E-Malt.com News article: Namibia: Namibia Breweries Limited launches King Lager brewed from home-grown barley

In support of government’s ‘Growth at Home’ strategy, Namibia Breweries Limited (NBL), which is a subsidiary of the Ohlthaver & List (O&L) Group, has added its latest innovation, King Lager, to the company’s portfolio of world-class beer brands, New Era reported on October 21.

King Lager is Namibia’s very first beer brand that contains home-grown barley. King Lager has been available in stores as from October 19.

In light of O&L’s purpose of ‘Creating a future, enhancing life’ for all Namibians, extensive trials have seen NBL over the past five years explore the establishment of a local barley industry. This proved Namibia’s potential to successfully produce barley, which led to the conclusion of a smart partnership recently signed with the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry, as well as AgriBusDev, to grow barley at the green schemes in Namibia as from next year.

“This initiative … will create a local barley supply chain in Namibia that benefits each member of the chain, as well as the government and the community as a whole resulting in the creation of many job opportunities, thereby contributing in boosting the country’s economy.

“For NBL it eventually just made sense that a new local brand be embarked on to bring more to our consumers and the nation at large, and in celebration of our own grown barley,” said NBL’s managing director, Wessie van der Westhuizen.

The barley used to produce King Lager is harvested at Shadikongoro in the far north of Namibia. Currently barley is also planted at Otavifontein and is expected to be harvested at the end of December.

“The idea is that NBL buys from approved suppliers and supports the farmers with the knowledge gained during the trials. This year NBL has planted 30ha of barley at Otavifontein to continue collecting data, information and experience which we can use to support farmers and to optimize the program for all participants. It is important to note that all participants will need to make the Namibian barley program a success, due to the fact that Namibia as a whole is in competition with other members of SADC and the rest of the world. All our results thus far have shown that a win-win scenario is possible for the farmer, the government and community as a whole, as well as for NBL,” said the project manager for Project Kernel, Martin Krafft.

Van der Westhuizen said that the name ‘King’ was inspired by the quality and attributes of Namibians. “This is our way of honouring those men who act as guardians of our legacy.

The brand name ‘King’ symbolizes respect, royalty, dignity and class. One of the key ingredients of King Lager and what makes King Lager stand apart from its peers is that it is the first beer in Namibia to contain homegrown Namibian barley.”

“At this stage King Lager will only be available to the Namibian market while we have elected to fully support King Lager with an extensive marketing campaign and establish the brand in Namibia before exploring opportunities for the brand outside of our borders. I am confident that, like any of our superior world-class brands, we will be able to elevate our latest addition to our portfolio to the next level.”

NBL currently imports 40 000 tons of malted barley per annum, mainly from Europe. NBL aims to harvest at least 12 000 ha of barley per annum over the next ten years. It needs to be noted that NBL imports malted barley as a key ingredient for its current beer brands.

As there is no malting plant in Namibia and the viability of establishing a malting plant has not yet been established, it is also important to note that malting is a water-intensive industry.

Since commencement of the barley trials almost five years ago, NBL has so far invested more than N$5 million in the barley project for trial planning, execution, seeds, laboratory and brewing trials, as well as shipments and logistics. This amount excludes the product innovation work that has gone into developing the new brand.


23 October, 2015