Windhoek Premium lager

Brewed by Namibia Breweries Limited
Style: Euro Pale Lager
Windhoek, Namibia

Windhoek Lager is a beer brewed by the Namibia Breweries Limited (NBL), a Namibian brewery founded in 1920. Namibia is a country in southwest Africa of about 2.5 million people, in case you were curious, where the famous sprinter Frankie Fredericks was from, remember him? Windhoek is the country’s capital and the name given to the lager.

In the early 1900’s, two friends, Carl List and Hermann Ohlthaver acquired four small breweries with financial difficulties. The breweries were merged under the name South West Breweries Limited (SWB). In time, SWB changed its name to Namibia Breweries Limited when Namibia gained independence, from South Africa, on the 21st of March 1990. Ohlthaver & List Group of Companies are still the majority shareholder.

Before its independence in 1990, the area was known first as German South-West Africa (Deutsch-Südwestafrika), then as South-West Africa, reflecting the colonial occupation by the Germans and the South Africans. That perhaps might explain why they have some colonial throwback to brewing German style beers in accordance with the old Reinheitsgebot, also known as the “German Beer Purity Law”. As a reminder, the law prohibits the use of any flavourings, preservatives, or colourants during the brewing process and allows only three traditional, natural ingredients: malted barley, hops, and water. Following the rules means a slower more nuanced quality produced brew as opposed to a mass produced beer doled out quickly in a matter of days by speeding up the process with additives and inferior ingredients.

Namibia Breweries Limited produce and sell all the regular beers one would expect from a large brewery, their lagers, a few shandies, some soft drinks, and also some speciality beers perhaps unusual to Africa, like their Urbock, a winter bock beer. Most of the beer is sold to their neighbour and massive next door market, South Africa, with over 60% of NBL products heading in that direction, with the rest going to about 20 countries worldwide.

Review: 330ml green bottle of Windhoek Premium lager: 4.0% vol.

Reads “crafted with passion since 1920” on the bottle..

Looks good on the pour, a very nice white frothy head, quite big, and a lovely golden coloured beer. Good carbonation, fizzing around. After a while it all settles down to look a bit flat.

Overall it is a solid look. Ok

Aromas of grains and pale malts and citric notes, typical lager smells, all light, but ok.

Not getting a whole lot from the bottle, all fizzled away perhaps. The initial taste is not bad, grainy and am getting nice big malty mouthfuls, but afterwards the beer does die in the taste department, goes a little flat in the mouth, very fast in fact.

Getting usual lager traits, of malts, grains, and sweet corns. Also got a slight off taste to the beer.

Overall, despite initial promise, this is a very thin and weak brew, a boring and bland generic lager, very forgettable, and not worth purchasing again. Not quite as good as it gets, far from it!