COVID-19 Slows But Doesn’t Stop Africa’s Craft Beer Brewing Women

COVID-19 Slows But Doesn’t Stop Africa’s Craft Beer Brewing Women

Apiwe Nxusani-Mawela doesn't know if the brewery she owns will survive if South Africa bans the sale of alcohol for the fourth time in a year. Currently, the first Black female owner in the country is working under the partial lift of a third ban, implemented by the federal government as a safety response to COVID-19. "We have started trading again but it's very difficult. I won't lie," she says. Nxusani-Mawela has been the subject of many an African news article since she opened Brewsters Craft as a female-focused brewery, contract facility, lab and beer education space, in 2015. Yet here in the States, most people don't know the highly educated microbiologist and former SABMiller brewer exists; or that a handful of women also own, manage and brew at craft breweries across the continent. Josephine Uwase and Deb Leatt number among them as brewer and chef, respectively, at Rwanda's Kweza Craft Brewery. Like Nxusani-Mawela, they have gotten their share of coverage, in part because Kweza is Rwanda's first brewpub; in part because Beau's All Natural Brewing Company in Ottawa has very publicly supported Kweza with fundraising and consultation; and in part because managing director Jessi Flynn is Canadian and knows