Please see the end of this blog for information on soon-to-happen beer events. Returning from a vacation always seems to be a bit of a shock. It’s not just finding yourself back in the Israel, with work, traffic, noise, heat and the incessant news cycle (did I mention work?) but rather while I was on vacation I didn’t really care about all that stuff.
Other than cutting myself off from the news and work (although I admit I did have a bit of work to take care of), I had to deal with all of those things at one time or another. It’s that it wasn’t the same traffic, noise, crowds, heat and inflated prices that I see here every day.
What is noticeable now is that I am truly a beer person. I identified myself as a beer person to many of the new people I met on this trip. I was checking out beer menus wherever I went. I looked for breweries whenever I happened to be and I tried to taste as many kinds of beer as I possibly could, given the limitations of time, opportunity and my intake tolerance. After all, there are no 100 ml tastings outside of beer festivals and brewery tours.
To be honest, I did not try that many new beers outside of brewery visits. I did manage to have a Harpoon IPA, made by the Harpoon Brewery of Boston. I was just not able to squeeze in a tour of the brewery in my limited time but I wasn’t going to let that stop me from tasting one of their flagship beers. It was very good, balanced, aromatic and flavorful, but I didn’t really feel there was anything unique or notable about this particular IPA. I also managed to taste a Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA that I had read about after hearing about the Dogfish Head Brewery. I remember liking it but I don’t remember more than that.
What I do remember is that virtually every pub and restaurant I visited I visited on my trip, there was some kind of craft beer. Whether it was the ubiquitous Samuel Adams Boston Lager in Boston, or the commonly available Fort Garry beers in Winnipeg, it seems that there is enough awareness of craft beers, and clearly enough demand, to provide an incentive for pubs and restaurants to stock multiple boutique beers. While in Boston, I stopped in a local pub/restaurant in Brookline, right on the Boston border. The place would have been familiar to anyone who visits these types of places in Israel. Lots of wood, lots of people, a decent menu. What else this place had was an extensive beer menu. With 12 beers on tap and 35 beers in bottles, this neighborhood bar rivaled the best of the beer pubs in Israel like Porter and Son in Tel Aviv. Most of those beers were local boutique beers. This particular pub didn’t even have Samuel Adams on tap but they had a number of small local breweries.
Just an aside regarding beer on tap and kegs. Beer in a keg will not keep forever once the keg is tapped. Bottles will last much longer. So bars and pubs cannot serve a slow moving brand from a keg and risk it going bad and having to dump it. I remember tasting a Guinness in a well known pub in Tel Aviv that had gone off and it’s not what any pub manager wants.
OK, so what is the point of all this? I mean the beer revolution in the US started 20 years before it did in Israel. Americans drink WAY more beer than the teetotalling Israeli population. And the beer is much cheaper when purchased in the stores (as opposed to pubs and restaurants where it costs about the same).
The point is that I am not happy. I’m not happy with the fact that my supermarket doesn’t offer one local craft beer. I am disappointed that the Israeli boutique brewers aren’t making more headway in the local market (not their fault to be sure). I am totally blown away by the cost of quality local beer when I find it in the stores. Not that I blame the brewers. All the ingredients have to be imported. I remember that all the bottles have to be imported because the large breweries here have the locally produced bottle market locked up. And then there is the NIS 4.19 per liter excise tax on beer. There is no comparable tax on wine. And then you have to pay 16% VAT and to add insult to injury, you have to pay this 16% on the excise tax. In the end, over 20% of what you pay for a bottle of craft beer in a store is tax.
So in the end, craft beers are quite expensive to buy in stores and I am not happy. You can get a 6 pack of very good microbrewery beer in a California supermarket for about $10 including tax. That is less than 7 NIS per bottle. Think about that as you studiously avoid your next social protest demonstration.
Well, anything worth fighting for is, well, worth fighting for. And I am ready to man the trenches for beer. I just have to find the damn trenches.
Another Longshot
Right after I returned, there was the 2012 Samuel Adams Longshot beer festival. I did not participate this year since I didn’t really do any brewing in the time period preceding the final date and festival. To be honest, I just didn’t have the energy.
The festival took place on only one evening, instead of the 2 evenings last year. And there were not as many beers or brewers as last year so the closed off area in the Herzliya Marina was a bit smaller and the main Samuel Adams booth was less than half the size. But the spirit was there and they still gave each brewer his or her booth with a bowl and ice to cool the beers.
The first thing I did was to locate the Halutz brewery booth. For those of you who read my earlier blog on the Cape Ann Brewery where I met Amit, the Halutz Brewery is Amit and his friends. They even got one of the awards and I cheered heartily as Amit had requested from me as we parted. I also ran into Dan from the Alexander Brewery who knew that I had been in the US since Amit emailed him asking about this strange character named Harley that barged into the brewery one day.
The beers I tasted were uniformly good. Some were quite interesting with different added flavors. I love it that people here feel free to experiment and really push the envelope at times.
The crowd was manageable but then I left right after the awards were over and before the party really got started. It also seemed that half the people there were friends or family of the festival participants.
Upcoming Festivals
There are two festivals coming up.
The first is the Jerusalem Beer Festival that I blogged about last year. This year it is Wednesday and Thursday Aug. 22-23, 2012. As with last year, it will take place at the train station.
The second event is the Mateh Yehuda Beer Festival which is set to take place from August 30 thru September 14. The main event will be Aug. 30-31 at the Givat Yeshayahu junction on Highway 38. There will be a good representation of the local brewers in the Bet Shemesh area as well as some other brewers including Denny Neilson and the Dancing Camel.
I unfortunately will not be able to attend either of these festivals. However I do have a surprise in store for September so keep tuned to this website, or even better, send me an email at maof.beer@gmail.com and ask to be put on the the list to receive announcement of beer blog updates.
