Craft beer in Rwanda: Kweza Craft Brewery

Published: June 30, 2024

In late 2023, during our half-a-year trip in East and South-East Africa, we had a pleasure to visit the first and so far only microbrewery of Rwanda, Kweza Craft Brewery in Kigali. It’s always great to visit local craft breweries and to learn about the beer culture, and during our brewery tour in Kweza brewery we definitely learned a lot about brewing traditions and local ingredients in East Africa. Welcome to get to know this women-led brewery with us!

The story of Kweza began in 2016, when the business was started through a kick-starter campaign by Fina Uwineza, a Rwandan entrepreneur, and Steve Beauchesne, CEO of the Canadian Beau’s All Natural Brewing Company. This duo shared the vision to create a women-owned and women-led craft brewery in Rwanda, and started raising money for it. The first kick-starter enabled funding the purchase of a bottling line, but building an entire brewery was not yet possible. In 2018, American Jessi Flynn started as co-founder and managing director, and in 2020 Zimbabwean Debby Leatt joined the team as partner and business developer and Rwandan Josephine Uwase as a brewer and recipe developer.

The first years Kweza brewed with small kettles and focused on developing its operations and funding. Also bureaucracy took some time – it’s not easy to be the first company in the industry. Laws and regulations were set to be suitable for large industrial breweries, so a lot of meetings and negotiations were needed, but on the other hand, the founders also received a lot of support. Finally all the paperwork was finalized, and now not just Kweza has permits, but there is also a reference for the next ones who want to start small-scale commercial brewing in Rwanda. During 2023 the brewery was built piece by piece, and now operates with a 10hl brew-house and seven 10 hl fermenting vessels.

Women-owned, Women-led, Women-brewed

Kweza strongly supports the empowerment and general wealth of women in Africa, and is proud for Rwanda becoming the first country in the world where the commercial craft beer industry was started by women. Traditionally, brewing has actually been done primarily by women in Africa, but only rarely have women been able to share in the income from the product. Kweza is leads by example by being owned and led by women, and also the head brewers are women. The brewery aims to have women running all aspects of the business and to enable African women to profit from the product.

“Kweza is changing the beer industry.
We make world-class beer using native ingredients and sustainable processes – all while supporting the empowerment of women in Africa.”

Native ingredients and sustainable processes

Kweza honors the tradition of beer and brewing, and cherishes utilizing local ingredients. Barley is not a traditional crop in East Africa, and for centuries, locally grown crops like sorghum and maize have been used in home-brewing. The word Kweza means “harvest” and “purity” in Kinyarwanda language, and the brewery uses a lot of domestic grains and spices in their beers.

In all Kweza craft beers, the malt-base includes 70 % of malted sorghum, a nutritious cereal native to Rwanda. Sorghum is bought from local farmers, preferably women. The new 10 hl brew-house of Kweza is tailored for using sorghum, as it needs a bit different conditions than barley malts. With sorghum malt it’s not possible to achieve a very sturdy backbone in the beer (there is not much sugars), and thus it’s quite challenging to balance the bitter flavors from hops. Kweza beers in general are quite light and have a relatively low ABV. In addition to sorghum, also a lot of other local ingredients like honey, lemons and ginger, are used in the production. Barley malts come from Germany and hops from Yakima in the US, via a Kenyan distributor. Kweza in fact has teamed up with Yakima Chief Hops and developed a hops bundle that showcases the flavor profile of sorghum.

Sustainability is very important principle in Kweza’s operations, and the crew is continually looking for ways to minimize the environmental impact of the brewery. They are evaluating options to utilize rainwater, rely on solar power and create a wastewater wetland system to complete a sustainable system in an urban environment. The spent grain is circulated back to farms to be used as animal feed.

Tasting Kweza craft beers

The best place to taste Kweza’s beers is of course their own taproom and beer garden, right next to the brewery in Mundi Center in Kigali. Taproom was opened in August 2023, and now serves customers from Thursdays to Sundays (check valid opening hours from Kweza webpage). There are eight beer taps, tasty food and a lot of events, such as karaoke and movie nights, games and trivia nights. The staff also organizes brewery tours, and is happy to tell about the brewing process and local ingredients. In addition to the taproom, Kweza craft beers are also available from some hotels, restaurants and cafes in Kigali, you can find an up-to-date list of them from the webpage too.

One of our favorites of the Kweza beers that we tasted was Kweza IPA, a nicely bitter and hoppy India Pale Ale. Kweza uses seven different hops in their IPA, and there are pleasant aromas of both citrus and tropical fruits. Another favorite was the chocolaty Silverback Oatmeal Stout, a light but roasted Stout with notes of coffee and chocolate. We also liked the other beers that we tasted, the tropical and grapefruity Pale Ale called Ambrosia, the light and refreshing Golden Ale and the sweet Ginger Beer called Sunbird. The latest add to the selection, Near Miss Pale Ale (summer 2024) sounds very tempting too; a hazy, smooth pale ale bursts with citrus, tropical fruit and apricot flavors.