PODCAST: ‘Nothing Works but the People’ – the brewmaster

Joburg multimedia ace and storyteller Pheladi Sethusa spent months doing stints with different South Africans at work. The result is her fascinating podcast series, Nothing Works but the People.

Sethusa has already shadowed architects, teachers, bus drivers and hairdressers. Now, for something completely different, she zooms in on the daily grind of a professional brewmaster.

It’s a key job in a nation of beer lovers. In fact, according to research, South Africans are the fifth-highest guzzlers of beer in the world, with the average drinker consuming an average of 30 litres of the golden stuff per year.

But we’re not just talking about an average quart or two. Rather, this a glimpse into the making of the really good stuff.

As Sethusa puts it: “In metros like Joburg, craft beers are slowly overtaking demand. In this episode, we take a slight shift in form to tell a truly extraordinary tale of one brewmaster’s 20-year journey in the industry. Someone who has had a hand in creating some of the countries most renowned craft beers. His special recipes won awards but also led to betrayal more than once, but he refuses to be deterred and has just helped launch a raft of new brews taking the inner city by storm.”