Victoria Falls-based breweries River Brewery Company (RBC) and BeerBab Brewery Company (BBBC) are set to launch new local draught beer varieties in 2019 as part of efforts to offer more types of beer to tourists in the resort town.

RBC Brewer, Railey Jackson says RBC has been working on crafting a ‘highly quaffable’ American Red Ale called Flying Bantu Ale, which was launched in late December.

He says the beer is designed to be a “nice gig beer, drinking [while] listening to music; it’s good for the hot weather but with a little bit of sweetness. We will also factor in responses from our customers. We will be very interested to hear their opinions, what they like going forward”.

Draught beer, continues Jackson, is a form of beer that is very popular around the world and the company wants Zimbabwe to have its own.

“A lot of tourists, in particular Americans, Britons  and Germans, are very familiar with this kind of beer so it’s wise to offer something that they are used to here,” he says. “With the continued increase in tourist arrivals in Victoria Falls and Zimbabwe in general, we will be expanding our operations in 2019 to meet the demand for draught beers”, says Caroline Svuure, Financial Director of BeerBab, a Victoria Falls-based micro-brewery.

“We want to increase varieties of draught beers in 2019 to eight, from the current six. We also want to promote three of the current eight types to everyone who requires them, and are willing to buy and sell them apart from just selling from our own pub,” says Svuure,

RBC currently has the capacity to produce up to 10 000 litres of draught beer per month, which consists of eight varieties: six tried and tested types, and two experimental varieties.

The two breweries began operations in 2017.