By Harley Zipori The fact that Jerusalem hosted a beer festival this year is not exceptional. There has been a beer festival there for the past 7 years.
The fact that I actually made it to the festival this year is quite exceptional. It’s not so much that Jerusalem is so far to drive, but if you take into account the fact that if i do drive I can drink very little and have to wait a couple hours after drinking a beer before driving, it is a marginal prospect at best. The last time was 2 years ago when I roped in a friend with a company car who is not a big beer drinker and manages to get by on tastes of my beer.
This year fate and fortune smiled on me in the form of my daughter Avital, who is a student at Hebrew U and lives an easy walk from the Old Train Station where the festival we held. To top it off she actually is the only other one in my immediate family who actually likes beer and from there it was easy. I had company and a place to sleep afterwards. I even had someone who could maneuver through the crowd of people surrounding the ticket booths to get our tickets to get in.
And boy was there a crowd. You would think that after 7 years they would figure out how to sell tickets. Not only was there no semblance of order in directing the crowd to the cargo container with holes that served as a ticket booth but there was absolutely nothing to do once you bought your ticket to get out of the crowd, aside from pushing your wait through the seething mass of people.
I have to admit, a better natured crowd I have not experienced in a long time. And these are entirely young people, almost exclusively native Hebrew speakers and before they drank any beer. I have to tip my hat (yes, i was wearing the trusty Barmah hat) to the youth of Jerusalem for their patience and good nature.
Once inside, things were less crowded and no less good natured but then the crowd inside had a chance to drink a beer or two so that’s no big surprise.
There was some confusion about coupons and who accepted them and this is unlike the majority of beer festivals I have been to, including the Longshot festival in July. Most beer was sold on a cash only basis and only in ? liter an up. This makes tasting a variety of beers virtually impossible unless you show up with a whole bunch of pepole.
I did manage to taste a couple commercial beers and a couple local craft beers. I tasted a Dutch Trappist beer which was high in alcohol and a bit sweet, and O’hara’s Irish Stout which I found quite disappointing, lacking the mouth-feel of a rich stout and the roasted malt and barley flavors of even the most commercial of Irish stouts. If you want a decent stout in Israel, I recommend Dancing Camel’s Midnight Stout.
I tasted 2 locally brewed craft beers. The first was a Jem’s 8.8 Belgian Ale which is one of the very few locally brewed Belgian Ales that has that unique Belgian beer flavor. It’s brewed by Jem’s Beer Factory and Jeremy Welfeld, the brewmaster and co-founder of Jem’s, was behind the bar helping out as is his style. I also got a glass of Alexander Blonde, a refreshing golden ale that is still one of my favorite locally brewed beers.
I finished off the evening with a small glass of Denny Neilson’s hard cider. Denny was in the booth next to me at Longshot and I can attest to the popularity and refreshing qualities of his cider. He told me he went through 3 kegs on Thursday night alone.
There was also a band but they were not too close to the beer and even when we stood close to the stage, it was possible to hold a conversation as they kept the volume down. This is as it should be as a real beer festival is a mix of beer, friends and music.
And this festival is big. I have never been in the Old Jerusalem Train Station and it is quite a large open area. Things were fairly spread out with lots of room for people to maneuver. There was a respectable but not very large representation of local craft brewers and we are not seeing regular representation by what are now established names in the local brewing scene, like the Dancing Camel, Jem’s, Alexander, Negev, Pivo and Golan. That’s a respectable footprint for an industry only a few years old and a beer culture that hasn’t quite figured out that Israeli beer isn’t just Goldstar and Maccabee. If you add some of the other less commonly seen brands like Salara and Malcha, and I’m sure someone I’ve forgotten, we now have a choice of good tasting, high quality beers right in our own back yard.
Now we just have to figure out how to get these beers in the places where we buy and drink beer on a regular basis.
My email, as always is [email protected].
