What do you get when you mix Rabbits, with brewing kits, stickers and good music? Retro Rabbit’s annual Beer Fest!

Long have I heard about the legendary Beer Fests - the whole company gathering for some good beer with good people. But for those who joined right before lockdown when everything went remote, that was only a dream. Until 2022, when I ended up being one of the coordinators. What a crazy ride…

The prep

So how does this work?

Months before, we choose our teams and team names. Then we choose the beer we want to brew and the kits get ordered.

So as always, you get Rabbits with different degrees of "seriousness" -

You get the peeps that have an idea of what they're doing but kinda figuring out as they go along (shoutout to my team!) They start by figuring out whose house is going to smell like old hops for the next few weeks. When that person draws the short straw you basically put all the ingredients into a big container and then LEAVE IT ALONE. A week before the beer fest you coordinate your team to get together again, and the pouring starts. I must say, as a novice brewer myself, I really enjoyed the process - it’s super straightforward and our beer was really good with a tad of edible glitter!

Then you get those Rabbits who have this craft down to a T! They deserve the title ‘Brewers’. Thank you to Christo and Cilliers who brewed about 300 liters in the Ghost House fermenters, and to David's team that is almost just a real brewery at this point. Tip of the hat to your talented brewers!

The fest

On the day, 1 October 2022, we set up massive tents (for the bands too) with beautiful festival benches, and the brewers started setting up. The festival technically had 2 competitions running:

#1 The beer tasting

#2 Potjiekos

To keep things fair and to be the true custom development company that we are, a team created a scoring app where brewers can be added and be judged anonymously by preselected judges.

With everything set up and people just getting used to life after lockdown, Rabbits were so excited to see each other.

Upon arrival at the festival you were handed a ‘Rabbitania Beerfest 2022’ mug with some beautiful Rabbit-designed stickers. Then, you use your mug with every beer tasting and at each table you get a sticker showcasing that beer’s label — again, custom designed by our own Rabbits. With these beautiful stickers it turned the 2022 beer fest mug into a great collectible.

With dinner getting closer, the beer brewers turned into potjiekos experts with about 6 different potjies brewing for our guests. We had a mix of chicken, beef, veggie and halaal to cover all of the festival goers.

Meet some of the teams:

Looking back... and to the next one

We asked around - “when you think of Beer Fest 2022, what comes to mind?”  This is what some Rabbits have to say:

“Best day of the year. An incredible showcase of Retro's enterprising spirit and a great time with great people”

“Beer tastes better when you drink it with the brewers”

“It was a very hot day but the beer was good!”

“I didn’t know our Rabbits could sing”

So the day was filled with awesome people, great local music (including some very talented Rabbits), award winning potjiekos and a wide variety of home brewed beer.  

Well done brewers, potjie and beer. Without you it would've been a very dull day. Thank you to all the organizers, this was a crazy one but a successful day!

Until the next one, cheers!!