Mitchell's Knysna Brewery

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Tourism • Tourist Attractions • Wine & Booze Routes • Plettenberg Bay

Welcome to the Home
of Naturally Brewed
Quality Draught Beer!

Drinking just one Mitchell's Draught is bound to make you a loyal Mitchell's Drinker for the rest of your life!

Our hand crafted beers are brewed using only the finest ingredients to ensure that we supply a superior product to our discerning market.

Our Story...

Mitchell’s brewery was started in 1983 in Knysna by Lex Mitchell. We started off brewing only Forester’s and Bosuns for Knysna only. The product was so popular that they had to move to much bigger premises to keep up with demand. Lex then opened the Cape Town branch of Mitchell’s brewery in 1989 to be able to offer our fine Draught’s to the Cape Town market.

The popularity of the beers saw other lines being added to our repertoire, and so the business grew.

Unfortunately, due to family commitments Lex had to move to Port Elizabeth, and so he sold the breweries to Scottish and Newcastle (a massive brewing group in the UK) in 1998. The brewery was run by them for 4 years.

Mitchell's has grown in leaps & bounds,
and is now SA’s largest Micro Brewery

In 2002, the business was bought back from Scottish and Newcastle by Dave McRae (Dave has been working and brewing at Mitchell’s since 1984, and still runs the Knysna operation) and Allan Hodgson (a business man from Johannesburg with a love for good beer!). the Cape Town branch was then sold off to an independent operator.

The Home of Naturally Brewed South African Beers

Tourism • Tourist Attractions • Wine & Booze Routes • Plettenberg Bay

Drinking just one Mitchell's Draught is bound to make you a loyal Mitchell's Drinker for the rest of your life!

Our hand crafted beers are brewed using only the finest ingredients to ensure that we supply a superior product to our discerning market. Our Ales are unpasteurised, live ales, produced locally in Knysna using a carefully selected amalgam of British mashing and German lagering techniques to produce ales uniquely suited to South African conditions.

Our range of premium brands consists of the following:

Forester's Draught
3.6% Alcohol

A light (both in colour & body), refreshing Pilsner-type beer, which is sweetish and light on the palate. A slightly aromatic beer which is lightly hopped and VERY invigorating on a hot day. Also a favourite with the ladies.

Pilsner - clear, bottom fermented beer. Today a term used often to describe a lager pale to light gold.

Bosun's Bitter
3.6% Alcohol

The first "REAL ALE" produced in South Africa. A not too bitter ale modeled on the line of the English Yorkshire Bitter. Full bodied and characterful, this beer has much to offer those who are looking for flavour.

Bitter - is a generic term for highly hopped ales. Light to medium brown.

Mitchell's Old 90 /Ale (Ninety Shilling)
5% Alcohol

A heavy spicy ale, with gloriously round, full palate. Let this traditional Scottish Ale take you back in time as you savour the complex aromatic notes and full - bodied amber glow. Do, however treat it with respect!

Ale - is top-fermented or warm fermented beer. Colours vary from pale to dark.

Raven Stout
5% Alcohol

Black, full bodied, and very flavourful. A medium strength stout, very smooth on the palate and exhibiting a pronounced bitter and distinct hop aroma, a well balanced milk stout - great for a winter's evening or any other time!

Stout - Top fermented, classic ale. It is usually very dark, well hopped, bitter and strong.

Millwood Premium
3.6% Alcohol

A smooth tasting, full bodied lager with plenty of character. Easy drinking draught lager, ideal for any occasion.

Lager - is the term used to describe bottom-fermented beers.

The Home of Naturally Brewed South African Beers

Tourism • Tourist Attractions • Wine & Booze Routes • Plettenberg Bay

The Brewing Process...

The very beginning of making a great beer is using high quality malt (barley that is soaked in water, as soon as it starts to germinate it is taken out of the water and dried in an oven. The malt is dried to different degrees, and that is how the 3 different types, pale, crystal and black malt are created).

We use about 400kg of Malt per brew (we use different mixes of the 3 malts to create the different beers, but the actual mix is a secret…)

The malt passes through a dry roller to roughly crush it, so we can get to the starch a little bit quicker. The crushed up malt is now called grist. The grist is then mixed with water at a precise temperature, and then falls into a mash tun (a big stainless steel tank). We then leave the grist and water mixture together for about an hour and a half. During this time the starch is turned into fermentable sugars. After this time we have about 700 litres of a strong sugary solution called Wort.

The wort is then pumped into a Wort kettle where we add more water to get the 3250 litres we want to brew. We then boil this mixture for an hour and a half. During this time 200 litres are evaporated, and the sugar content is increased (The boiling of the Wort also sterilises and clarifies).

The other important thing that happens at this stage is that we add the hops. Hops contribute to the bitter flavour in beer and acts as a natural preservative, which is handy as, as our beers contain no preservatives at all!

Then the wort is then pumped into the whirlpool, where it creates its own spinning motion. This forces the trub (sediment) to the bottom of the tank.

Naturally Brewed with
no added Preservatives!

Now for the fun bit….we have to make some alcohol. This is done by adding yeast to the wort. At this point the wort is at about 96 degrees centigrade (far too hot for yeast), so we have to cool it down. We use a simple heat exchanger to do this. It works in a similar way to a car radiator. The wort is pumped through a pipe, surrounded by other pipes which contain cold water. A heat transfer takes place and the wort cools down, and the water heats up. We then save this water in a big hot water tank to use in the next brew. It’s a great by-product as it means we save water as well as electricity!

When the wort is between 12 and 15 degrees C it is pumped into the cellar, (a controlled temperature environment), into a fermenting tank. At this point we add the yeast, and it starts turning the sugars into alcohol. We then leave it for about 6 days to ferment. The yeast settles to the bottom of the tank and is removed. After this period it is called green beer, and is pumped across into a storage area (about 5 degrees C). The beer then starts a secondary fermentation at this stage. During this period carbon dioxide is given off, and absorbed into the beer. This is what gives our Draughts their natural bubble. We leave the beer for about 10 days, and after this it is almost ready to drink. There is still a bit of yeast floating in the beer so we need to clear it out.

The only clarification that we do is a fining process. We use isinglass finings (these are made from the air bladders of fishes). These are mixed with water and make a jelly like substance which is blown into the bottom of the tanks. The yeast is negative and the finings are positive, so they attach to each other, and settle to the bottom of the tank. After this three day settling process we pull +/- 50litres off the bottom of the tank to clear the sediment and the finings.

The beer is now ready to be filled into a keg, and shipped off to your favourite bar or restaurant for you to drink and enjoy