Cannabis-based beer debuts to high demand

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — A craft beer brewer in South Africa is debuting a new cannabis lager.

Poison City Brewing started up in 2015 and makes five different beers including its latest brand, Durban Poison Cannabis Lager. Durban Poison is blended with hemp instead of hops.

Hemp and cannabis are from the same family, but hemp doesn't contain the psychoactive chemicals found in marijuana.

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Even so, the co-founder of the brewery is getting a lot of calls for his new beer. "The easiest route into the market was to go with beer. And an interesting part there is that in beer there's an ingredient called hops, which most people know about, and hops is actually part of the same plant group as cannabis," said Graeme Bird.

Durban Poison Cannabis Lager is named after a popular strain of pot, so the name is also getting lots of attention.

"The thing that would differentiate Durban Poison from the rest of the beers we make is definitely the hemp seeds. They give a really nice, nutty kind of flavor to the beer that you don't find in a lot of beers," said Matthew Monteiro.

NBC