One late night 2 years ago…
After only 8 months of trading it is clear, that not only the media, but specially our guests love our Beerhouse and it is getting clear, the Beerhouse is here to stay and grow with the first Beerhouse in Johannesburg about to open.
We are very happy with our baby, that opened August 2nd 2013 and we’d like to share, how the idea of Beerhouse started during a trip to Germany:
Other than Babies, the Beerhouse concept took a solid 16 months from conception to birth. It was exactly two years ago on April 2nd, 2012, that my (then pregnant) girlfriend Varnia and me were sitting in a beer bar in Heidelberg, discussing the various available Beers and their stories and wondering why no similar place exists in Cape Town. Quick market research through text messages and Facebook followed and we realised, that there might indeed be a gap in the South African market.
Thanks to the pregnancy, we went back to the hotel quite early that evening and I reserved the most obvious domain name beerbar.co.za, created a brand new Facebook page, invited Capetonian friends and started posting, before going to bed.
I couldn’t be bothered to work on the Beerbar idea when we returned from our Eurotrip, as pregnancy and my OMClub party took up all my time, but I did notice the friends congratulating me on our new bar business.
Beerhouse Team at the CT Festival of Beer 2012: Varnia, Randolf and baby Eliza. Not in the picture: Jane
Just a few days after the birth of our daughter it happened: Varnias uncle told us, that some of his rugby mates asked him, ‘whether he heard about these mavericks, that were planning to open a beer bar with more than 40 different beers’ and they mentioned my name. Beer blogger Joakim had written about us, although we had no location, no experience in the hospitality industry – we did nothing, but promise beer variety…
I slowly realized what we’ve done: it wasn’t only friends & family, that liked our idea. We had planted an idea into peoples mind and they actually really wanted a beerbar with 40+ different beers! We finally started to seriously turn a drunk crackpot idea into a business.
Even without any experience in the industry, it is obvious, that a successful bar business starts with a good location and Long Street is where it’s at. After looking at smaller available vacancies, we finally called the ‘Restaurant space to let’ number, that we walked past so many times and found a fascinating venue we knew would work.
Few days after signing the contract for 223 Long Street we still had no real idea how to open a bar, but were ready to spread the word. We printed blue Beerbar T-Shirts and visited the Cape Town Festival of Beer, where we met all the brewers, that are now our best partners for the first time and we also found our vision: give our guests at the Beerhouse a 365 day a year beer festival experience and be the tasting room for the South African craft beer industry.
With the new name finalised we decided to not wait for a logo and the Artads artists painted the name, two beer mugs and the opening soon message on the building, that would stay visible way past the April due date we originally anticipated. We invited all our new beer loving friends to the Beerhouse fundraising & christening party and were able to collect more than R5000 in donations for Baphumelele, Stormont Madubela Primary School and the Butterfly Art Project thanks to the support by United dutch Breweries, Keg King, Rob Heyns & Roeland Liquors.
With all this exciting momentum, we launched into 2013, knowing that a family-team together with relentless Jane, wouldn’t be able to do it all themselves and would need to grow. Once again fortune was in our favour and Murray joined us after just returning to Cape Town from a career and his own restaurant in London…
and the rest is history… 😉
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Beerhouse to rebrand as TEAHOUSE
April Fools 2014!
Thank you for all the hilarious feedback! The Beerhouse is looking forward to many more years and April Fools!
Original posting follows: Due to a lack of interest in beer the owner of Beerhouse has decided that it is not beer that people are craving but tea.
“Tea is the new beer” exclaims an excitable Randolf Jorberg. “There was not enough interest in beer and customers were always asking us to open a tea house”, Jorberg continues with unabated excitement. So it looks like the creators of Beer House will be shunning the dead end trend in beer and will look to create a list of 99 tea varieties both exotic and indigenous at the all-new TEAHOUSE.
It seems they have timed this re-branding just in time for winter. As the storms roll in and the grey clouds descend – sit back and have a Cuppa.
Perhaps the biggest challenge to this rebranding is the complicated process of converting the giant cold room which use to hold the #99 beers into a giant kettle to keep that cuppa hot. Craig Van Der Bank, builder at Projectmen, is optimistic that the procedure is relatively painless. “The fridge unit is insulated already so it would just be a case of lining it with metal, installing a giant filament and bobs your uncle – a giant Kettle” The Tea house will dispense tea from its giant kettle through its beer taps and replace its glassware with chintz mix and match cups and saucers
Murray, formally the Beer Whisperer and now the Tea Bellower is excited about putting together a list of #99teas. “I am particularly excited about our home made blends of tea, it will allow us to customize tea blends to our tea lovers needs and requirements”. “We have also got hold of some rare and unusually teas”. They will have a Oolong tea which is picked by monkeys – which will be sold as Oolong on long. They will be purveyors of Pu’erh, 50 year old decomposed tea that’s worth its weight in gold and hand se
wn Lotus balls which unfold themselves when steep in water.
He enthusiastically continues–“ It is a lot easier than starting a brewery which you need a license for and can take months or years to obtain – You don’t need a license to turn on a kettle”.
The Tea House will be serving High Teas, with and assortment of dainty cakes, scones and cucumber sandwiches. There will be Tea O’ Clock Tasting trays so you can sample the large inclusive variety.
Tonight is Beerhouse’s last hurrah – so come have a pint of the amber nectar before it gets replaced with the Tea House Cuppa. Jorberg is not closing the door on the Beerhouse completely and harbours ambition to re-open it once the storms have passed. Until then!! Stay Thirsty / Stay Curious
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