By Harley Zipori. I hope everyone has had, and continues to have a happy holiday season. Remember, be safe. Please read to the end of the blog for details of an upcoming event that can’t be missed.
For those of you out there that realize that I have not written a blog for a while, I hope you weren’t worried. I have been concentrating heavily in professional development in my day job (that’s the one I am told not to quit quite yet) and all my spare time and energy was channeled into that. Last week I finished the formal part and now I have a bit of breathing room and can pursue some of my more fun pastimes.
Like beer.
It wasn’t just that I didn’t have time to research and write a blog but that there wasn’t much to write about.
OK I confess there was another trip to Temple Bar and tasting Maredsous Brune, which was quite good but didn’t really knock my socks off. Oh my how I am getting harder to please.
I did have a chat with the bar manager about why there are no local boutique beers on tap. I will not go into too many details but there are some quality control and preference issues that come into play when choosing beers for a pub/bar/restaurant such as Temple Bar. I assure you all that it is not because they are not aware of the local brewing scene or lack appreciation for the efforts of the local brewers.
Two things are clear from a conversation such as I had a Temple Bar. First, I have a very biased view of Israeli boutique beers which results in my lack of objectivity in anything related to the taste and quality of local craft beers. The second problem that is glaringly apparent is that I have no clue who the people who frequent establishments such as Temple Bar, Porter and Sons, Norma Jean and drink the imported quality beers which have a large price premium over the mass produced beers. My instincts tell me that these people are the natural target market for the local boutique beers. I could be wrong.
Let’s all hope that whatever obstacles remain for widespread sales of Israeli boutique beers on tap in restaurants and pubs that specialize in quality beers will be overcome and we can start enjoying these beers as we do today the German, Belgian and English beers we can find with relative ease.
For the last couple years the website beers.com has been organizing a beer exhibition at the Nokia stadium (formerly Yad Eliahu stadium) in Tel Aviv. This is a large event and is certainly one of the main beer events in the country. I blogged about this event last year and hope to attend this year and of course, write a detailed blog.
Complete details are on the event website but in Hebrew only. Here are the essential details:
Beers 2013
January 8 and 9, 2013
Nokia Stadium, Tel Aviv
Hours for the general public: 5 PM to 11 PM
Cost: 60 NIS which includes a free tasting glass and 5 tasting coupons (usually for 100ml tastings). Additional coupons are 30 NIS for 5 coupons.
Food and beer professionals can pre-register and enter for free from the 2 PM till 5 PM.
You can see a video of last year’s event by clicking here.
Just an aside before I finish up. Beer festivals and competitions are not new here in Israel. There is a short clip from 2006 shown on Israel Channel 1 on Israeli home brewers. It is in Hebrew. At the end is bit on a beer competition held at the Temple Bar at Cinema City. It includes a short interview with the late Daniel Rogov, renowned food and wine critic, and a sound bite from Shachar Hertz, one of the main movers of the craft beer movement here in Israel. Shachar is the professional consultant for the beer exhibitions for the past 3 years.
You will also get to see a bit of Danny Shlyfestone and his Art Bar in Ein Hod. Danny still makes beer there and even though Danny is a friend of mine and I am anything but unbiased, I can whole heartedly recommend a visit to Ein Hod in general and the Art Bar in particular.
I will be at the exhibition on Tuesday, January 8 for the professional session but will remain after 5 to meet with people so if you want to meet up there at 5, send a mail to [email protected] and we can set something up.
