Wanna know what it’s like to taste 100% Okavango?

Okavango Craft Brewery is a new and exciting venture that turns millet from ‘elephant aware’ farmers and mineral water from the Okavango Delta into quality craft beer. In an effort to drive new and innovative ways to diversify the wildlife economy in northern Botswana, Okavango Craft Brewery is now producing craft beer that contains millet grown by small-scale farmers who are coexisting with elephants, improving benefits for sustainable farming practices that are tied to a wildlife economy.

Established in 2019, Okavango Craft Brewery is Maun’s first licensed microbrewery and is located at the old Sports Bar in Sennonori Ward, along Sir Seretse Khama road, Maun. The enterprise offers a 100% gluten free millet beer and a variety of millet adjunct beers made from locally harvested millet and other malts, all made using mineral water from the Okavango Delta. Okavango Craft Brewery Co-Founder and Director, Graham McCulloch, said: “Through the Okavango Craft Brewery, local farmers residing in the area now have the opportunity to be linked to and benefit from a new market, offering some reward for their efforts to coexist with elephants, and creating sustainable, inclusive growth for our local economy here in the Okavango region. Our products give consumers the choice to support both farmers and wildlife, while enjoying quality products.”

The Maun-based company has launched its food and beverage enterprise in support of, and to realise the socio-economic potential of a more integrated, cross-sectoral wildlife-based economy, focused on the ‘elephant aware’ farming model. The new microbrewery also takes advantage of a growing craft beer industry that is growing in popularity worldwide that, until now, has evaded Maun. And according to experienced brewer,  Destin Bidzouta-Zola, from Brazzaville, Congo, “make no mistake, the primary objective is to make a selection of top quality beers that people will love”.

Under the professional guidance and experience of food tech expert and business partner, Heine Du Toit, Destin and his Motswana brewer trainee, Matshidiso Sekeseke, started brewing after the brewery was installed in early January this year. Since then, the brew crew trio have produced and tasted some quality Kolsch, IPA and Stout varieties. They will continue to perfect and vary the beer types to be offered until the old Sports Bar is fully renovated to a brew pub, and opens in a few months’ time. Once open for business, the Okavango Craft Brewery will also invite tourists that visit Maun to tour the brewery, increasing the activity itinerary in Maun and the awareness of the story, while boosting support in the local economy. “Building a sustainable development project that produces top quality Botswana products and that can be showcased to many tourists from around the world, who visit the Okavango, is something I, as a citizen of Botswana, am very proud to be a part of.” says co-owner, Francine Sheldon.

For more information, please contact:

XXX Graham McCulloch

XXX Director

XXX Okavango Craft Brewery