TUSKER

A safari wouldn't be complete without Tusker, and I'm looking forward to sampling some soon. It is a really good East African beer and it has a wonderful logo, but it's only one of many quality African beers. The continent has many homegrown breweries; one of the few good legacies of colonial rule. When Germany, England, Belgium and others brought their brewing technology with them to support colonial tastes, Africans picked up the lager habit soon after. "In the bush", one of the common African background sounds is the distinctive call of the ring-necked dove and mothers always tell their children that he says "work-hard-er, work-hard-er", but may people swear he calls "drink-la-ger". 

Maybe ten years ago, Tusker was actually at the forefront of the African international beer wars when they worked to get a large South African brewer thrown out of Kenya, where Tusker is brewed. They worked a hard fought advertising campaign appealing to Kenyan nationalism and eventually managed to get SABMiller to withdraw from Kenya. Today, Kenya remains proud of the Tusker slogan “My Country, My Beer”.  I think that slogan dates back to the origin of the brand in 1922. The Tusker name has an interesting genesis - the story is that one of the founders of the brewery was killed by an elephant in a hunting "accident" shortly after the company started, and their first beer was named to honor him.

In truth, we will be in Tanzania, and SABMiller dominates the beer market here, with Safari, Kilimanjaro, Balimi, and Ndovu Beer, (which means roughly “Tusker” in Swahili). Although the Serengeti plain extends into Kenya, it is almost always associated with Tanzania but Serengeti Beer is actually brewed in Kenya, perhaps just to irritate the Tanzanians, and SABMiller. In any case, all beer brewed in Africa is guaranteed to have wonderful names and memorable labels.