2021 Jerusalem Beer Festival Fantastic Beer

Here I am in my "uniform"
my Israel Brews and Views
 t-shirt.

If you didn't make it to The Jerusalem Beer Festival last night, you can still go tonight. It's best to buy your tickets in advance, less expensive and then you won't get disappointed at the door if it's sold out.

This year, all the beers I sampled were great. Two years ago at the Jerusalem Beer Festival many craft beer companies had been experimenting with "flavored beer," which I found mostly awful. I had even titled my post about it Where's The Beer?" Jerusalem Beer Festival 2019. Now as the world, including Israeli craft beers, is struggling to survive corona/COVID, my guess is that they don't have the "profits" to invest/waste on experimenting with unusual flavors in beers.

I won a hat from Jem's by successfully tossing hoops.

I caught Doug Greener here talking about beer, what else?

You can't see it in the photo, but Doug is wearing the same sort of T-shirt I wore. We were part of a team promoting his blog and expertise in Israeli craft beers.

Tarantino is where I bought my meat sandwich. It doesn't seem to have a website. But the food was great and inexpensive.

Shapiro Jack's Winter Ale was a treat. It includes whiskey. At present they're not selling it, just producing it for winter. But I was very lucky to be given a generous sample. Gd willing I'll order some when they market it, along with their IPA which I adore.

On the whole I requested IPA samples from all the craft beer stands offering "tastes." I'd rate them all from good to excellent, some more fruity tasting than others. IMHO the quality of Israeli craft beer has gone up. There's lots of competition. I didn't make any attempt to sample the foreign beer. Honestly, there's a limit to the amount of beer I can drink, especially when it's the same evening not from the same source. And Shapiro's "whiskey beer" was really powerful.

I hope you make it to the festival or one of the others happening in Israel. If you can't try to buy Israeli craft beer. The "little guy" is producing fantastic beer.

"Where's The Beer?" Jerusalem Beer Festival 2019

Doug taking notes

Last night, as I wandered around the Jerusalem Beer Festival with my beer maiven and mentor, Doug Greener, sampling the latest Israeli commercial craft beer creations, I began to feel confused. Are all of these new "beers" beer?

In previous Jerusalem Beer Festivals, the dominant taste was the "hops" some with various flavorings. Last night, granted that we were, davka, going for new beers, the word we all used the most to describe the beers was "fruity." The cherry beer pictured above, looked and tasted more like cherry soda.

oats and wheat

We tasted a very unusual "date beer," which could be made for Passover, since there's nothing in the ingredients of the forbidden chametz. I suggested to the beermaker that he markets it as a Biblical drink, since there's a good chance that dates had been used way back when, as an alternative for grapes.

After awhile and lots of sample drinks of the new versions of craft beer, all I wanted to say was:

"Where's The Beer?"

Most of the beers we drank were pleasant tasting and rather fruity. The IPAs had a nice kick. But contrary to other years, the dominant taste of hops was missing. Can it be beer sans hops or tasting more fruity than anything else?

Many of the beers we sampled, and I trust Doug to write a more detailed report, were closer to flavored fizzy wines and fruit-flavored sodas. I didn't taste the blonde beers, since I don't usually enjoy them.

Besides the smaller craft beer companies, some of the larger Israeli beers were at the fair as were some foreign ones. They served more of the classic bitter beer. I guess that the small craft brewers have found it better not to compete with those big successful companies. Craft beer brewers look for a different niche/customer.

I suggest you try for yourself. The Jerusalem Beer Festival 2019 is open tonight, too. Opens at 6pm in Independence Park, Gan Haatzmaut. Even if you don't like beer, maybe you'll davka like the beers that don't taste all that much like beer. Some people go to the Jerusalem Beer Festival just for the music and party atmosphere. There's all sorts of food for sale from a variety of food trucks.

Your opinions are welcome in the comments.

Just one more thing about flavored beer. There may be kashrut problems concerning manufactured flavoring ingredients in the various beers. If you have any questions, ask the brewer. Many I saw and met last night appear Torah/kashrut observant, but ingredients are more questionable out of Israel. The owners may not even understand your questions about kashrut.

At least the whiskey didn't pretend to be beer.

Jerusalem Beer Festival, Great Fun

For the second year in a row, I joined the Beer Maivin aka Doug Greener at the Jerusalem Beer Festival in Independence Park. We all had a wonderful time. I stayed until the noise aka music made it impossible to talk, and then I trekked home, train, bus and tremps.

Of course, I was at the beer festival to drink Israeli craft beer and sample lots of new ones. This year the new and interesting beers were the fruity kind. At one stand there were what I considered "dessert beers." They were sweet, one more an apple cider and the other had a strong pineapple taste. I prefered the pineapple. At a different stand I tried a cherry one, which was awful. It had a very strong taste of artificial cherry, sort of like children's syrupy medicine.

The larger Israeli craft beer companies have been making deals with foreign craft beermakers. One got together with a beermaker in  Arizona, and they came up with what they called the 7 C's. The "C's" are different types of hops. I liked the Israeli version of it.

Basically, I used this wonderful opportunity, the Jerusalem Beer Festival, to hone in on my beer preferences. I like a strong dark beer which tastes like beer and doesn't mask the hops with other flavors. And to be honest, I do better drinking beer than wine.

Make sure you join us next year.

The Best Beers are Not For Sale

rather early in the evening when you could still walk freely and see the lawn

Doug Greener,
Israel Brews and Views

Last week I really enjoyed attending the Jerusalem Beer Festival in Independence Park. It was added fun to find myself with former neighbors from our Jerusalem days, close to four decades ago. Doug Greener introduced me to the wonderful craft beers now available in Israel, if you go to the beer festivals and/or know the right people.

I was also with some of the "beer tasting crew," and we really really enjoyed sampling the beers which sadly can't be found in stores. I stress "sadly," since I did enjoy them more than the beers one can buy and drink any place.

Sorry, but I didn't take notes, so I can't give very specific reviews about the beers I tasted. I did ask most if I could buy a bottle to take home, but the answer was always "No." They are being produced for fairs and special events, but not for small customers like myself.

Tog תוג had some interesting beers, Masala and Kimat Almost 10. Both had nice rich flavors.

Shapira, which is one of the larger commercial "small" companies, joined forces with the Dancing Camel to produce a beer flavored with Mint. And you may know that I absolutely love mint. At first glance, mint doesn't seem to be suited to beer, but it does work. If it's ever produced in commercial enough quantities for me to buy some, then please let me know, thanks.

Soof is a craft beer company from Eilat. They are available there in the bars, from what I understand.  If you're in Eilat, look for their beer. We were very impressed. Maybe the "panel" should take a business trip...

Going from stand to stand, craftbrewer to small Israeli beer brewer... there was a great variety of beers in taste and quality. One company, Herzl Brewery produced both the worst and one of the best IMHO.

I really did not like the one with Cuban tobacco. My tasting partners tasted it first and claimed they didn't taste any tobacco or cigarette in the beer. Then I took a cup of it. First I took a long sniff, to see what aroma came from the innocent looking beer. It smelled like a room in which people had been smoking and had forgotten to open the window.

Afterwards, to both give them another chance and to "clean" my palate, I had their sweet beer which was one of the best in the beer festival.

This Jerusalem Beer Festival was the very first beer festival I've ever attended. The entrance fee only gives you entrance and nothing more. It was clear that some people went for the music and entertainment. The beer cost money, so take that into account. Some brewers even charge for small tastes of the beer. The prices were pretty uniform, NS20 for a third and NS25 for a half, and you drink from plastic cups. There was also food for sale, so you could make a nice evening there with friends.

Even though I left pretty early, the grass was already full of lounging visitors listening to the music, and some were even drinking beer. For me the night out with friends was long enough; I needed to catch a bus, which I did, thank Gd. And I'm looking forward to attending more beer festivals.