trip to Cape Coast, that Rahul Sapra and Karan Chimnani finally decided to do something about it. “We rolled our eyes. We were fed up of the usual options, so we decided to start a brewery,” Rahul says. “We weren’t even home-brewers, but you know how people get drunk, and guys get together and start talking. It usually fizzles out, but in this case, we woke up the next morning and decided to do something about it.” Fast forward three years and Django Brothers is now brewing from a base in Tema and selling exceptional beers across Accra. You’ll see its eye-catching logo in supermarkets including Shoprite and Melcom, and bars such as Honeysuckle and Smoke ’n’ Barrel.
At a time when the craft beer movement is exploding in almost every corner of the globe, Ghana has mostly been left behind. With the very notable exception of Clement Djameh’s Inland Microbrewery – he’s a world-class brewer – the country has been left untouched. With Django Brothers comes not only the beers you’d find in any bar in the US or UK – IPAs, wheat beers, craft lagers – but also the aesthetic, the vibe, and the focus on quality that craft brewing celebrates.
Over a Django lager – flawless in its execution of a Bavarian Pilsner – at Smoke ’n’ Barrel, Rahul and Karan explain the unique challenges starting a brewery in Ghana poses, how a lack of knowledge hasn’t made this a comfortable journey and what the future holds.
The fun of starting a brewery, no doubt, lies in the research. Indian-born Rahul and Karan travelled the world, from London to Kolkata, Cape Town to Washington DC. “We bought every book on beer there was,” Karan said. Before long, they had ordered a brewing kit. “Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. Even the company we bought the equipment from went bankrupt.”
That wasn’t all. The equipment got choked up; the pipe-fitters refused to work to the plans; engineering failures put the equipment out of commission for months. And, perhaps inevitably, the first beers weren’t that great. But in September 2018, with new head brewer Kuldeep Verma behind the recipes, they began to sell their much-improved beers across Accra and in their shipping container taproom at their Tema brewery. The wheat beer, coffee stout, lager and IPA are increasingly available across Ghana and are sought after at bars and embassy events, restaurants and supermarkets. At the Tema taproom, visitors can also try experimental brews – many made using local ingredients, such as mango and pineapple IPAs – while playing games and having a tour, too. The duo is also making craft sodas such as tonic water with local hibiscus. And there are plans to open a taproom in Accra (“with the coldest beers in Ghana”) and continue expansion across the country and West Africa.
“The whole idea was to bring part of the craft beer culture to this region of Africa,” Rahul concludes. n
To book a brewery tour, visit the Django Brothers Facebook or Instagram pages (@djangobros).
