The proliferation of boutique breweries has fostered several beer festivals in recent years: the Cape Town Festival of Beer (capetownfestivalofbeer.co.za), We Love Real Beer Festival (facebook.com/weloverealbeer), and the Clarens Craft Beer Festival (clarensbeerfestival.co.za). They all offer affordable tastings from microbreweries from across the country (some of which are not yet available in stores or pubs), demonstrations on how to make your own beer, and ale-infused snacks. Craft beers on tap and beer-and-food pairings have become a must at restaurants like Banana Jam Cafe in Cape Town and Chalkboard Collaboration Café in Johannesburg. And organized trails like the KwaZulu-Natal Beer Route, which directs visitors to some of that province’s most interesting breweries, are hoping to divert some traffic from the country’s ubiquitous wine scene.

What many breweries do have in common with South Africa’s wineries is an unparalleled landscape. Though some microbreweries are centered in or near Cape Town and Johannesburg, many are in idyllic small towns hours from any urban center, offering a good excuse for beer-loving travelers to discover beautiful parts of the country not often seen by tourists.

My personal tour of craft breweries led me to the tiny town of Napier (home to the brewery named for the town), about two hours southeast of Cape Town, where I saw fields dotted with the rare blue crane; I stopped in nearby Cape Agulhas, at Africa’s southernmost tip, to dip my feet in the ocean. A trip to the village of Darling (location of Darling Brew), an hour north of Cape Town, was rewarded with a sighting of a geometric tortoise, one of the most endangered tortoises in the world and found only in this area, as well as fields of spectacularly colorful wildflowers. I survived a fog-heavy drive along the steep Long Tom Pass in the Mpumalanga Province to reach Hops Hollow Brew Pub, situated at a stunningly high elevation.

“We’ve got great stories to tell about beer,” said Iain Harris, the founder of the Cape Town Beer Route, the first route of its kind, as much an homage to hops as to history. The route began with a tour of SAB’s Newlands Brewery, opened in 1820, then it was off to Banana Jam Cafe, where the owner, Greg Casey, conducted a tasting of various microbrews.

Finally we headed to Langa, a township on the outskirts of Cape Town, to visit a tavern run out of the home of Nkosazana Mbono. Ms. Mbono has been making umqombothi, a traditional South African beer, for decades from her family’s centuries-old recipe; corn, sorghum malt and yeast are combined and left to sit overnight. After she demonstrated how umqombothi is made, we all shared sips from a communal tub and enjoyed a taste of South Africa’s original craft beer — one now joined by dozens of worthwhile brews.

LOOKING AND TASTING

TOURS

Check for tour times.

The Cape Town Beer Route tour (70 Wale Street, Cape Town; 27-21-424-3572; coffeebeansroutes.com) runs Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. Tours are 695 rand, about $87 at 8 rand to $1.