To the best of my knowledge the only place which hops are grown in South Africa (or for that matter Southern Africa) is a small area between George and Oudtshoorn in the Southern Cape. I seem to recall reading somewhere that once up a time they used to grow some in the Zimbabwe highlands but thinks its highly unlikely that this is still the case seeing that Zimbabwe can't even grow sufficient crops to feed itself these days.
On our way back home from Cape Town we passed through this area and I noticed for the first time road signs showing it as the hop route. Unfortunately I didn't have time to stop and enquire as to whether any of the farms offered tours, but will definitely do so the next time I'm in the area.
There has been some discussion of late on the use of lighting when growing hops outside of the traditional hop growing areas of the world. Lights are used extensively in this area for growing hops and even though at this time of the year the hops have died back, I thought it may be of interest to anyone who grows hops to see a photo of the lights used in the hop fields.
