From cassava to craft

In Accra’s East Legon, Heritage Brewing Co. is fusing local ingredients with global craft techniques, proving that Ghana’s flavour has no limits. We meet Brewmaster Daniel Odendaal.

“We were sat down at one of our colleague’s weddings and they brought the sobolo out as a post-meal beverage,” says Daniel Odendaal over a beer in the Heritgae Brewing Company’s taproom at A&C Corner, East Legon. “It’s normally with ginger and pineapple and things, and when we tasted it, I just sat with the guys and said, ‘We can turn this into a beer. It would look fantastic.’”

He was right. The result is an aromatic, tart, floral ale that somehow tastes both familiar and new, winning Heritage Brewing Co. a gold medal at the 2025 Africa Beer Championships.

This is what Daniel does best: fusing the ingredients of Ghana with a brewer’s precision and creative spark. “Our brewery is the Heritage Brewing Company of Ghana,” he says. “We wanted to stay true to that vision of ours and not just do another brewery, importing all the grain. We wanted to use as many of the local ingredients as possible.”

Brewing, Ghana-style

At Heritage’s bright, bustling brewery and taproom at A&C Corner in East Legon, the air smells of roasted sorghum and pineapple. The line-up ranges from classics such as Calabash Pale Ale and Heritage Pilsner to more daring inventions including Independence Lager, a bright, delicious beer infused with native yams, white sorghum and maize. Then there’s The Chairman, a 5% beer with local smoked honey and tapioca beer, and the Bossu Pineapple Ale, golden and lightly spiced with ginger.

It sounds effortless, but Daniel explains that brewing with Ghanaian ingredients requires a bit of engineering flair. Most brewing systems are designed for barley, not cassava, maize, or sorghum, so he had to modify the equipment. It meant that the amount of important grain was minimised; using it to add flavour as much as to help with the process. “We use malt more as a kind of spice for the beer, but we had to do a lot of development to get to the same complexity as barley.” The alterations to brewing equipment is now being used in other breweries in Africa where malted barley needs to be imported.  

That experimentation has led to beers unlike any others in West Africa. “In our stout, we use roasted sorghum. Our stout uses garri, cassava that’s been toasted. Then we use fruit: mango, pineapple, watermelon, hibiscus, ginger. Honey as well. We also use local tapioca.”

Creativity born of necessity

Does this constraint, relying on what’s available locally, limit him? Quite the opposite. “I actually prefer using these grains,” Daniel says. “The imported stuff, there’s a big lag on it, and the costs and taxes are quite a bit. I prefer to use the local ingredients, and we’re starting to get more creative in what we want to try with cassava and hibiscus.”

The result is a range of beers that are inventive, proudly Ghanaian, and award-winning. Heritage’s Mango Tropical Ale took silver at the Africa Beer Championships; the Homeland Stout, brewed with coffee, cocoa, and garri, won bronze. “If we didn’t tell you that you’re drinking a cassava and maize beer or a cassava and rice beer, you wouldn’t know,” Daniel says. “That’s something we’re really proud of.”

The next chapter

Heritage Brewing’s taproom has become a gathering place for Accra’s growing community of craft beer enthusiasts, as well as a brilliant spot to meet friends. It’s a place where innovation feels rooted in home soil. “We’ve done the first few products where we’re actually going 100 per cent local ingredients,” Daniel adds.”

If his sobolo ale is any indication, the next idea might just turn another everyday Ghanaian favourite into a gold-medal brew.

Visit Heritage A&C Corner, Boundary Rd, East Legon (053 382 0885, heritagecraftbeer.com). You’ll also find cans in selected Shell garages.