By Harley Zipori July 1 is the official start of summer in Israel and things are heating up on all fronts.
Last Thursday, June 30 was the start of the annual Tel Aviv White Night event, a city wide celebration of musical performances, street theater and throngs of people all night until the sun comes up. Somewhere there had to be beer but I didn’t check it out. If any of you out there stumbled on any organized tasting of Israeli boutique beers, let me know and I can share it with the rest of the blog followers.
Now for the big news. This Friday, July 8, is a Beer and Meat festival hosted by the Rubenstein Restaurant in the Poleg Industrial Center, South Netanya. The festival will be held the Yachin Center (also known as the Alexandra Center where the Globus Max cinema is located) and is up the main street from the Ikea (currently being rebuilt after the fire). The official opening is 10 am.
Rubenstein is a restaurant that specializes in meat and has a generally good selection of beer. Given that it’s Rubenstein, and that its advertised as a Beer and Meat festival, they will certainly be offering sausages, chorizos, hamburgers and perhaps even more.
The restaurant is not kosher but the festival is an open-air affair in the Alexandra Yachin Center which has a number of restaurants and cafes, a number of them kosher. If past festivals are any indication, the beer will be served by the brewer or importer and the restaurant merely lends its name to the event.
I last went to this particular festival during Sukkot of 2008 and it was my first beer festival. It was quite small at the time and I expect it will be a larger event. Let’s hope there is a good representation of local boutique beers.
Since I live in Netanya, this is a very convenient event for me. If anyone wants to meet up with me there, drop me a mail at [email protected] and we’ll try to coordinate.
Remember you can always reach me at [email protected].