Israeli Craft Beer Festival in Jerusalem First Station

It's rather embarrassing to admit that it has taken me so long to blog about the Israeli Craft Beer Festival in Jerusalem First Station. Considering that I really enjoy attending that beer festival. It offers a great choice of small Israeli craft beers. You're not going to find any of the larger companies, like Shapiro, Jem's, Malka, Shevet or Beer Bazaar.

Considering that it's much more difficult to find these smaller and newer craft beers commercially, versus the beers I've mentioned, I didn't miss the big ones at this venue. 

For those of us who like beer and are adventurous, enjoy tasting relatively unknown craft beers, this festival is like a gift from Gd.

It may be hard to believe, and even I'm very surprised, but besides one beer which I found rather tasteless, they were all drinkable to excellent.

How did I manage to sample a very large percentage of the beers?

On the right you can see me in my "beer tasters T-shirt." At various Israeli beer events, you'll probably see Doug Greener of Israel Brews and Views in a similar shirt. I'm one of the crew. Some of you may be familiar with his beer reviews in the Jerusalem Post.

Doug and the beer tasters at the 
Israeli Craft Beer Festival, Jerusalem First Station

At last year's Israeli Craft Beer Festival in Jerusalem First Station, the odd man out was an Israeli Whiskey, which we had also sampled. This year I was disappointed when I couldn't find them at the fair. It was excellent, so no surprise that soon after the festival we heard that it had won first prize in an international contest. Milk & Honey (M&H) has been awarded the title of ‘world’s best single malt’ by The World Drinks Awards.

In the end there was something VERY different. This year there was mead. What's mead? You may ask; I sure did. It's a liquor made from honey. It's a traditional alcoholic drink in areas where honey is much more common than grape vines. Here in the Land of Israel, grapes are much more common; even I have a mini-vineyard in my garden. They are that easy to grow. But in other parts of the world there are many bee hives for honey. They make and drink mead, while wine is our traditional drink. 

If you have the opportunity to drink/buy mead, go for it. I prefer those I tasted at the festival to many wines.

I'll repeat that this year's selection of Israeli craft beer provided lots of tasty beers of all types. I'm not going to list a favorite or say which was the one disappointing beer, since the same brewery also had a really good one.

Don't be afraid to try the various Israeli craft beers if you have an opportunity, and if you can make it to next year's craft beer festival, go.

Following are more photos from the festival.

Looks Dangerous To Me, Slip-Sliding Around

When I was walking in Jerusalem last week, I noticed a new "attraction" in the First Station. They set up some sort of "play area." OK, but this "play area" is a synthetic surface, kept wet, and the kids are supposed to run around, play ball, fall and slide.

It makes me very nervous.

I'm glad that my sons are too old, my older grandson too timid and the younger ones too young. Or am I just nuts?

How Can I Report This?

The other day when I was walking from the bus stop at the First Station, the old Jerusalem Train Station which has become a lovely activity, leisure place with restaurants and more, on my way to my husband's office in the Menachem Begin Heritage Center, I found myself being forced to walk on the busy road because of a truck parked on the sidewalk.

I really felt in danger, since it's a very busy road with buses, cars, trucks etc. so I took those photos. I figured that if Gd forbid something happened to me in my attempt to walk down the street, the camera's memory card would survive. I needed to be on that side of the street, and I was in a rush, so walking back and looking for a place to cross the street and then crossing back just didn't seem very practical. Thank Gd, as I walked, cars stopped for me to pass the truck and get back on the sidewalk.

My greatest danger ended up being the driver who returned to the truck just as I took these pictures. He wasn't a happy camper and kept yelling at me. That really frightened me. So I got to the Begin Center as quickly as I could and hoped and prayed that he was far away when I exited and waited for my next bus.

All Lined Up for 52Frames

This week's 52Frames theme/challenge was lines. I had great fun taking lines pictures, leading lines and lots of lines.  Here's the photo I finally submitted after a late night facebook message coaching session by a group member. He got me to turn my original shot into black and white. I played with two photo editing programs until I got it.

Lined Up at First Station

 Here's the photo with its color, not actually "original," because it was cropped.

And here are the two others I had been thinking of sending in. Everyone preferred all these lines rather than the simple leading lines photos.

This was considered "second best" by some.

They were all very cropped and taken last Wednesday morning on my way to Matan in Jerusalem. The "winning" shot was in the First Station, the second is a side street off of Rechov Emek Refaiim, and this last one is in the park along the old railroad tracks.

And here are a few photos I took in Shiloh.

Maybe if I had caught the airplane in a better spot...

I'd say that "Lines" is both the easiest and most difficult theme yet. There are lines all over the place, which makes it easy, but choosing and then turning the photo into art is challenging.

I hope you agree that I chose the right photo.

Saved by The First Station

Pishers' Guide to Jerusalem #4A

A couple of years ago, I had one of those annoying experiences. I got to a public toilet during what should have been opening hours, and it was closed. That was the one at the Liberty Bell Park in Jerusalem. The sign said very clearly that it should be open at 7am, but it wasn't. So I complained to the phone number on the sign.

Those public toilets have proven very convenient for me on Wednesdays when I'm on my way to Matan. I carefully time and plan my "pit stop" on the way taking that into account, but it will now be history.

Yes, the hours there have changed. I showed up just before 7:30am to discover that the opening hour has changed to 8:am instead of 7:00. There was no way I could walk the mile, over a kilometer, to Matan without sherutim, "services," as their called in Hebrew. I could have tried the nearby gas station, or the Begin Center a bit further away, but I decided to cross the street and go to the First Station. I had been there before early in the morning, see Pishers' Guide to Jerusalem #4. That time, about an hour later in the morning, they were ouit of toilet paper, but I did have tissues so I went. This time, it was clean and well stocked. Maybe someone read my blog....

There also was music and a few people exercising. And it is beautiful.

Pishers' Guide to Jerusalem #4, First Station

Please check out #3, #2 and #1 of the series. If you have any suggestions, please let me know in the comments, thanks.

Yesterday I had some amazing "tremps," aka rides aka hitchhiking...

I ended up catching a ride in Ofra to Jerusalem. My hearing is awful, so I wasn't quite sure where they were taking me, but they said Derech Hebron, near the Menachem Begin Heritage Center which is close to Matan where I study once a week. That was perfect, since the Begin Center is a short walk from the Liberty Bell Park public toilets, which I've written about in #2 of this series.

But when he stopped to let me (and his wife) off, I saw that we were in front of the "First Station," the newly opened fun place, which had once been the Jerusalem Train Station, when a train ride to Tel Aviv or Haifa was a long picturesque indirect adventure.

And then it hit. There definitely are public toilets in the First Station, and since I saw people entering with exercise mats, (I could see that there was some sort of class about to start) the WC's must be open. And at my age, I've had to develop a good sense of where to find them.

Maybe it's because  this "fun spot" was supposed to appeal to the more secular Jerusalemite, or parents, sometimes fathers with daughters or mothers with sons, or whatever the reason, but this is an "everyone" public toilet. No public peeing for the men. Stalls for all.

It could have been because the morning cleaning and maintenance  hadn't yet been done because it was still a bit early, but there wasn't any toilet paper in my stall. Luckily I found some crumpled up tissue in my pocket. There wasn't a hook for my bag either, so I was forced to put it on the not too clean floor.

But as they say in business, location is everything, and I was happy to find a reasonably clean WC just a few steps from where I entered. It's to the right of the main entrance.

You can see the people exercising if you look closely.

I didn't have the time to search out the other WC options there and have no doubt that during their main opening hours there are many more. If you can add information, then please write a comment, thanks.

I found the other way out, which took me closer to Emek Refa'im and got to class safely on time.