The beer cycle is important

I don’t drink but I have a long history with alcohol backdating to the late 80’s when I was very young.
Almost everyone in my family drinks and I am the odd one out. Most people I come across doubt that I am a man of sober habits and they conclude that I have a “Phuza” face. Yet my history with alcohol is deep and I can talk about beer as if I am a seasoned drinker.
In the 80’s right up to the 90’s shebeens were the in thing for people of all walks of life. Talk about politicians, bankers, lawyers, journalists, bus drivers and just about any professional among those people were bonafide shebeen lovers. The Shebeen Queen could afford to send her children to the better schools of that era and she could easily earn more than some of these professionals because her money was tax free.
There were some industrious Shebeen Queens who could even enjoy some luxuries that their clients could not afford. People loved beer to an extent that they would even drink on account and then pledge to pay later. Shebeen Queens would make a scene at the debtor’s house when it was time to collect their money.
Imagine the Shebeen Queen coming to your house to claim money for beers drank last week and your wife is not aware of the debt? Those were the days when bottle stores, sports bars and nightclubs were not in fashion. DJying was not yet a profession now DJs claim that they are “turntblists”. All that the Shebeen Queen had to do was buy the latest album from the Soul Brothers, Chimora, Peta Teanet, Lucky Dube (before he did reggae).
The sound of Lucky Dube’s mbaqanga hit Umadakeni (1987) or his pantsula hit I will never fall in love would get imbibers thronging the spot with the good vibes of the time.
For some reason come to think of it the imbibers loved being raided because it meant that they would have something to talk about the next time they met exchanging their funny stories. Some would even sleep at their small house’s places and on returning home lie that they had been raided. Imagineingamla wearing a six button suit jumping the durawall leaving his Peugeot 404 parked in front of the shebeen gate running away from a sober and slim, fit officer carrying a baton stick? Those guys knew trouble was coming whenever they saw a Santana police truck in the area.
The shebeen business was so lucrative to a point that one in ten houses in the neighbourhood was a shebeen . In present day there are fewer shebeens because town life has taken over. But I know one shebeen that was vibrant in the late 80s when we knew condoms as durex. To us every condom was a durex (that is what our brothers and uncles told us). Remember those condoms that had a character that looked like a cartoon that was blue in colour? We also knew them as Dynamos (because of the blue). Condoms were a rare thing back then and such a memory would easily stick on your brain. You could only find them in shebeens lol.
Let us face it the more churches that are built the more drinking holes that we get. So alcohol is a very important element of humanity.
The production and consumption of beer together create the very backbone of trade that our national and international economies feed upon; thus making beer an international necessity. If that first bright spark had not mixed the very first batch of barley, hops, water and yeast together, our very civilisation might have never come about. Since the first lager, beer has connoted itself to the face of humanity as firmly as trees attach themselves to the earth. Beer’s importance to our global stability is vital to us all.
The Business side of beer
1- After the beer is sold to a wholesaler, he sells it to a truck driver. 2-The truck driver drives the beer all around the country until he finds a warehouse, where he sells it (or gives it, if the beer is pre-paid) to the manager. 3-The manager then gets the trucker to drive the beer to a shop, where a shopkeeper buys it. 4-The shopkeeper hires somebody to unload the beer and put it onto the shelves so that people can see it and buy it.  5-Time passes and the beer is waiting nervously on the shelf (yes, beer has feelings too!). 6-Then a thirsty working-class shopper comes along, sees the beer on the shelf and buys it.  7-The beer is taken home and stored in a cold, damp fridge until the day comes when the thirsty person opens it up and guzzles it into oblivion, throwing the can into the recycling bin afterwards.
As you the reader may have noticed, the constant exchange of beer for money between the people penetrates ALL levels of society; from producers to marketers (wholesalers and shop keepers) to labourers (truckies, shop workers, etc.), while                        all aspects of the population consume the beer (the workers, beneficiaries, bosses, etc.), and thus help to contribute to the cycle’s process.  This is why the beer cycle is so important. Beer is a common marketable product to all people in society and the economic benefits that flow out from it’s trade are available to help everybody out.
When Finance Minister Tendai Biti presented his budget for the year 2012 he said beer is one of the contributing factors to the growth of inflation. He even joked that some of the Ministers in attendance were bottle store owners.
His budget was presented at a time when Delta had posted positive growth in terms of business. What the Minister should have done was to talk about what the beer industry has contributed to the nation in terms of employment creation and effect on the industries that support beer production such as agriculture. In Bulawayo industries are closing but I haven’t heard of Delta closing shop. Biti should have acknowledged that because beer is so important to the world’s economies, it obviously has significant and dramatic effects on them, depending on the ways that beer policies are applied. Think about it. What beer does Tendai Biti take?
Contact [email protected].