By Harley Zipori. Sometimes life just sneaks up behind you and bites you in the rear. This is usually a sign that you are doing things wrong, slacking off or getting complacent. On Monday I got my rear bit pretty good. Although luck was certainly with me.
On my way to work last Monday, Sept. 10, I heard the opening to the morning news show on Galei Zahal (that’s the Israel Defense Forces radio station) which usually is someone telling about a local event or happening. This time it was for beer event starting that very day and continuing for 2 more days. It took me 2 minutes in Google to find the BIRA 2011 Beer International Recognition Awards competition taking place at Kfar Maccabiah in Ramat Gan. I had no idea that this was taking place. Here I am, supposedly plugged into the beer events and this one just slipped me by. Well almost.
I managed to organize my schedule so that I could attend the second half of the day on Tuesday. The competition and conference ended Tuesday evening with a beer exhibition, like a mini beer festival, with different breweries and importers selling tastings of their beers.
This is a very serious event and a truly international one, sponsored by the Grape Man website. The competition was geared for commercial breweries of which there were no small number of both locally brewed craft beers and European beers, some not even imported to Israel. There were a number of foreign guests who came over to judge the competition and make presentations and grace us with their knowledge and experience in brewing.
There was also a separate competition for smaller breweries that are not yet commercial. There are always surprises at these events and there were new names of both commercial and non-commercial brewers. Well new for me at least but then I don’t seem to be as plugged into the network as i would like. The best small brewery award was was given to the Klara Brewery. They also received a Gold medal for their IPA. I couldn’t find anything out about them but this gives me a project to work on.
You can download the complete awards list from the Grape Man website.
There were multiple awards given to Israeli Boutique breweries and the guest judges were unanimous in their praise and recognition of the local craft brewing industry. Not that I’m surprised but its sure nice to hear it from Internationally recognized experts.
. I also discovered that there is a new commercial brewery. The Shapiro Brewery is making beer in Beit Shemesh. They are not only making beer on a major scale (see the photos of the brewery) but they won the best Israeli beer award. This is definitely a brewery to keep an eye on.
At least two breweries took the opportunity to promote new beers. The Alexander Brewery now has a new beer called Alexander Green (after their Blonde, Ambree and Black) which is an IPA (India Pale Ale) that took a double gold in the competition. The Golan Brewery now has Og Red Lager which took a gold award and it a welcome addition to their already strong lineup of beers.
I truly enjoyed myself. The organization was outstanding. The presentations all involved tasting beer and there was even a tasting session where the audience could match their palates with a panel of judges. Needless to say I learnt a lot about to judge beers.
Whenever I attend an event like this, I always like to think about what I took home. That is what will remain in my memory after a week or two. I think the big take home for me came out of a conversation with Conrad Seidl, an Austrian journalist and beer expert who was one of the guest judges. He has a lot of knowledge of fledgling microbrewery industries in surprising countries like Italy (it was an Italian beer that took the best of show beer in this competition) and Brazil. I asked him how we could raise the awareness of Israeli boutique beers with the public and get them to drink more quality beer, thereby building the industry. He told me that there is little chance of converting dedicated beer drinkers. They are lost to their own tastes and the brand loyalty so jealously nurtured by the large commercial breweries. Conrad said that the people who will drive the boutique beer culture are those that barely drink beer because they don’t really like the commercial beers one finds in every restaurant and pub these days. He said that people who don’t even drink beer can become avid boutique beer drinkers when they realize that there are flavors and sensations they have not experienced before. Also, wine drinkers are a strong potential market force, not surprising really as they already have the developed palates needed to appreciate the variety of styles and beers brewed locally.
Now maybe that’s not news to those who are out there every day trying to push their boutique beers into stores, pubs and restaurants, but then again, maybe they haven’t really thought of it that way.
Food for thought for sure. Or maybe more appropriately “Beer for thought”.
I would love to hear any feedback at maof.beer@gmail.com.
